BBC news 2010-08-08 加文本

BBC news 2010-08-08

Marian Marshall

The former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has warned of the dangers of nuclear war, in his first speech to the Cuban national assembly for four 4 years. Mr. Castro, who ceded power to his brother Raul after he had a stomach surgery in 2006, claimed that the United States was planning to attack Iran and North Korea. Michael Voss reports from Havana.

It was an assured solid performance. Mr. Castro’s voice was stronger than at any time since he'd re-emerged into the public eye about a month ago. There was no mention in the speech of Cuban politics or the changes that his brother is pushing through. It appears he’s found a new mission in later life - to save the world from nuclear destruction.

The Columbian president-elect Juan Manuel Santos has been sworn in at a ceremony in the capital Bogota. More than 100 international delegations attended the inauguration, including the left wing President of Ecuador and the Foreign Minister of Venezuela. Both countries broke off relations with Mr. Santos’ predecessor Alvaro Uribe.

Officials in Pakistan say 2 dams across the Indus are in danger of breaking under the pressure of flood water surging downstream through the southern province of Sindh. And they say the next 24 hours are crucial for the safety of more than 400,000 people. Earlier, 200,000 people were urged to evacuate their homes after two smaller dams broke. Meanwhile the Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has faced protests in Britain about his decision to continue a visit rather than return to deal with the flooding in Pakistan. Demonstrators calling on him to go home gathered in the city of Birmingham in the English midlands where Mr. Zardari made a speech to hundreds of members of his Pakistan People’s Party. Rajini Vaidyanathan reports.

The President talked about trade and terror, but very little of his address mentioned the floods in Pakistan, a reason many say he should never have made the trip here in the first place. On Wednesday, the President was heckled by an elderly man, who threw a shoe in his direction. The man was subsequently removed by police. But the majority of the 1,700 people who came to see the president cheered and applauded the fact he’d visited Birmingham.

An Austrian bishop has described the love parade music festival in which 21 people died as a sinful event. About 500 people were also injured during a stampede of the festival in the German city of Duisburg last month. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Salzburg, Andreas Laun published his views on a religious website. Jason Cafrey reports.

Bishop Andreas Laun has called the event an invitation to sin. Compassion with the victims is one thing, Bishop Laun wrote, another, he says, is the conclusion that the love parade and taking part in it were a rebellion against creation and God’s order, although, the Bishop was careful to point out, that the dead should not be viewed as God’s punishment.

World News from the BBC.

At least 14 people have been killed in an explosion in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The exact cause of the blast is unclear, but some reports say it happened in a power generator. More than a hundred people were taken to hospital.

An investigation is under the way in northeastern Afghanistan into the shooting dead of ten medical workers whose convoy was ambushed in the Province of Badakhshan. Two of those killed were Afghans, 6 were American, and the others were German and British. Police blamed armed robbers. But a Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the foreigners were killed because they were preaching Christianity.

Based on our information, yesterday at around 8 in the morning, one of our petrols encountered a group of ten foreigners in the Kuran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan. Our Mujahadin warned them to stop but they kept running, so our Mujahadin opened fire and killed them. The documents we found on them were materials for proselytizing Christianity and Bibles which were translated into Dari.

Those allegations were denied by the Christian charity which employed the medical workers, the International Assistance Mission.

Rescue workers in Chile are trying to reach 34 miners who are trapped in a copper mine before they run out of air. The workers were cut off two days ago when the main access tunnel collapsed. Officials hope the miners were able to reach an underground shelter with oxygen, food and water.

The central African state of Malawi has a new flag. Gone is the sun rising. The new flag shows the sun fully risen. President Bingu Wa Mutharika argued that the fully risen sun was appropriate since it indicated that Malawi had developed and was not still developing, as it had been when it was a British colony. The opposition and the human rights groups said that  there was no compelling reason to redesign the flag which should not be changed without a national debate.

BBC news.