2010-01-22 BBC
BBC News with Iain Purdon.
President Obama has put forward sweeping new rules to curb the size and risk-taking of big banks. He said banks that taxpayers safeguarded against failure should not take unnecessary risks, and he would tighten any loopholes that allowed those banks to undertake risky transactions for their own profit.
"We intend to close loopholes that allowed big financial firms to trade risky financial products like credit default swaps and other derivatives without oversight, to identify system-wide risks that could cause a meltdown, to strengthen capital and liquidity requirements, and to ensure that the failure of any large firm does not take the entire economy down with it. Never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by a bank that is too big to fail."
Minutes after the president had spoken, the Dow Jones Index of shares in New York fell by 2%.
The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged China to investigate cyber attacks that recently led the Internet company, Google, to threaten to pull out of the country. In a speech, Mrs Clinton said countries that restricted free access to information risked walling themselves off from the progress of the next century. Google has said the attacks, aimed at Chinese human right activists, originated in China.
Haitian officials say they will resettle as many as 400,000 people from the capital Port-au-Prince after last week's devastating earthquake. The Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime said that buses were being laid on to take people from makeshift camps to villages in the north and south. The main sea port in Port-au-Prince badly damaged in the quake is now handling limited amounts of cargo, as Adam Mynott reports.
The vast majority of aid has arrived in Haiti so far by air. The port opens up a new avenue for supplies. A large bulk carrier vessel can hold much more than a large transporter aircraft. The needs of Haitians are currently overwhelming attempts by the international community to supply them. And the working port will help even if it operates at just 10% of its capacity.
Jack Straw, who was British Foreign Secretary at the time of the Iraq invasion, has said he could have prevented Britain's participation in the war. Mr Straw told the government inquiry into British involvement that if he had not backed the invasion, then the then Prime Minister Tony Blair would not have had enough support in cabinet or parliament. Mr Straw also told the inquiry that he opposed to America's policy of regime change in order to remove Saddam Hussein.
"Whatever the policy of the United States, which as it happens was for regime change as a purpose of foreign policy, that was off the agenda as far as the United Kingdom was concerned. A foreign policy objective of regime change -- I regard it as improper and also self-evidently unlawful.”
World News from the BBC.
The President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has denied that last year's presidential election was fraudulent. Mr Karzai told the BBC the vote was seriously misrepresented by the media and certain people in the West, especially in the United States and Britain. The president also said Britain and the United States are supporting his new plan for attracting members of the Taliban back to society through money and jobs. He denied it was a sign of weakness.
"The Taliban know that they will never be able to come back as a government. The Taliban know that they will never be able to come back to take territory in any form. But we know as the Afghan people that we must have peace. War is not the only way forward. That has to be supplemented with a proper peace activity, a proper reconciliation, to avoid more bloodshed, casualties for all of us."
An American defence contractor has stopped putting Biblical references on the rifle sights it sells to armies around the world. The firm, Trijicon, had inscribed short references to Bible passages on the optical gunsights. On discovering this, many defence ministries said it was inappropriate and could lead to allegations that their troops were involved in religious wars.
The former Democratic Party presidential hopeful, John Edwards, has admitted that he fathered a child with one of his campaign staff despite having denied it repeatedly. The affair went on while Mr Edwards was competing with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the nomination in 2008. His wife was being treated for cancer at the same time.
German police say they are still looking for a middle-aged man in a business suit a day after his laptop set off an explosives alarm, creating a security alert that caused chaos at Munich Airport. The man and his laptop disappeared into the crowds. They say the man isn't wanted for any criminal matter, although airport staff say he'll be recognized if he ever checks in again.
BBC News.