BBC news 2010-10-19 加文本

2010-10-19 BBC

BBC News with Jonathan Izard

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he'll press ahead with pension reforms despite widespread protests. Mr Sarkozy said the plans which include raising the state retirement age from 60 to 62 were essential. Truck drivers and striking oil workers have been blockading roads and fuel depots. A member of the truckers' federation, Thierry Cordier, said its action would force the government to pay attention.

"It's true that it's going to impact people getting to school, but you don't make omelettes without breaking eggs. The government is deaf. It doesn't want to hear anything. It doesn't want to see anything. Well, it's going to see what the street tells it."

Petrol stations in some parts of France have begun running out of fuel. There have also been street protests which have turned violent in some areas.

The United States has called on China to act against Chinese companies it says are bypassing United Nations sanctions to help Iran with its nuclear programme and missile technology. When the sanctions were passed at the UN earlier this year, Western countries expressed concerns that companies pulling out of Iran would leave a vacuum that Chinese firms might try to exploit. Here is our State Department correspondent Kim Ghattas.

A senior US official has confirmed to the BBC that Washington provided Beijing with a list of Chinese companies it believes are breaching UN sanctions against Iran. The US official said China had pledged it was committed to implementing UN resolutions against Iran. The American official also said Washington expected Beijing to take the appropriate steps to stop the Chinese companies from helping Iran to improve its missile technology and its nuclear programme. It's believed that the Chinese authorities did not authorize the activity of the companies. Chinese officials said they would investigate.

Four American Muslims have been convicted of a plot to blow up synagogues in New York and shoot down cargo planes with portable missiles. Vowing to appeal, lawyers for the defendants said they were entrapped by a Pakistan-born FBI informant, who had infiltrated the mosque they attended. But the prosecution said the four were dangerous men who had believed the fake explosives and missiles the FBI provided were real and intended to use them.

The British government has for the first time identified cyber warfare as one of the major threats to the country. In a new national security strategy, it lists the danger of attacks on Britain's computer infrastructure, alongside international terrorism, conflicts between states and natural disasters. The Foreign Secretary William Hague said it was crucial that the country was able to protect itself against cyber attacks.

"It does mean that this country needs an increased capability to protect ourselves, not only against cyber attacks on the government but on businesses, on individuals. Such attacks can become in the future a major threat to our economic operations in this country and to our economic welfare, but also to national infrastructure, such as electricity grids and so on."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

World News from the BBC

The founder of the Wikileaks website, Julian Assange, has been denied residency in Sweden. Mr Assange had hoped to create a base for Wikileaks there due to its law protecting whistle-blowers. He is currently being investigated by Swedish prosecutors for allegations of rape and sexual molestation. Mr Assange denies the charges.

The Somali Islamist group al-Shabab has said it's banning a popular method of transferring money via mobile phones in the areas it controls. The group believes the system encourages Western interference in the Somali economy. Here is Will Ross.

Its decision will not go down well with a growing number of Somalis who find sending and receiving money via mobile phone a safer option than walking around with cash. Somalia's transitional government has been swift to condemn the ban. It said the action had been taken after the money transfer firms had refused to allow their service to be used for what it called terrorist fundraising.

Football's world governing body Fifa says it's asked its ethics committee to take immediate steps to discover if members of the Fifa executive committee have violated its code of ethics. Two committee members have been accused by a British newspaper of offering to sell their votes in selecting hosts for future World Cups. Both men have denied wrongdoing.

A database cataloguing art looted by the Nazis from Jewish families has gone online in the hope that some of the art can be returned to descendants of the original owners. Among the 20,000 items in the database are works by Picasso, Chagall, Monet and Klimt. The vice president of the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Greg Schneider, said museums, art dealers and auction houses should check the record to see if any works they held were stolen.

"I think museums from around the world understand the moral importance of doing it. I think they've, in many cases, taken a first step of beginning to look at provenance or pieces of art that have questionable provenance, and this is another tool that helps them go through their collection and say what is possibly a stolen piece and how can they rectify that."

And that's the BBC World Service News.