BBC news 2010-08-30 加文本

BBC news 2010-08-30

BBC News with Iain Purdon.

President Obama has led commemorations in New Orleans of the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the storm that devastated the city and killed 1,800 people. Addressing students at Xavier University which has been rebuilt since the hurricane, Mr Obama said the disaster had been both natural and man-made.

"We all remember it keenly - water pouring through broken levees; mothers holding their children above the waterline; people stranded on rooftops begging for help; and bodies lying in the streets of a great American city. It was a natural disaster but also a man-made catastrophe; a shameful breakdown in government that left countless men and women and children abandoned and alone."

President Obama promised his government would stand by New Orleans until it had recovered.

The Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousuf Raza Gilani says he's ordering an inquiry into allegations that some members of the national cricket team were involved in a betting scam. He said the accusations made Pakistan bow its head in shame. A British newspaper alleged that two players were paid to break the game's rules at specific moments when they delivered no-balls during the fourth Test match against England. Lucrative bets can be placed on such things occurring. Richard Slee reports.

The allegations by the News of the World are supported by video footage of $200,000 being handed over to what's claimed to be a middleman, in return for information about when two Pakistan players will bowl three no-balls during the next day's play. The no-balls did happen exactly as promised. Such information is very valuable to betting syndicates, but the true cost will be paid by the game of cricket itself. A game which prides itself on fair play is now having its integrity questioned.

The international aid agency Oxfam has warned of food shortages in Pakistan because of the massive floods. Oxfam said planning needed to start now on how millions of displaced people were going to survive in the longer term. Jill McGivering is in Islamabad.

The most urgent need in Pakistan is for clean drinking water. About eight million people need emergency aid, and barely one in ten has access to clean water. But as well as coping with this very immediate crisis, aid agencies are warning about serious longer-term problems: crops have been destroyed and won't be replaced, and existing grain stores have been spoiled. Food insecurity could become a pressing issue in Pakistan.

There has been a wave of bomb attacks in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, where dozens of foreign migrants were murdered by suspected drug traffickers earlier this month. Police are linking the attacks to the powerful Zeta drugs cartel.

World News from the BBC.

The bodies of five people working for a female candidate in Afghanistan's parliamentary election have been found in the western province of Herat. All five, part of a group of ten abducted on Wednesday, had been shot dead. The Taliban has said it carried out the killings. The insurgents oppose the election and female candidates in particular, and they've been blamed for the murder of a number of candidates. The elections are due to be held next month, but a BBC correspondent says outside city centres, the Taliban campaign of intimidation appears to be working.

Thousands of people in Indonesia are spending the night in temporary shelters after a volcano in the province of North Sumatra erupted for the first time in 400 years. Officials said 19,000 people were moved from the slopes of Mount Sinabung and surrounding areas after the volcano blanketed villages and crops in acrid smoke and dust. More from Karishma Vaswani in Jakarta.

Officials told the BBC that the mountain's volcanic activity has decreased and that as a result, some villagers decided to return home. But the vast majority of people chose not to. They have been given shelter at government houses, makeshift tents and places of worship nearby. Many are shocked and frightened. The eruption of Mount Sinabung came as a surprise. For hundreds of years, it had been considered inactive.

Tens of thousands of people have marched through Hong Kong to show their anger at the handling of a siege in the Philippines in which eight tourists from Hong Kong were shot dead. Demonstrators dressed in black and white walked quietly through the streets to demand an inquiry.

Trade unions in South Africa say they'll call on private sector workers to join a one-day general strike on Thursday if the long-running dispute in the public sector is not resolved. The workers want wage increases and an increased housing allowance, but the government says it can't afford the demands.

BBC News