BBC news 2010-10-29 加文本

2010-10-29 BBC

BBC News with Iain Purdon

Three days after a tsunami struck the remote Mentawai island chain in western Indonesia, the full scale of the disaster is emerging. Rescue teams have reached most of the worst-affected areas to find homes and offices destroyed, swathes of land under water and swollen bodies strewn across roads and beaches. Karishma Vaswani reports.

The district chief of the Mentawai Islands told the BBC that the focus for rescue teams now is to treat the hundreds of people who've been severely injured in the tsunami. He added that most of the villages affected have now been reached. Mass graves have been dug for the large number of people who were killed, and thousands of refugees who lost their homes in the disaster have been moved into temporary shelters. The local government says it plans to set up a rehabilitation and reconstruction programme for Mentawai.

Eleven of the 27 leaders attending the European Union summit in Brussels have signed a letter calling for the 6% EU budget increase proposed for next year to be curtailed. They say the proposed rise is unacceptable at a time when member governments are imposing austerity measures. The countries challenging the budget increase include Britain, France and Germany. Jonathan Marcus reports from Brussels.

A powerful group of 11 countries, including some of the key movers and shakers in the European Union, is setting down a powerful challenge to the EU's parliament and commission. A letter is being sent to the president of the European Council signed by the leaders of the 11 countries, insisting that the growth in the EU's budget for 2011 must be curtailed. Existing calls from the commission and parliament for an increase in EU spending of some 6% are described in the letter as "especially unacceptable at a time when we are having to take difficult decisions at national level to control public expenditure".

A commission appointed by President Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill says that cement used to seal the doomed well may have contributed to the blow-out that caused the disaster. The commission says that both BP, which owned the well, and Halliburton, the contractor responsible for the cement, were aware of flaws in the mixture, weeks before the disaster. From Washington, Iain MacKenzie reports.

In the first of its findings to be made public, the national commission raises concerns about the cement mix used to seal the bottom of BP's Macondo well. It says four separate tests were carried out before the 20 April explosion. Three of those came back showing potential problems that could have led to the cement failing. The report also states that while Halliburton did pass on some of the test results to BP, it may have kept other data to itself.

President Cristina Fernandez of Argentina has joined thousands of mourners paying their respects to her late husband, the former President Nestor Kirchner. Mr Kirchner, who died of a heart attack on Wednesday, was his wife's chief strategist and one of the most powerful politicians in Argentina.

World News from the BBC

The United Nations says it's found no evidence so far that Nepalese peacekeepers in Haiti are the source of a cholera outbreak that's killed more than 300 people. The UN said all the Nepalese soldiers in Haiti had undergone medical tests before their deployment, and none was cholera positive. It added that samples taken from their camp last week had tested negative. Further tests are being carried out. Bethany Bell reports from Washington.

The UN says it's taking the issue very seriously but so far has found nothing to suggest that the outbreak of cholera in Haiti started with the Nepalese peacekeepers. Martin Nesirky, the spokesman for the UN secretary general, said that all 710 Nepalese soldiers had undergone medical tests before they were deployed to Haiti earlier this month, and none were cholera positive. The Nepalese camp has become the object of local suspicion partly because cholera is rare in Haiti but endemic in Nepal.

The leader of the militant Hezbollah movement in Lebanon has called on his countrymen to boycott a United Nations tribunal investigating the murder of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Hassan Nasrallah's speech comes a day after two UN investigators who were gathering evidence at a gynaecology clinic in Beirut came under attack by a group of women.

Serbia has announced it's offering a reward of about $14million for information leading to the capture of the war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic. The government said it was increasing the reward 10-fold to show that it was firmly committed to joining the European Union.

Mountaineers can now use mobile telephones and surf the Internet while they are climbing Mount Everest. A Nepalese telecommunications company has installed wireless technology stations along the route to base camp. As a result, mountaineers will be able to access up-to-date weather reports and safety information.

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