BBC在线收听下载:中国救援人员仍在搜寻沉船失踪人员

BBC news 2015-06-04

BBC News with Tom Sanders.

Rescuers in China are struggling to find more than 400 people who are still missing after a cruise ship sank quickly on the Yangtze River. So far, only a handful of passengers have been saved. Martin Patience is at the riverside.

There's dozens of police as well as soldiers, and I saw small launches going out to the accident site, equipment was being launched up. It’s almost 24 hours since this boat capsized. But authorities say that the rescue efforts will continue. We did have that miraculous rescue over 65-year-old woman. Earlier in the day she'd been caught inside the submerged hull, inside an air pocket. She was pulled out alive and authorities are hoping that perhaps, just perhaps, there may still be some survivors.

A Russian defense company says its analysis of shrapnel damage to a Malaysian passenger plane shot down over Ukraine last year shows it was probably hit by an anti-aircraft missile system that the firm used to produce. The company Almaz-Antey says its older version of the M-1 missile was no longer in service with the Russian military, but is in Ukrainian arsenals. Sarah Rainsford is in Moscow.

The question is who was responsible for firing the missile. That’s always been the question, and this defense company which is called Almaz-Antey, they have said that they can’t speculated on that. But what we can say is that this does appear that the Russian position is now coming down firmly on the side of the fact that the airliner was bought down by a Buk anti-aircraft missile system. The other theories which have been cited previously, talking, for example, about Ukrainian Air Force plane firing the missile at the civilian aircraft and it being bought down in that way. That now seems to be falling away.

World football's governing body FIFA has denied that its Secretary-General Jerome Valcke was involved in a 10 million dollar payment that's being investigated by the US authorities. More from our Sports News reporter Richard Conway.

Last week's US indictment claims that 10 million dollar payment was in fact a bribe, paid to ensure Jack Warner and another then FIFA executive Chuck Blazer voted in favor of South Africa hosting the 2010 World Cup. In a statement, FIFA denied that Mr Valcke or any other member of the organization’s senior management were involved in the payment or the project it was intended for. Instead, they said it was Julio Grondona, their then Finance Committee chief who died last year who signed it off.

The South African government has been granted a leave to appeal against a court ruling that gave a terminal ill man the right die to with the help of his doctor. Two months ago, a South African judge granted Robin Stransham-Ford the right to an assisted suicide, setting a ground-breaking precedent, but he died of natural causes hours before the judgment was delivered.

World News from the BBC.

Two Malaysian children who sued the national airline and the government over the loss of their father on a missing plane have settled their negligence case out of court. It’s believed to be the first such legal case following the disappearance of flight MH370 last March with more than 230 passengers on board.

The Nepalese army says they have recovered four bodies after a helicopter crashed in an earthquake-affected district north of the capital Kathmandu. Eyewitnesses reported the helicopter which was on a relief mission was flying at a low altitude when it crashed into power lines. It's the second relief helicopter to crash in Nepal since the country experienced a devastating earthquake in April.

The Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says he submitted a fresh reform plan to tackle his country's debt crisis during a meeting of its international creditors. His government has been trying to renegotiate the conditions of the bailout since taking office earlier this year. Here's our economic correspondent Andrew Walker.

Mr Tsipras described the new proposal as "realistic" and "comprehensive" though the details have not been made public. He said the decision on whether to accept it rest with the leadership of Europe. Some of those leaders and the head of the IMF met in Berlin on Monday and agreed to work with real intensity to complete the negotiations. Greece is due to repay the IMF 300 million euros on Friday from an earlier loan and they are concerned that it might be unable to do so. But Greece does have the option of bundling together four payments due this month which would delay a possible default.

Artifacts from a 200-year-old shipwrecked slave boat are going on display at a museum in Cape Town. The Portuguese ship the Sao Jose-Paquete de Africa sank off the Cape of Good Hope in 1794. The objects which include shackles and iron bars are being shown at the Iziko museum. They were recovered by divers from South Africa and the United States.

BBC News.