2010-03-17 BBC
BBC News with Nick Kelly.
The United States and the United Nations are urging Israel and Palestinians to resume peace talks after a day of unrest in Jerusalem. The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington wanted to insure both sides were fully committed to peace efforts. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned as illegal recent Israeli plans to build new settlements in East Jerusalem. Barbara Plett reports from New York.
Ban Ki-moon urged restraint in Jerusalem, reminding Israelis and Palestinians of the final statues of the city were supposed to be decided in negotiations. He repeated condemnation of Israeli plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied eastern part of the city, stating again that such settlements are illegal under international law. On Friday, the Secretary General is set to attend a ministerial meeting of the quartet which groups the UN, the European Union, Russia and America. He said members will discuss additional measures to trying rescue tentative steps to resume Israeli-Palestinian peace talks although he didn't say what they were.
The President of Mexico Felipe Calderon is visiting the border city of Ciudad Juarez, following the murder on Saturday of a US consular worker and two other connected with the American mission. He was greeted by hundreds of demonstrators who said his military campaign against drug traffickers was provoking more violence. From Mexico city, Julian Miglierini reports.
It is in Ciudad Juarez where Mr.Calderon has faced its biggest challenge. The thousands of troops he's deployed there have failed to stop the violence that has killed more than 5,000 people in the last three years. Many Juarezs think that the presence of troops has actually made the situation worse. However, Mr.Calderon is adamant that his military strategy is the only way forward. The stakes are high since through military aid and political endorsement, Washington has been his strongest ally in this battle. And that is a support that Mr.Calderon can not afford to lose.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has admitted he wants held secret talks with the top leader of the Columbian Marxist rebel group, the FARC. Mr.Chavez has long denied allegation he actively supported the rebels. He said he met the rebel leader Paul Raul Reyes at the request of then Columbian President Andres Pastrana. A former Columbian peace negotiator strongly denied there had been such a request.
The golfer Tiger Woods has said he would return to the sport of the Masters Tournament next month. He has been away from golf for four months after a scandal over string of extramarital affairs. Here is our sports reporter, Alex Capstick.
The announcement from Tiger Woods has confirmed growing speculation that he was ready to end his self imposed exile from competitive golf. In a statement he revealed his comeback would be at next month's Masters in Augusta where he won his first major championship 13 years ago. He said he would continue to undergo therapy and admitted he still had a lot of work to do in his personal life.
World News from the BBC.
Lawyers for the Estate of the late American pop singer Michael Jackson have signed his biggest recording contract worth up to 250 million dollars. The deal with the music label Sony is said to involve ten album projects over seven years and includes previously unreleased recordings.
US Treasure Secretary Tim Geithner has warned that unemployment in the United States is unlikely to go down substantially this year. In testimony before a Congressional Committee, Mr.Geithner and other senior economic officials set up measures intended to stimulate job creation. Our economic correspondent Andrew Walker reports.
The picture they painted to Congress was one of an employment situation that has stabilized. But it takes 100,000 new jobs a month to make a daunting unemployment. Mr.Geithner doesn't expect that to happen this year. In fact, the unemployment rate could rise in the coming month. He set out some proposals intended to help employment. Nonetheless, one member of the Congressional Committee, from President Obama's own Democratic Party said Mr.Geithner's testimony was out-of-touch and left her dismayed. She said there was no sense of urgency about tackling the unemployment problem.
The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he has told the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he doesn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons. Mr.Tayyip Erdogan said he had full confidence in the guarantees that Iran had provided that its nuclear program was purely for civilian purposes. He suggested that instead the country should warn Israel to dispose of the nuclear weapons which he said it possessed.
And police in Italy have used the social networking site FaceBook to track down a suspected Mafia hitman they have been looking for for ten years. Police said that Pasquale Manfredi who's alleged to have killed several people was a regular user of FaceBook and traced his Internet connection to an apartment in southern Italy. They said they found Manfredi chatting online with some his reported 200 registered friends.
BBC News.