BBC在线收听下载:卡车司机罢工引发危机 巴西总统宣布降柴油价

Hello, Neil Nunes with the BBC News.

The Brazilian President has announced a cut in diesel prices alongside a number of other measures aimed at reducing operating costs for truckers and resolving their crippling strike. The week-long protest has brought the country to a standstill. Catarina has this report.

The truck drivers' main complaint has been the price of diesel which has risen sharply in the past two years. Last week, they embarked on a campaign of strikes and roadblocks, which brought Brazil to a standstill. Long queues formed at petrol stations, airports were running out of fuel and supermarket shelves were empty. A deal was reached with some of the unions on Thursday, but many truckers rejected it and roadblocks continued to operate in at least eight states.

The conservative Colombian presidential candidate Ivan Duque has won through to the second round with about 40 percent of the vote. He wants to overhaul a landmark peace deal that the government has signed with the FARC rebels. His opponent Gustavo Petro, a left-wing former guerrilla, supports the accord.

This is what we're going to talk about at the ballot boxes in 15 days, a return to violence or building peace. We have given it our all, we are not going to play with fire because we want to Colombia that is in peace. The second round will be held in June.
Diplomats and human rights activists have sharply criticized Syria, saying it should not be allowed to preside over the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in light of credible evidence that its government has used chemical weapons against its own people. The UN says the rotating system can only be changed by member states. Emgene Fox is in Geneva.

The conference on Disarmament negotiated the convention banning chemical weapons, a convention Syria is widely believed to have violated many times. But because Syria follows Switzerland in the alphabetical list of members of the conference, it is now Syria's turn to take up the rotating presidency. Member states know the United Nations devised the system in the hope of keeping it fair, but the image of Syria sitting in the president's chair just weeks after the latest chemical attack looks shockingly unfair.

This is the world news from the BBC.