BBC在线收听下载:飓风桑迪吹袭美国曼哈顿

BBC news 2012-10-30

BBC News with David Auston.

Up to 15 million people on the east coast of the United States are preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Sandy which is expected to make landfall in the coming hours. Speaking at the White House, President Obama issued a warning that the storm would cause many days of severe disturbance and possible fatal consequences. Sandy has continued to pick up strength over the Atlantic Ocean throughout the day. Public transport has been shut down in New York. Dirtry Parker from the city's Metropolitan Transport Authority says they feared the subways themselves could be flooded.

The worst storm has not hit us yet, We are alert to what's going on in the underriver tubes. We are also removing some of our singal equipments, you know our governor has said salt water and subways don't mix. We can continue pumping water out if we loses electricity our pump will not be operable, so it really depends on how much damage we sustain.

But the BBC's Barbara Plett is also in New York.

The wind is definitely getting worse, it comes in strong gusts and those gusts could go up to 70 even 90 miles per hour when the Hurricane comes ashore later on today. We just heard news that a crane in a midtown Manhattan 57th street and 7th revenue has broken off. And flooding has started somewhat and the water has already become beginning to come up over the seawall in lower Manhattan. And there are some flooding in the streets of Queen as well. So again officials are urging people in those evacuation areas to leave while they have the chance, they say the window will be closing soon.

Syrian opposition activists say the government has launched its heaviest air raids since it started using warplanes earlier this year. The opposition groups, the Syrian observatory for human rights said the military launched more than 60 air strikes around the country. Meanwhile state media reported that at least ten people were killed in two car bomb attacks in Damascus.

The Iranian state news agency says flotilla of Iranian warships has docked port Sudan in what it called a message of peace and security and in an effort to confront piracy and terrorism. The arrival of the flotilla which includes helicopter carrier and destroyer comes just days after a weapon's factory was attacked  in the capital Khartoum. The Sudanese authorities blamed Israel for the bombing. Reports in western and Israeli newspapers suggested the raid by Israeli bombers was to halt Iranian weapons being produced in Sudan for use by the Palestinian rebel movement Hamas.

A prominent ally of Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has been killed in a drive-by shooting in the western city of Kisumu. Shem Onyango Kwega, who was due to stand in next year's parliamentary election was reportedly fired up by assailant on a motorbike.

World News from the BBC

A court in southeastern England has jailed a man for 20 years for smuggling Nigerian children into Britain to be sold to European prostitution gangs. The man, Osezua Osolase is said to have used West African witchcraft rituals to terrorize the children into submission. Jane Peal has the details.

Osolase preyed on poverty stricken Nigerian orphans, he treated them into travelling to the UK with the promise of better life. But he treated them as commodities, attempting to send them to mainland Europe to be sexually assaulted by gangs. Osolase used West African witchcraft rituals to terrorize his victims, one of whom was just 14. Sentencing him to 20 years, the judge said he was devoid of conscience and compassion.

International election observers have delivered a stinging criticism of the parliamentary election in Ukraine saying they were marred by corruption and abuses of power. With over half of the votes counted in Sunday's poll, President Viktor Yanukovych's governing party said it  had secured a majority. The head of the OICE observer mission, Walburga Habsburg Douglas said democratic progress in the country had been reversed.

The 28th October parliamentary elections were characterised by the lack of  a level playing field caused primarily by the abuse of administrative resources, lack of transparency of campaign and party financing and lack of balance media coverage.

A former minister has gone on trial in Argentina over the discovery of large amounts of cash in her office bathroom. The former economy minister, Felisa Miceli quit her post five years ago, after police found a paper bag containing $64,000 in her office suite. At the time Ms. Miceli said the money was left there by her brother to buy a property.