BBC news 2013-11-14 加文本

BBC news 2013-11-14

BBC News with Jerry Smit

The government of the Philippines says it has been overwhelmed by the impact of the typhoon that affected 11 million people as it tore through the central islands on Friday. The cabinet secretary Rene Almendras said the country was facing its biggest ever logistical challenge as it’s struggled to get water, food and help to people.

“The volume of food bags, the volume of rice, the volume of candles that’s been handled repack and transport right now has never been done this rapidly. At the situation of a destroyed logistic system, destroyed airport here, you have a total destruction of some communities plus the fact that the local government which is key to end this disaster response that we have was completely in shambles.”

An international aid effort is finally getting underway at the airport in Tacloban, a city that was all but destroyed by typhoon Haiyan. Jonathan Head is there.

The long-awaited relief operation finally got into gear today. Military transport aircraft flew in large pilots of supplies. High energy biscuits, medicines and the entire field hospital. A US marine task force has been assessing Tacloban’s shattered airport and airstrips in the surrounding area for a scaled-up aid supply operation. Its commander said the US and its allies were now ready to bring in much larger aircraft and to use the American heavy-lift helicopters to deliver aid to places which have been hit as hard as Tacloban but as so far been completely cutoff.

The United States has designated two Nigeria based Islamist militant groups Boko Haram and Ansaru as terrorist organizations. The rebel groups want to impose Islamic law in Nigeria and have been blamed for thousands of deaths. Will Ross reports.

Last month, the report from the US House of Representatives committee on Homeland Security said Boko Haram was a lethal and growing threat to the people of Nigeria, the international community, Americans in the region and potentially the United States itself labeling the entire group as well as Ansaru terrorist organizations will now make it illegal under US law for anyone to provide them with financial or other material support.

The Sri Lankan government has said that the British Prime Minister David Cameron was not invited to the Commonwealth summit to question president Mahinda Rajapaska about alleged war crimes in the conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels. Mr. Cameron has said he would demand an investigation but Sri Lanka’s information minister Keheliya Rambukwella said he had no right to.

“The invitation to prime minister David Cameron was this to as a member of the commonwealth to participate. He has accepted this business, now anything about that is not in our agenda. We are not a colony, we are an independent state, we reserve our right to behave like an independent state.”

World News from the BBC

The remains of the former president of Brazil Joao Goulart are being exhumed to establish the cause of his death. Mr. Goulart died in exile in Argentina in 1976. officials said at the time that he died of a heart attack. But a former Uruguayan intelligence officer has alleged that Mr. Goulart was poisoned for opposing the military governments of the region.

The US chat show host Oprah Winfrey has told the BBC she thinks Barack Obama has been treated with less respect as president because he is African-American. She said the level of disrespect from rival politicians was striking at a state of union address when one senator called president Obama a liar. Oprah Winfrey, one of America’s most famous black entertainers said this treatment was something people were aware of even though they didn’t speak about it.

“I think that there’s a level of disrespect for the office that occurs and that occurs in some cases and maybe even many cases because he is African-American. There’s no question about that. And it’s kind of thing nobody ever says but everybody thinking it.”

The world’s first man-made ash cloud has been created to test equipment designed to protect passenger planes from volcanic eruption. In the exercise, the ton of Icelandic ash was dispersed over the bay of Biscay in the Atlantic and Airbus test plane fitted with detection equipment attempted to identify the cloud from about 60kms away. And the small aircraft flew into the ash to check the measurements. The technology has been developed to help avoid repeat to the air transport shutdown across Europe in 2010 caused by a volcanic eruption in Iceland.

One of the world’s rarest diamonds has sold in auction for a record 83 million dollars. The bidding in Geneva lasted just five minutes. The flawless, 60 carat pink star is a size of a plum and set on a ring. It was cut and polished over a period of two years.

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