BBC在线收听下载:香港两船相撞 造成多人失踪

BBC news 2012-10-02

BBC news with Marion Marshall.

The Syrian Foreign Minister has accused the United States and four other governments of inciting and supporting terrorism in his country. The minister, Walid al Muallem, was addressing the UN General Assembly in New York from where Barbara Plett reports.

Mr. Muallem said the Syrian government had implemented political reforms and cooperated with initiatives put forward by UN envoys to end the crisis. He called for all parties inside and outside Syria to engage in constructive dialogue. But he said peace efforts had been undermined by external support for what he called the terrorist campaign in his country. He accused the United States, France and regional countries of supplying rebel groups with arms and money. And he condemned calls for the President Bashar al-Assad to step down as a blatant interference in Syria's domestic affairs.

Residents in the Somali city of Kismayo say government and African Union troops have entered the center for the first time since it was abandoned on Saturday by Islamist fighters of al-Shabab. The city of the militants' last urban stronghold and one of its main sources of funding. Gabriel Gatehouse is in Nairobi.

An eyewitness told the BBC he saw around a dozen Somali government soldiers enter Kismayo from the west. A spokesman for the Somali national army was quoted as saying he had sent 450 men into the town though residents said they couldn't see evidence of large numbers of troops. The Kenyan military cannot immediately confirm whether or not its soldiers had also gone in. Al-Shabab fighters had abandoned Kismayo without warning in the early hours of Saturday morning. Residents have spoken of increasing tension inside the poor town that made the power vacuum that is ensued.

The credit card firm American Express has been fined more $27m for breaking consumer protection laws in the US. Regulators said the company had charged illegal fees treated applicants differently depending on their age and misled customers about debt collection.

Iran's currency, the rial, has fallen to a record low against the dollar. It has lost more than 17% of its value by the end trading on Monday. The US State Department said the fall of the rial showed the effectiveness of western economic sanctions.

A collision between a passenger ferry and another boat off Hong Kong has left at least 8 people dead several more are injured or missing. The ferry had been hired for a party and about 120 people were on board. From Hong Kong, Juliana Liu reports.

The accident involving the two vessels occurred on Monday evening when Hong Kong set off colorful fireworks to celebrate the National Day holiday. Details are scarce, but one of the vessels, a ferry was believed to be full of revelers watching the festivities. The government said the collision happened near Lamma Islands-one of Hong Kong's main outlying Islands popular with tourists and expatriates.Juliana Liu reporting.

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A genetically modified young cow has been reared to produce milk that can be drunk by people who are normally allergic to cow's milk. The milk lacks a whey component called BLG that is thought to be a major reason why some babies cannot tolerate milk from cows. At the same time, it is richer in nutritious proteins.

The two main parties competing for seats in Georgia's parliamentary elections have both claimed victory in the most hotly contested polls in the country for nearly a decade. The opposition Georgian Dream coalition led by the country's richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili said it had won more seats. But the spokeswoman for President Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement said she believed it would have the majority in the end.

A court in Maldives has postponed the trial of the former President Mohamed Nasheed after he fled the capital Male by boat. Mr. Nasheed stands accuse to be illegally ordering the arrest of a judge earlier this year. He says the charges are politically motivated. Here is Charles Haviland.

Mohamed Nasheed was the country's first democratic elected leader but resigned in February after three and a half years saying he had been forced out by threats of violence. He looked relaxed as he pushed his way through throngs of supporters on a key side in Male. Telling the BBC, he would not attend his trial because it had been set up in a fabricated and irregular way. The court waited 20 minutes and then gave up while Mr. Nasheed and his colleagues boarded five boats decked with their party flags and set sail for two weeks of political meetings in their heartland in the south.

Mobliephone companies in Kenya have begun cutting off hundreds of thousands of fake handsets . The government expects more than a million counterfeit or unregistered phones to be disconnected as part of their campaign. Officials say they are trying to defend intellectual property rights and tackle what they called a security nightmare.

BBC world service news.