BBC news 2015-09-25 加文本

BBC news 2015-09-25

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

The general who seized power in a coup in Burkina Faso has told the BBC he's ready to hand back power to a civilian government, but he says he's only prepared to step down once West African leaders due to meet later in Nigeria have endorsed key provisions. Our West Afric correspondent Thomas Fessy has the details. “Ready to go, but not just yet. As discussions on how to reverse the coup continued in Burkina Faso, general Diendere told the BBC that leaders of the regional bloc Ecowas have to first confirm a roadmap negotiated with West African mediators over the weekend. ‘Ready to surrender? We're not there yet. We wish to continue the discussions and we say to all that we're ready to implement the decisions of Ecowas.' The proposed plan includes the return to a civilian government and amnesty for the soldiers behind the coup and elections to be held by the end of November.”

Following revelations that the carmaker Volkswagen cheated in emissions tests, the US government says it will test diesel vehicles from other manufacturers for similar violations. VW's share price dropped by about 20%. James Cook in Los Angeles has more on the wider impact on Volkswagen. “There is a potential in terms of financial difficulties for the company of lawsuits because the whole point of these emission standards is that they are designed to keep people safe, designed to reduce the levels of pollution and the atmosphere and you can see the possibility we’re already hearing about this in California of some kind of class action lawsuit against Volkswagen because of the possibility that they contributed to higher emissions.”

Scott Walker, once one of the favorites to be nominated as the Republican candidate for president of the United States has announced he's abandoning his campaign and called for other candidates to follow his lead. “I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same, so the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive, conservative alternative to the current front runner. This is fundamentally important to the future of the party and more importantly to the future of our country.” Mr. Walker, who is governor of the state of Wisconsin, did not name the current front runner, the maverick billionaire businessman Donald Trump.

Military officials in the Philippine say several foreign tourists have been kidnapped by gunmen from a holiday resort on the southern island of Samal. A regional army spokesman said the abductors had forced the Norwegian resort manager, two Canadians and a Pilipino woman onto a boat before speeding off. Local police and the Philippine navy and coast guard were scouring the area and especially investigation task force has been set up. World news from the BBC.

Pope Francis has arrived in Santiago on the last stage of his tour of Cuba. Earlier the Pope celebrated Mass in front of thousands of people in the eastern Cuban city of Holguin.

A senior official in Brazil's governing Worker's Party and a top executive from the state-controlled oil cooperation Petrobras have been sentenced to long prison terms for their role in a huge corruption scandal. One of them, the former Party Treasurer Joao Vaccari Neto is the closest person yet to Brazil's president to be sentenced over the case. From Rio de Janeiro, here is Wyre Davis. “These are the longest and the most significant sentences yet in a corruption scandal that's undermining the stability and the authority of President Dilma Rousseff's government. Several officials, from some of Brazil's biggest construction firms, have been arrested or charged in connection with a long-running scheme under which multimillions dollar brides were paid to politicians, middlemen and managers in exchange for lucrative Petrobras contracts at a time when the company was the driving force behind Brazil's economic boom.”

The attorney general of Trinidad and Tobago has proved extradition proceedings filed by the United States against Jack Warner, a former vice president of football's world governing body FIFA. The US wants to try Mr. Warner, a Trinidad national, on corruption charges. He is accused of accepting millions of dollars in bribes.

A seed bank, which served as a central hub for distributing drought-resistant crop samples throughout the Middle East, is seeking to replenish its collection which was damaged by the conflict in Syria. It has requested the samples from the global seed vault, a storage facility in Norway's remote Svalbard archipelago built to protect the planet's crop biodiversity and food samples in the event of a cataclysmic disaster. It contains seeds from almost every country in the world. That's the latest BBC news.