BBC news 2010-03-01 加文本

2010-03-01 BBC

BBC News with Marian Marshall.

The President of Chile Michelle Bachelet says more than 700 people are confirmed dead following the devastating earthquake on Saturday. She said Chile would now accept offers of aid from around the world. Reports say more than 300 people were found dead in the small coastal town of Constitucion which was hit by a tsunami after the initial tremor. Mrs Bachelet said Chile needs field hospitals, temporary bridges and more rescue workers to search for survivors.

"We are facing an emergency without precedent in the history of Chile and one which requires deployments, which are both urgent and rapid. As regards public order, already this morning I have signed with the minister of interior and defence a decree of a state of emergency disaster in Maule and Concepcion for a period of 30 days."

The Chilean army is being sent to reinforce the police in the badly damaged city of Concepcion where looting has broken out. A curfew is to be imposed overnight.

Storms battering western Europe have left at least 50 people dead. The vast majority of the casualties were in France where many of the victims drowned on the Atlantic coast when strong winds added to a particularly high tide and breached flood defences.

The Spanish government says the alleged military leader of the Basque separatist group Eta has been arrested in northwestern France. He was detained along with two other suspected Eta members as Sarah Rainsford reports.

Spain's interior minister says the three men detained in northern France were being briefed to enter Spain with what he called the worst intentions. Ibon Gogeascotxea, who's described as the military head of Eta, had been on the run for over a decade following an attempt to attack the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao while the Spanish king was visiting. Another of the men arrested is accused of killing a Spanish politician and a businessman in 2008. The third, known as Pistols, has been linked to a failed plot to kill Spain's former prime minister. Eta has killed more than 800 people since it began fighting for an independent Basque homeland over four decades ago.

In the Netherlands, hundreds of gay activists have walked out of a Roman Catholic service where they gathered to protest against the Church's policy of refusing communion to homosexuals. Geraldine Coughlin reports.
Most Dutch people support gay rights, but the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual activity is sinful. The conflict began during Dutch carnival celebrations this month when the carnival prince, who is a gay man, was refused communion because of his open homosexuality. The refusal offended many in the local community. But the bishopdom of Den Bosch says it will stick to the standpoint of Rome, not to allow practising homosexuals to receive communion.
That was Geraldine Coughlin reporting.

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The authorities in Iraq have begun reinstating thousands more military officers who served the ousted President Saddam Hussein. The latest batch should bring the total of such soldiers reintegrated into the new Iraqi armed forces to 20,000. A BBC Baghdad correspondent, however, says critics have questioned the government's timing with parliamentary elections only a week away. The wholesale disbanding of Saddam Hussein's army in 2003 is blamed by many for exacerbating the sectarian violence that followed the American-led invasion as large numbers of sacked officers helped the insurgency.

South Africa has called for the lifting of European Union sanctions against Zimbabwe's leaders. Ahead of a visit to Britain by the South African President Jacob Zuma, his senior adviser Lindiwe Zulu told the BBC that the sanctions were outdated and were damaging Zimbabwe's economy. She suggested that the sanctions were irrelevant and should go.
"In South Africa, we are committed first and foremost to assisting Zimbabweans find a lasting solution in Zimbabwe. We have to call for the lifting of the sanctions. It could be difficult but it's got to be done."

With the general election in Britain due within three months, the leader of the opposition Conservatives David Cameron has told supporters that the party faces a real fight if it's to win. The Prime Minister and leader of the governing Labour Party Gordon Brown insisted on Saturday that Labour could still win a vote which is likely to be dominated by argument over tackling Britain's huge budget deficit. Opinion polls suggest the gap between the two parties is narrowing.

A young British television presenter has completed a record-breaking trip down the Amazon River by canoe, paddling more than 3,000 kilometers to raise money for charity. Helen Skelton is the first woman to achieve the feat. She began her journey in Peru on January 20th and paddled about 100 kilometers a day to reach Almerim in Brazil, at the mouth of the river. She is 26 years old.

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