BBC World News, I'm Makintosh.
An independent report on Zimbabwe has called on the international community to close ranks behind the South African President Thabo Mbeki's efforts to achieve a political settlement. The report compiled by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group warns that Mr. Mbeki's initiative to bring together Zimbabwe's governing ZANU-PF Party and the opposition MDC is fragile and that the country is closer than ever to complete collapse.
The British Foreign Office Minister with responsibility for Africa, Mark Malloch Brown, acknowledged that countries other than Britain would need to put pressure on Zimbabwe to bring about change. "We will press, but we can't go it alone on this, this is got to be Africa and indeed for that matter, Europe and the rest of the world who together combined to insist on changing Zimbabwean. You know, our is very strong but in a sense it's a point about the fact we were the former colonial power means if our is to be heard, others must join with us in this appeal."
The American Secretary of States Condoleezza Rice has telephoned the Iraqi Prime Minister to express her regret over the deaths of Iraqi civilians in a gunfight in which an American security firm was allegedly involved. State Department officials said Doctor Rice and Nouri al-Maliki agreed to cooperate on an investigation into the shootings. The Iraqi Interior Ministry has ordered the security firm Blackwater to leave Iraq.
China's financial hub Shanghai is bracing itself for a powerful storm. Weather forecasters said Typhoon Wipha could bring up to 200 millimeters of rain and winds of more than 100 kilometers an hour. Quentin Sommerville reports from Shanghai.
Typhoon Wipha is expected to be the strongest storm to hit Shanghai in a decade, already some 200,000 people have been evacuated from the city, mostly construction workers and those living in old properties. The city government held an emergency meeting last night and warned all departments to expect the worst. Ships traveling trough the area have been ordered back to harbor. Rail and other transport services are expected to be disrupted.
The Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has warned he'll close private schools unless they've adopted a new socialist educational system that is due to be introduced later this year. President Chavez said Venezuela's new constitution recognized the existence of private schools, providing they've adopted the new curriculum. From Caracas, James Ingham reports.
Opening a new school on the first day of the academic year, President Chavez spoke of his vision for the future of education. He said it was based around learning to create, to lift together, to value and to reflect. Mr. Chavez said education had been ignored by past governments. He said he had make it his top priority and increased funding, but the president said any schools that don't agree to teach what the government wants will be closed.
World news from the BBC.
The French Parliament will today debate tough new immigration legislation. Under the proposed bill, foreign relatives who want to join their families in France would, among other things, have to prove they are financially solvent. In some cases, DNA tests would be carried out to show that family links are genuine. From Paris, Emma Jane Kobe.
The proposed new immigration bill would impose tighter conditions for families seeking to enter France to join their relatives. All family members aged over sixteen would have to take a test in their country of origin to prove they had a good knowledge of the French language and French values. They'd also have to prove their family in France could support them and earns at least the minimum wage. Civil liberty's groups have slammed the bill as inhumane.
The Foreign Ministers of Russia and France are meeting in Moscow later day and Iran's nuclear program will be on their top/ agenda. The French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, has suggested that the world should prepare for war over Iran's nuclear ambitions. But in an interview published in a Russian Daily paper, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Losyukov, said there was no military solution to what he called the Iranian problem.
A Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov has bought a major collection of Russian artworks in order to return it to its homeland. The mining and metal's tycoon is reported to have paid more than $40 million for the collection which belonged to the Russian cellist, Mr. Mstislav Rostropovich who died in April.
The federal judge in the United States has dismissed a lawsuit worth hundreds of millions of dollars brought by the state of California against six major carmakers for damaging the state's environment with carbon dioxide emissions. The judge said it was not for the court to decide what is reasonable in terms of carbon emissions; rather, he said, that was a decision for the political branches of government.
BBC World News.