BBC news 2010-11-22 加文本

BBC news 2010-11-22

BBC News with Marion Marshall

The government of Ireland has formally requested an international financial rescue package to help bolster its troubled economy. The Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said the request had been accepted by Ireland's partners in the European Union.

"Above all, I want to assure the Irish people that we have a better future before us and that we continue to act together in the national interest now. I confirm that the government has today decided that Ireland apply for financial assistance at the European Union. The request of the government was transmitted to the European authorities this evening. The European authorities have agreed to our request."

With more details on the rescue package, here is Jonty Bloom in Brussels.

The deal, which was agreed during a conference call of European finance ministers tonight, will include a loan of around 80bn euros over three years. It's become necessary as a continuing recession in Ireland and the almost total collapse in Ireland's banking industry meant that confidence in its economic future had been fatally undermined. The money will be used to help fill a massive shortfall in government revenue and to restructure Ireland's banks. But the full details are not yet known and will be negotiated in coming days.

The Vatican has played down the importance of remarks by Pope Benedict appearing to temper the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church to the use of condoms. The Pope had suggested in a Vatican newspaper that the use of condoms could sometimes be justified, for example, when used by a prostitute to prevent the spread of Aids. David Willey reports from Rome.

Speaking on Vatican Radio, Fr Lombardi, who's the head of Vatican radio and television as well as holding the official post of papal spokesperson, minimised the importance of the Pope's remarks on condoms and prostitutes. He said that the Pope's words marked no revolution in Catholic teaching. But Fr Lombardi emphasised that Pope Benedict had never before referred to the use of condoms in a colloquial way rather than in his role as a teacher of Church doctrine.

A senior official in the Obama administration says North Korea's latest disclosures about its nuclear programme are a further provocative act of defiance. The official said the North Korean claim to have built a new uranium enrichment plant was a breach of its own pledges and commitments. An American scientist has said that North Koreans had shown him hundreds of centrifuges that they claimed were enriching uranium for nuclear power.

The main opposition group in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, says more than 1,200 of its members, including eight parliamentary candidates, have been detained in the run-up to elections next week. Supporters of the group, which is outlawed in Egypt, clashed with security forces in several cities over the past few days. The government says the Brotherhood is breaking the law by using religious slogans. Despite being banned, Muslim Brotherhood members have been elected to parliament as independent candidates, and it controls about a fifth of the seats.

World News from the BBC

The International Committee of the Red Cross says the Sri Lankan government has asked it to scale down its work in the former war zone in the north of the country. The ICRC told the BBC it would keep operations in the capital Colombo, but not in Jaffna and Vavuniya, which were a stronghold of the rebel Tamil Tigers until their defeat last year. Caroline Locher reports.

Since the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka that killed 70,000 people and injured many more, the ICRC has been supporting victims in the worst-affected areas in the north of the country. In Jaffna, for example, it runs an orthopaedic centre that provides artificial limbs to about 2,000 amputees. But the head of the ICRC in Sri Lanka, Yves Giovannoni, says the authorities have asked that some of these activities be stopped. The government hasn't yet given a reason, but the move is likely to fuel criticism that is turning a blind eye to reported human rights abuses.

State media in China say a man has been rescued after spending three days trapped in a narrow pipe beneath the sea. The man had been working in the tube on an offshore platform. Reports said tidal pressure had suddenly crushed the pipe, trapping him inside.

An exhibition has opened in Germany to mark the 65th anniversary of the beginning of the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals at the end of the Second World War. Over the following three years, a number of lesser trials were held. The chief attorney at the follow-up trials, Benjamin Ferencz, said the memorial showed that Germany had come to terms with its history.

"My biggest regret was that I never heard from any German saying 'I'm sorry.' The absence of remorse even on the part of the defendants who were mass murderers was very disappointing for me. And I would never have believed that I would come back 60 years later and hear a completely different voice and a different plan in the same country."

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