BBC news 2010-09-25 加文本

2010-09-25 BBC

BBC News with Iain Purdon

President Obama has condemned as inexcusable comments by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, suggesting that the US government was behind the September 11th attacks. President Obama drew a contrast between Mr Ahmadinejad's remarks and the expressions of sympathy from ordinary Iranians at the time. Mr Obama was speaking in an interview with the BBC Persian service.

"It was offensive. It was hateful. And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation. For him to make a statement like that was inexcusable."

President Ahmadinejad says his country is open for dialogue over its nuclear programme. He made the comments at the UN General Assembly in New York. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful, but Western countries suspect that it's secretly developing nuclear weapons. Jon Leyne reports.

President Ahmadinejad has suggested a meeting between Iran and the European Union representative Catherine Ashton in October. He talked about Iranian preconditions, though it's not clear specifically what he was referring to. The first topic is likely to be a fuel-swap deal negotiated a year ago, under which Iran would ship out stocks of enriched uranium in return for fuel for Tehran research reactor. That was originally meant as a confidence-building measure, leading to more substantive talks. But the deal was never implemented with each side blaming the other, and there's not much sign new negotiations will be any more constructive.

The African Union has urged the United Nations Security Council to delay the prosecution of the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for a year to avoid destabilizing Sudan. The AU's chairman, President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi, accused the International Criminal Court of pushing for a "pound of flesh" from President Bashir, who denies charges of genocide and war crimes in Darfur.

The Kenyan police have leaked documents to the media that outline how an al-Qaeda cell inside the country operates. The cell has been linked with the bombings in the Ugandan capital Kampala in July, in which more than 70 people were killed. Our East Africa correspondent Will Ross reports.

The documents say tens of youths from across Kenya have joined the cell, have trained in Somalia and some have even fought alongside the Islamist group al-Shabab. There are details of how the Kampala attacks were planned, and we are also told that plans for twin attacks on Nairobi have begun. The timing of the leak is interesting. There is some disquiet here, especially amongst the Muslim community after 36 Kenyan Muslims were arrested and sent to Uganda. Ten of them have been charged in connection with the bombings there.

World News from the BBC

Britain has for the first time published its threat level from Northern Ireland-based terrorism, raising it from "moderate" to "substantial". That's the third highest category. The Home Office said there was a strong possibility that dissident Irish republican groups opposed to power-sharing in Northern Ireland would attack the British mainland. The threat level from international terrorism has remained "severe" since January. That's one below the "critical" top level.

Government officials in Nigeria say two million people in Jigawa state have been moved to higher ground after the authorities had to open floodgates on two rivers. Those displaced amount to about half the state's population. The Nigerian authorities said the floodgates had to be opened because water levels have become dangerously high.

Gunmen have shot dead the mayor of a town in northern Mexico, the fourth mayor to be killed over the past month. Prisciliano Rodriguez was the mayor of Doctor Gonzalez, a town 50km east of Monterrey, once considered one of the safest places in Mexico but which has seen an upsurge in violence over the past month. From Mexico City, Julian Miglierini reports.

The authorities say that Mr Rodriguez was killed along with an employee in the late evening as he was entering his house. Local justice officials say that they cannot yet establish a link between his death and the drug cartels operating in the area. However, the region is known to be at the core of a violent confrontation between criminals and government forces. Last month, the mayor of nearby Santiago, Edelmiro Cavazos, was kidnapped outside his home, and his body was found three days later not far from the town he governed.

The price of gold has hit $1,300 an ounce, a record figure. Analysts say it's partly in response to a weak performance by the US dollar after poor American economic figures. There is also concern about currency values if central banks would turn again to the policy of quantitative easing, in effect, printing more money.

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