BBC在线收听下载:世卫组织专家同意用实验药物来对付埃博拉

BBC news 2014-08-13

BBC News with Julie Candler.

The United Nations Refugee Agency says up to 30,000 people remain stranded in searing temperatures on a mountain in northern Iraq under the threat from Islamist militants. A spokesman for the UN Andrew Edwards said that many were in a bad state after enduring extreme conditions.

Access is very, very difficult there. There were immense problems of having organized aid effort to so many people. You know, remember we are talking tens of thousands of people have been up there. The people who fled Sinjar are arriving in worsening conditions by the day. They've been exposed to this environment, lack of water, immense difficulties simply existing up there for some time now. And their needs are very great in deed.

The Vatican has urged Muslim leaders to condemn the actions of the Islamic State fighters in Iraq, calling them unspeakable criminal acts. In a statement, the Vatican listed massacres, beheadings, crucifixions and hanging of bodies in public places and the desecration of Christian and Muslim graves by the militants.

A panel of experts from the World Health Organization has unanimously approved the use of the experimental drug to tackle the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.

The WHO said that with more than 1,000 people killed so far, it was ethical to offer drugs that had not been tested on humans. Doctor Marie-Paul Kieny of the WHO told the BBC that the country's concern would now have to request and agree with the pharmaceutical companies on the use of the drugs. Liberia's Health Minister Walter Gwenigale has said the severity of the patients' illness would be taken into account when deciding who should be given the drugs.

Let me say how many doses of the drug I will give. This is an ethical issue. So if someone asks that they want me to try on them, I will have to see the chances of adequacy of giving. It depends on the stage of the disease. If it rose that they will not live whatever we do, we will be wasting the drug that we have given to them.

Police investigating the death in California of the Hollywood Star Robin Williams say the actor hang himself at his home in San Francisco. Keith Boyd of the Marin County Sheriff Department said the actor was found in his bedroom by his assistant. Alastair Leithead has this report.

The coroner gave an extraordinary amount of detail about the way Robin Williams was discovered, dead in his home in northern California. The preliminary findings of the Sheriff's office are that a suicide was the cause of death, asphyxia due to hanging. Marin County Lieutenant and Deputy Coroner Keith Boyd said he was found in a sitting position with elbows around his neck. The coroner added his wife was the last to see him alive at 10:30 the night before she went to bed. She left the house the next day presuming he was asleep. His assistant raised alarm when he failed to respond to knocks on his bedroom door. The investigation into his death is continuing.

BBC News.

Officials in northwest Mexico say a private copper mine at the center of a pollution accident last week did not immediately alert the authorities that large quantities of toxic chemicals were spilling into a river. The authorities in the Mexican State of Sonora say the spill only came to light the next day when residents downstream noticed the river had turned orange. Water supplies to some 20,000 people had been cut off.

The military in Colombia says it's sending more troops to the eastern province of Arauca to deal with a recent wave of attacks. The announcement comes hours after a local politician was shot dead and eight soldiers were injured by an explosive device.

United States says it will provide an additional 180 million dollars to help feed the people of South Sudan who are frightened by famine. The White House urged the country's president and its former deputy to assume their responsibilities and prevent further needless suffering. Chris Stillwalker reports.

This rises to more than 600 million dollars, added to the amount of the United States has so far provided in humanitarian assistance to South Sudan. The White House says the South Sudanese are suffering because of the inability of the country's leaders to put their people's interests above their own. A power struggle between its president Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar has plunged the country into renewed warfare, leaving thousands dead and nearly two million refugees.

South Africa says it plans to evacuate up to 500 rhinos from the famed Kruger National Park to save them from poachers. The park authorities say some of the animals could be moved to safer areas where rhino numbers can increase. Moving one rhino can cost more than 1,000 dollars. Officials say poaching at Kruger has risen sharply, particularly on the border with Mozambique. There are thought to be just over 10,000 rhinos left in the park.

BBC News.