BBC news 2010-08-25 加文本

2010-08-25 BBC

BBC News with Kathy Clugston

An American general says President Obama's plan to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next July is encouraging Taliban insurgents. The head of the US Marine Corp General James Conway said that after that date the insurgents would find US forces still attacking them.

"If you accept that marines will be there after 2011, what's the enemy going to say then? What's he going to say to his foot troops when you've got the leadership outside the country, trying to direct operations within because it's too dangerous for them to be there? And the foot troops have been believing what he's saying that they're all going to leave in the summer of next year. And come the fall, we're still there hammering them like we have been. I think it could be very good for us in that context in terms of the enemy psyche."

A BBC correspondent says the general's comments suggest there may be a debate between American politicians and generals over how quickly security responsibilities can be handed over to Afghan forces.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said he's seriously concerned about the potential spread of epidemic disease because of the floods. Mr Gilani said a special emergency section of the Ministry of Health would take a leading role in coordinating relief efforts. Jill McGivering reports.

There is no doubt that the need will be huge. About a third of the country's female health workers have themselves been displaced by the floods. And the government estimates that in the next six months, about half a million women in the affected areas will give birth. They pledge to get more than 40,000 hygiene kits, including many specially designed for women, out into the field. They are also planning psychological counseling for some of the most traumatized victims, especially women and children.

Chinese media say 43 people died when a passenger plane burst into flames while trying to land at an airport in the northeast of the country. The Chinese news agency Xinhua said 53 people were rescued and taken to hospital.

Islamist insurgents in the Somali capital Mogadishu say they carried out an attack on a hotel in which more than 30 people died, including 6 members of parliament. At least 70 people have died in two days of fighting between al-Shabab militants and government forces backed by African Union troops. This report from our correspondent Peter Greste.

Even by Somalia's standards, Tuesday's attack was shocking. A group of gunmen stormed the Muna Hotel inside what is supposed to be a safe zone secured by the transitional government's own troops and an African Union force. The attackers made their way to the compound, dressed as government security guards before they began shooting. The government says at least 30 people were killed, including 6 parliamentarians. The rebels who said they were behind the attack claimed as many as 60 may have died. Either way, the incident dramatically undermines the image of security that both the government and the African Union force have tried to present.

World News from the BBC

The Chilean President Sebastian Pinera will speak later on Tuesday to the 33 men who have been trapped in the San Jose mine for almost three weeks. Rescue workers have now set up two lifelines to the men - one for communication and one for food supplies. They've lowered small sachets of soup to the miners who'd been surviving on a strictly-rationed diet. They've yet to be told it could take up to four months to rescue them.

An American man living in a remote Alaskan community has been sentenced to eight years in prison on domestic terrorism charges. Paul Rockwood and wife Nadia pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents. They were charged under the US Patriot Act introduced after the 9/11 attacks. Rajesh Mirchandani reports.

Thirty-five-year-old Paul Rockwood Jr was sentenced to prison for eight years, the maximum sentence for lying to FBI agents. Authorities say he compiled a list of 20 names including members of the military and media who he considered enemies of Islam. Rockwood became a Muslim while living with his wife in Virginia several years ago. They moved to the remote fishing town of King Salmon in Alaska, a community of just a few hundred. And in his seemingly innocuous setting, authorities say, he researched how to make a bomb and how to shoot people in the head.

Astronomers have discovered an entire planetary system 127 light years away with at least five planets orbiting a star much like our own Sun. The scientists at the University of Geneva say the planets are from 13 to 25 times the size of Earth and covered with rock and ice.

French engineers are about to begin draining a lake that's formed under a glacier on Mont Blanc. Experts say that if it burst, the recently-discovered water pocket could flood the St Gervais valley below. The engineers planned to dig a hole into the ice and pump the water away. In 1892, water from a similar underground lake crashed on the valley and killed nearly 200 people.

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