BBC News with Ian Perdon.
President Bush has echoed demands for the Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf to restore civilian rule. He was speaking three days after General Musharraf, a key ally in President Bush’s war on terror, imposed a state of emergency. From Washington, Johnson Bill reports.
President Bush said he had asked Condoleezza Rise to call General Musharraf to convey the message that the United States expected Pakistan to go ahead with the elections as soon as possible and that Mr. Musharraf should give up his military uniform as he promised. President Bush said that the United States has already made it clear to Pakistan’s leader that the declaration of a state of emergency would undermine democratic progress in the country, but President Musharraf has ignored that warning. It is an embarrassing snub to the White House, but the Bush administration does not want to isolate or alienate an important ally in its war on terror.
President Bush has also been speaking about the Kurdish rebel group, the PKK, describing it's as an enemy of America. He was speaking after meeting the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayipp Erdogan in Washington. Turkey which has been facing a heightened Kurdish insurgency has threatened to send troops into northern Iraq to destroy PKK bases there. But both the Iraqi government and Turkey’s western allies have urged it to desist. Rigern Diel reports from Washington.
After their meeting, President Bush said Mr. Erdogan had impressed on him the urgent need the concerted action to counter PKK attacks from bases in northern Iraq. But he was short on specific detail about how operations against PKK could proceed. He said nothing could happen until you have good intelligence and that there were to be new intelligence sharing measures. Mr. Bush said new technology could help identify where the PKK are based.
Reports from East Africa say the United States is getting more directly involved in tackling piracy off the horn of Africa. The American navy has freed a Taiwanese vessel that was seized off Somalia in May. Our world affairs correspondent Nick Charles has more.
Suddenly, the US Navy has been very active over the piracy problem in and around Somalia waters. The Americans are playing down any significant change in policy. They insist it's part of the navy’s normal maritime security mission. It just happened to have ships in the area at a time of increased incidents. For some maritime observers though, there is more to it than that, a sign of increased international concern about the piracy problem around the horn of Africa. And the fact is the US navy has now been involved in at least four incidents in barely more than a week.
The head of Britain’s domestic Intelligence service says Al-Qaeda is recruiting teenagers to carry out terrorist attacks. In a rare public speech, Jonathan Evans said Islamic extremists were recruiting people as young as fifteen and that in addition to attacks against Britain being planned from Al-Qaeda bases in Pakistan, cells in Somalia and Iraq were also plotting against the UK.
World news from the BBC.
Washington says that American nuclear experts have begun work to disable North Korea’s key nuclear facility at Yongbyon. A State Department spokesman called it a good first step. The site house is North Korea’s only-known reactor which produces material used to make nuclear weapons. North Korea conducted a nuclear test just over a year ago, but following international talks it stopped work at Yongbyon and agreed to declare and dismantle its nuclear weapons program by the end of the year. In return, it has been promised economic aid and political concessions.
A jury in Los Angeles has found that employers at a banana plantation in Nicaragua concealed from their workers the dangers posed by a pesticide. Six workers who said they had been made sterile by the pesticide have been awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages each. The pesticide contained the chemical DBCP which killed pests at the roots of the banana trees. The jury found that a further six plaintiffs were not harmed.
The American Television presenter Oprah Winfrey says she is devastated by charges of sexual abuse at a school she founded in South Africa. A dormitory matron at Ms Winfrey's leadership academy near Johannesburg has appeared in court charged with indecent assault. She denies the charges. Oprah Winfrey insisted no one would be allowed to ruin her dream.
I am prepared to do whatever is necessary to make sure that the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for girls becomes a safe, a nurturing, and enriched setting that I had envisioned, a place capable of fostering the full measure of these girls’ productivity, of their creativity, and of their humanity.
Scientists from the University of Salford in northwest England have travelled to China to fit an ailing panda with an artificial leg. The panda has been unable to feed herself or mate since losing her limb in a fight. She has been treated at an animal center in Beijing.
BBC news.
Glossary
snub n. 故意怠慢, 斥责
v. 故意怠慢, 责骂, 压熄(香烟等), 冷落慢待
sterile adj. 贫脊的, 不育的, 不结果的, 消过毒的, 毫无结果的
matron n. 护土长, 女舍监, 保姆, 主妇