BBC news 2010-11-25 加文本

BBC news 2010-11-25

BBC News with Iain Purdon

The Irish government has announced a $20bn austerity package to reduce the budget deficit. The cuts are needed to secure an international bailout expected to be worth more than $100bn. John Moylam reports from Dublin.

Ireland's Celtic Tiger economy is no longer roaring. Now the country is making amends for years of excess. Billions will be cut from its welfare budget. Some 25,000 public sector jobs will go. Even retired public sector workers will see their pensions reduced. There will be tax rises too. To boost income, the government is increasing VAT. There will be new taxes as well on water and property, and many lower earners will be brought into the tax regime for the first time.

In Portugal, strikes against austerity measures there have brought many public services to a standstill.

The United Nations weather agency says concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached their highest levels in modern times last year, despite the global economic slowdown. A report by the agency showed that amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide were higher than at any time since the start of the industrial age.

A US government appointed trustee acting for victims of the disgraced New York financier, Bernard Madoff, has filed a lawsuit against the Swiss bank, UBS, seeking $2bn compensation. The trustee, Irving Picard, alleges that UBS sent money to Mr Madoff to give him an aura of legitimacy. It's thought that victims of his financial fraud lost almost $65bn. Caroline Hepker reports.

In a 107-page complaint, Irving Picard accuses the Swiss-based bank of 23 counts of financial fraud and misconduct. Irving Picard says UBS, which is the world's second largest private wealth management company, chose to enable Madoff's fraud for their own gain. The bank allegedly made $80m in fees on sending money via feeder funds to the now jailed financier. The bank denies all the allegations.

The Church of England has come a step closer to agreeing a deal to prevent the worldwide Anglican Communion from splitting over homosexuality. It will consider a framework for resolving disputes over matters such as openly gay bishops and blessing of same-sex unions. Here is Robert Pigott.

The agreement, or covenant, was drawn up after the ordination of an openly gay bishop in the United States threatened the Anglican Communion with disintegration. It would commit those Anglican churches that signed it not to take actions, such as ordaining gay bishops or interfering in each other's territories, which would risk further division. Liberal Anglicans claimed the agreement would undermine the autonomy of the world's 38 independent Anglican churches.

World News from the BBC

Police in Mexico say a suspected drugs baron arrested on Tuesday has told them that 20 Mexican tourists kidnapped and murdered in Acapulco in September were the victims of mistaken identity. Mexican police said the suspect, Carlos Montemayor, told them the tourists were killed by a breakaway faction of his gang, who mistook them for members of a rival cartel.

Police in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro have shot dead 13 people as they tried to stop a wave of violence by suspected drug traffickers. Thousands of officers have been sent into Rio's poorest neighbourhoods to tackle gunmen who've been blocking main roads, robbing motorists and burning cars for the last three nights.

A Harrier jump jet has taken off from the deck of a British aircraft carrier for the last time. Both the planes and the ship, HMS Ark Royal, are due to be scrapped as part of defence cuts. The Harrier built to a revolutionary 40-year-old design can take off vertically, hover and even fly backwards. Nick Childs has this appreciation of a British success story.

The Harrier basically kept jet flying alive in the Royal Navy after its last big carrier was scrapped in the 1970s. It was the only combat plane that could fly from the new mini-carriers like Ark Royal that the navy was allowed to build then. It arrived just in time for the 1982 Falklands War. Britain couldn't have deployed a task force to the Falklands without it. Since then, the aircraft and the ships have served in operations in the Gulf, the Balkans, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.

The world's first summit on how to protect the tiger has ended in Russia with donors pledging almost $330m to save the endangered animal. The summit called by the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin agreed to launch a global recovery programme to deal with poachers. But conservationists warn that without any mechanism to support enforcement, more tigers will be killed.

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