BBC在线收听下载:美国国防部长卡特开始对以色列的访问

BBC news 2015-07-21

Hello, I’m Neil Nunes with the BBC News.

Banks in Greece are reopening for the first time in 3 weeks after the Greek Parliament passed austerity measures last week as part of a bail-out plan. Some restrictions remain in place as Mark Lowen now reports from Athens.

A daily withdrawal limit has become a weekly one capped at 420 euros. No checks can be cashed, no new accounts opened and there’s a block on capital transfers abroad. Meanwhile, restaurants and taxies will feel a hit today as VAT rises from 13 to 23%. With austerity measures passed and a deal with creditors reached, Greece will be able to access emergency funding to make a large repayment to the European Central Bank today, avoiding the threat of default. Further hurdles lie ahead though, including more reforms to pass in parliament on Wednesday.

The head of the army in Myanmar says he will respect to the result of elections scheduled for late of this year even if the opposition wins. But in a rare interview with the BBC, General Min Aung Hlaing said the army’s role in politics would continue until peace was achieved with Myanmar’s ethnic rebel groups. The party of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is widely expected to win the most seats in the election in November, but the Burmese Constitution bars her from becoming president.

The Chinese Deputy Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao has defended his country’s intervention in the stockmarkets after shares lost about a third of their value in a matter of weeks. Joe Lynam has more details.

Earlier this month, China imposed tough restrictions on large investors selling their shares. The move followed dramatic falls on Chinese stockmarkets which had wiped hundreds of billions of dollars off company values. China’s Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao told the BBC the intervention had been necessary because some investors had broken the rules by borrowing too much money in order to buy shares, a process known as leverage. Mr. Zhu said stability was essential in markets and that Chinese regulators had learned from Britain and the US on how best to deal with market turbulence.

The Japanese company Mitsubishi has made a landmark apology for using American prisoners of war as forced labour during World War II. A senior company executive Hikaru Kimura expressed remorse that prisoners had been put to work in the firm’s mines. And an American survivor James Murphy who is 94 said it was a glorious day for which he had waited 70 years.

I listened very carefully to Mr. Kimura’s statement of apology and found it very very sincere, humble and revealing, and this happens to be the first time that we have heard those words and they really touch you at heart, James Murphy.

This is the latest world news from the BBC.

Sepp Blatter, the head of world football’s governing body FIFA and all the members of its executive committee meet today to set a date for a leadership election. Mr. Blatter announced last month that he would step down as FIFA president, weeks after the dramatic arrests in Zurich of senior officials from the organization. They were detained as part of a US criminal inquiry into alleged corruption.

The US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has begun a visit to Israel, saying he doesn’t expect to persuade the government there to drop its opposition to the deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. Mr. Carter said friends could disagree. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the international accord reached last week in Vienna as a historic mistake.

The FARC rebel group in Columbia has ordered all its military units to observe a month long unilateral ceasefire from today. The announcement was made by FARC leaders in Cuba where the group has been in peace talks with the Columbian government since 2012.

A labyrinth of Second World War tunnels built beneath the White Cliffs of Dover opens to the public today after lying forgotten for decades. The tunnels known as the Fan Bay Deep Shelter were later filled with rubble. They have now been cleared by hand by volunteers. Rebecca Drought has this report.

The White Cliffs of Dover are in enduring image of the war, but 75 feet below ground, the Fan Bay Deep Shelter is a reminder that they were also the British front line. The tunnels were rediscovered after the National Trust bought the land. Winston Churchill ordered that construction in 1940 after he was said to be enraged to see German shipping moving freely in the channel. They provided accommodation for soldiers who men the gun battery above. The excavations also uncovered 2 rare First World War concrete sound mirrors which were said to have given a 9-minute warning but an enemy aircraft were approaching.

BBC world news.