BBC news 2010-10-14 加文本

2010-10-14 BBC

BBC News with Jerry Smit

The Chilean Mining Minister Laurence Golborne has said the mission to rescue 33 miners trapped underground for 70 days at the San Jose mine is going faster than expected. More than two-thirds of them have now been brought to the surface, and Mr Golborne said he expected the operation to go smoothly to the end.

"There haven't been any incidents. No situation or mishap during this process, and we've advanced much faster than we originally foresaw. This leads us to predict that this rescue operation could be finished over the course of the night, which would be in advance of our original predictions."

The 24 rescued men have been applauded by cheering crowds as they step from the escape capsule and then are embraced by relatives.

Among those rescued so far are both the youngest and oldest of those who have been trapped, 19-year-old Jimmy Sanchez and Mario Gomez aged 63. Mario Gomez said the experience had changed him.

"Sometimes you need for something to happen in your life to really reflect and understand that we only have one life, and one thing is that one needs to change. I changed. I'm a different man."

It's intended that the last miner to come up will be Luis Urzua, the shift supervisor.

The reports and pictures from the San Jose mine have gripped audiences around the world. Within Chile itself, the rescue has a much wider significance, as James Read reports.

The rescue of the miners is taking on the dimensions of a national epic in Chile, something that will define the country in the eyes of the world for years to come. The drama has come at a poignant time, just as Chile was celebrating 200 years of independence and months after it was hit by a devastating earthquake. The deliverance of the miners has fuelled confidence that the country can also recover from that disaster. President Pinera has spoken of the rescue as forging a new spirit of national unity.

And you can watch live pictures from the rescue site on our website bbc.com/chilemine.

In other news, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has addressed a huge rally of Lebanese Shia Muslims organised by Hezbollah. The event took place in the southern suburbs of Beirut. From there, Wyre Davies.

Here in southern Beirut, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was among friends, a huge rally of flag-waving Hezbollah supporters in the southern suburbs, listening to patriotic music and praising the Shia movement's clashes over the years with its avowed enemy - Israel. Earlier, the Iranian president basked in similar scenes of adulation as he arrived at Beirut airport - his image and that of Iranian religious leaders flanking the road to the city centre. But many inside Lebanon and outside see this trip as nothing short of inflammatory, upsetting Lebanon's fragile political system.

World News from the BBC

The United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said there shouldn't be a rush to lift the ban on openly gay people serving in the military. He was speaking after a judge in California ruled that the current "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which means that service personnel can't admit to being homosexual for fear of dismissal, was unconstitutional.

The American actor and political activist George Clooney has called for the freezing of assets held by the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who's wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges. Mr Clooney, a UN messenger of peace, has just returned from a visit to Sudan. He told the BBC that freezing President Bashir's foreign bank accounts would be an effective way of putting pressure on the Sudanese government and that negotiators from North and South Sudan could benefit from an American-led diplomatic effort to resolve their differences before another war broke out.

"We were a big help in the 2005 peace agreement, so we know that there is a road map to doing this. At some point, you're going to have to sit down and negotiate a deal. Now you can do it after a bunch of people are killed, you can do it after a war, or you can do it now and we have an opportunity now."

A senior Nato official says international forces in Afghanistan have helped facilitate contact between the Taliban and the Afghan government. He suggested that safe passage have been granted to some Taliban representatives, including to the capital Kabul, in what were described as preliminary contacts between the two sides. The Afghan government had spoken previously of contacts with the insurgents.

The board of the English football club Liverpool has been meeting to discuss three offers that had been made to buy the team. Earlier on Wednesday, a judge ruled against the sides, current American owners who were trying to block its sale to the owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team. Two further bids for Liverpool have also emerged.

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