BBC在线收听下载:奥巴马和卡斯特罗就人权问题展开争论

BBC news 2016-03-23

Hello, I’m Justin Grain with the BBC news

Barack Obama and Raul Castro have sparred over human rights and the US trade embargo at a tense press conference on the second day of the US president's visit to Cuba. Mr Obama said Cuba had to make progress on political reform and human rights. President Castro accused the US of double-standards. This is Aspen from Jon Sopel in Havana. It was right that the differences were shown and not glossed over because they are quite for fun. Raul Castro says look, if this is gonna be normalization of relations, you've got to lift the embargo immediately. And of course the political reality in the US because it will have to a vote of congresses. People want to see progress on human rights abuses before that happens. And so that's the kind of the area where they're slightly locked at the moment. But you know, you just have to kind of keep pinching yourself that 18 months ago the idea that any of these could possibly happen would have been frankly ridiculous. And the fact that it has happened, they have kind of made jokes together at a news conference is a sign of the remarkable progress nevertheless that has been made.

The US Justice Department says the FBI may have found a way to unlock the mobile phone of the San Bernardino gunman Syed Rizwan Farook and has won a postponement of its court case against the manufacturer Apple. The department had been seeking to force Apple to unlock the phone to help the investigation into the shooting of 14 people in the Californian city last December.

The Republican front-runner Donald Trump says his first foreign policy priority if he's elected US president would be to dismantle the nuclear agreement with Iran. He was speaking at the annual conference of America's most influential pro-Israel lobby. My No.1 priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran. I have been in business a long time. I know deal-making. Let me tell you, this deal is catastrophic, for America, for Israel and for the whole of the Middle East.

Gunmen have attacked a hotel hosting a European Union military training mission in the Malian capital Bamako. Malian security minister said one gunman was killed and two suspects have been arrested. Our West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy reports. The gunmen picked one of the best protected hotels. The hotel Nord Sud Azalai had been converted into the headquarters of the EU military training mission in Mali. And the European soldiers standing guard were quick to react. The EU mission deployed to train Mali's security forces has confirmed that none of its staff has been injured. Even if this attack seems to have failed, it comes just over a week after 19 people were shot dead in a beach resort in Ivory Coast, the reminder that the whole region is on alert.

You're listening to the latest world news from the BBC.

The leader of the Lebanese militant group Hizballah has said his forces would remain in Syria until the IS group al-Nusra Front have been defeated. Hizballah fighters together with Iran had played a key role in president Assad's campaign against Sunnis rebels. And the Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah said he would continue to protect the Syrian government. He also accused Saudi Arabia and Turkey of blocking a political solution. Peace talks have restarted in Geneva where the Syrian government delegation insist Mr Assad's future is not up for discussion.
The medical authorities in Guinea say they have traced hundreds of people who may have come into contact with the Ebola virus after a fresh outbreak left 4 people dead in the southeast of the country. The spokesman said 816 have been identified since Saturday.

The United Nations has accused Morocco of escalating a diplomatic spat over the disputed territory of western Sahara. Rabat has now told the UN to close its military liaison office in the region. The UN spokesman Farhan Haq said there was a risk of tensions resuming if the peace keeping mission left. There is no reason, none for this escalation. The mission has been going about its work for more than a quarter of a century. It's been there to ensure a degree of stability. And even though the situation on the ground is not being one that's satisfactory to the Sahara people, as long as the mission has been there, there's been a lessening of tension.

A jury in the US has awarded the former wrestler Hulk Hogan a further 25 million dollars in punitive damages in his lawsuit against the news website Gawker. Las week, it was ordered to pay more than 100 million dollars for posting a tape of Hogan having sex with the wife of his best friend and refusing to take it down. Gawker's lawyer said the scale of the damages was already way beyond its means and they would appeal agains the verdict. BBC news.