BBC news with John Jason
The head of UN peacekeeping has warned that the deployment of the African Union-United Nations peace keeping force to Darfur may be a failure unless countries come up with the helicopters for the force and the Sudanese government agrees to the makeup of the troops. From New York, here is our United Nations correspondent Laura Trevelyan.
Despite all the international hand-wringing over Darfur, with six weeks to go before the new African Union-United Nations peacekeeping forces due to take over, the world's governments have failed to contribute the helicopters and the trucks vital to the mission's success. Six attack-helicopters and 18 transport-helicopters are lacking. Without them, troops can't hope to defend Darfur's people or travel across an area the size of France. What's more, the Sudanese government still hasn't agreed to the makeup of the force.
A ground-breaking new has produced a leak table of carbon emissions produced by electricity generation worldwide. It shows the extent to which developed countries produce more carbon dioxide per head than emerging economies. Our climate change correspondent M reports.
While a power station in Taiwan is the world's single biggest emitter in the list of 50,000, it is no surprise that the United States dominates the table accounting for 25 percent of the global total CO2 produced by the electricity industry. Internationally, the US is followed by China, Russia and India. But when measured on a per capita basis, the tables are very different. On top is Australia, whose citizens are responsible for just under 10 metric tons of power sector carbon dioxide every year. This compares to the Chinese who produce less than 2 tons per person and India where people emit less than half a ton.
The governor of New York State Eliot Spitzer has abandoned his controversial plan to issue illegal immigrants with driver's licenses after the idea was criticized by both democrat and republican presidential candidates. From Washington our correspondent James Coomarasamy reports.
Governor Spitzer had tried to sell his plan to issue driver's licenses to an estimated one million illegal immigrants as a way of improving safety on New York's roads. Instead, it has proved to be politically dangerous not just for the New York governor but for the New York senator aiming to be the Democratic Party's presidential nominee next year. Hilary Clinton's equivocal statement about the scheme during a recent televised debate has been seized on. For Democrats, it was proof that she was inconsistent and for Republicans proof that she was soft on illegal immigration, one of the biggest concerns of American voters.
The Polish authorities have charged six soldiers with murder for allegedly killing Afghan civilians in an unprovoked attack on a village. The chief military prosecutor said women and children were among the six people killed when a Polish unit opened fire with mortars and machine guns on a village near the Pakistani border. A seventh soldier has been indicted on a lesser charge.
World news from BBC.
A powerful earthquake has struck northern Chile causing damage to buildings and disrupting work in some of the world's largest copper mines. One person has been reported dead and more than 100 injured. Local television said some people were trapped in a road tunnel.
An inquiry in the United States is reported to have found that most of the killings of Iraqi civilians by American private security guards two months ago were unjustified. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been looking into the deaths of 17 Iraqis who were shot dead in Baghdad by guards from the firm Blackwater.
It's been confirmed for the first time that scientists have succeeded in cloning embryos from primates, the group of mammals that includes human beings and their closest relatives. A Russian researcher in the United States Shoukrat Mitalipov produced dozens of embryos cloned from adult macaque monkeys. His team also used the embryos' stem cells to create new heart and nerve cells. The BBC science correspondent says this brings the prospect of a cloned human embryo a giant step closer.
A white diamond weighing more than 84 carats has sold for just over 16 million dollars at an auction in Geneva. The stone, the size of a quail's egg took two years to cut. Its sellers, Sotheby's described it as the largest, flawless, brilliant-cut white diamond to appear at auction. Imogen Foulkes reports from Geneva.
Its catalog titled with pure perfection. And clearly many people agreed because in Geneva, the diamond, the biggest of its kind ever to be put up for auction, sold for a staggering 16.2 million dollars. Only one other diamond in history has ever exceeded that price at auction. Bidding was brisk and moved swiftly upwards. When the hammer finally came down, the diamond, 84 carats, brilliant-cut, pure-white became the property of Georges Marciano, millionaire owner of the Guess clothing company.
BBC News.
Glossary
hand-wringring: noun
an overwrought expression of concern or guilt