BBC news 2010-06-26 加文本

2010-06-26 BBC

BBC News with David Legge.

President Obama has said a sweeping overhaul of the rules governing the United States banking industry will make Wall Street more accountable to the American people. The banking reform bill was finalized by congressional negotiators after a marathon 20-hour debate. It's expected to be approved by both Houses of Congress next week and then signed into law by the president. Here is Paul Adams.

President Obama said he felt gratified by the results of last night's marathon session. The reforms would, he said, establish the toughest consumer financial protections in American history. A new consumer protection bureau will be responsible for governing the behaviour of credit card and mortgage companies. The government will have the power to take over and wind down failing companies, and in the final frantic hours of debate with the country's lawmakers barely able to conceal their exhaustion, agreements were reached on controlling the nation's 600-trillion-dollar derivatives market and stopping banks from trading with their own money.

The leaders of the G8 group of leading industrialized countries have begun talks in Canada with global economic recovery high on the agenda. Britain said it hopes the meeting would bridge the gap between the US emphasis on stimulus spending and Europe's aim of cutting budget deficits.

The British Prime Minister David Cameron has said he wants British troops to leave Afghanistan within five years. Mr Cameron's comment came in an interview with Sky News.

"We cannot be there for another fives years, having been there for effectively nine years already. But one thing we should be clear about - Britain should have a long-term relationship with Afghanistan, including helping to train and support their troops and their civil society, their government and all sorts of parts of Afghanistan long after the vast bulk of troops have gone."

Britain is the second biggest contributor to the international force in Afghanistan, with a deployment of about 10,000 troops.

Thousands of demonstrators have staged protests in the Egyptian city of Alexandria about police brutality. Among them, the leaders, was the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, who's campaigning for reform in his homeland. From Egypt, Jon Leyne reports.

Witnesses put the crowd at anything from 2,000 to 5,000 people - making it one of the biggest opposition demonstrations since Mohamed ElBaradei became involved in the movement. It's also the first time he has joined a protest himself. Protesters held up signs as saying "Long live Egypt" and "Condolences to freedom", and some chanted against the president, chanting "Down with Mubarak".

More details have emerged about the killing of a journalist in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, on Thursday night. Witnesses say the journalist, Leonard Rugambage, who is the acting editor of a private newspaper, was shot dead in front of his house by two men. Mr Rugambage's colleagues have suggested he was shot because he was investigating the attempted killing in South Africa of the exiled Rwandan general, Kayumba Nyamwasa.

World News from the BBC.

The international regulatory body which oversees web addresses on the Internet has agreed to look again at creating a domain solely devoted to pornography. The body, known as ICANN, has previously rejected the idea three times. More than 110,000 buyers have already registered an interest in having names on a pornography domain, which will be known by the suffix .xxx.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that European countries are not legally obliged to allow gay or lesbian couples to marry. The court said that individual countries were best placed to decide on the issue. Here is our Europe correspondent Jonny Dymond.

Two Austrian men brought this case to the European Court of Human Rights, a body whose jurisdiction stretches across the 47 countries that make up the council of Europe. At least seven of those countries now allow same-sex marriage. Austria does not, although it has arrangements that provide for legally-recognized partnerships between those of the same-sex. The court ruled that whilst there is what it called an emerging European consensus towards the legal recognition of same-sex partnership, no such consensus exists when it comes to marriage.

The alleged Jamaican drugs lord, Christopher "Dudus" Coke, has pleaded not guilty to charges of running a huge drugs ring in the United States from a base in the Caribbean. Mr Coke entered the plea in a court in New York a day after he was extradited from Jamaica. American prosecutors say he conspired to distribute cocaine and marijuana throughout the eastern United States for more than 15 years.

The United States has cautioned North Korea to refrain from any actions that could aggravate tensions in the region amid concern that Pyongyang might be preparing for missile tests. The State Department in Washington said it was aware that North Korea had declared a nine-day prohibition zone for shipping off its western coast. In the past, such a move has been a prelude to missile test firings.

BBC News.