2010-04-26 BBC
BBC News with Nick Kelly.
The Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, who's in Washington for talks with the IMF, says he's confident that agreement will be reached soon on giving Greece financial support to overcome its debt problems. Mr. Papaconstantinou said speculators betting that Greece would default on its public debts would lose their money. He said there were solid plans in place to deal with his country's deficit.
We have a framework, which is a three-year framework, with strong conditionality criteria that will reassure, first of all, the Greek citizens, that we'll put an end to the fiscal situation that the country has and that we inherited when we came to government six months ago. And we reassure European partners, international community, and the financial markets.
With nearly all the votes counted from the parliamentary elections in Hungary, the centre-right party Fidesz has won a landslide victory. After a second round of voting on Sunday, Fidesz has a 2/3 majority in parliament. The Socialists, took govern Hungary for the last eight years, suffered a humiliating defeat. Nick Thorpe reports from Budapest.
On the day with a record-low turnout, only 43%, the Socialists won few consolations. In the capital Budapest, formally a Socialist and Liberal stronghold, Socialist candidates won just two constituencies. In northeast Hungary, an independent candidate backed by the far-right narrowly defeated his Fidesz rival. Otherwise, it was a clean sweep for Fidesz. The 2/3 majority they will enjoy in the new parliament will give them a constitutional majority to push through major reforms.
Official results from the presidential election in Austria showed that the incumbent Heinz Fischer of the Social Democrats has as expected been reelected for a second six-year term. The final count gave Mr. Fischer almost 80% of the vote for what's a largely ceremonial post. A far-right candidate, Barbara Rosenkranz, got just over 15%.
Fierce fighting has been reported in Sudan near the border between Darfur and the autonomous south. A spokesman for an Arab tribe allied to the government in Khartoum said 55 of his men had died in fighting inside Darfur on Friday against soldiers of the former rebels who now control southern Sudan. On Sunday, the southern army said it had been attacked for a second time inside its own territory. James Copnall sent this report from Khartoum.
The former southern rebels, the SPLM, say they have been attacked again in Balbala inside southern Sudan. A southern army spokesman said the second attack on Sunday afternoon had forced his troops to abandon their position. He said his men had previously fought off an attack by heavily armed men with mounted machine guns and mortors which he blamed on the northern army. A northern armed forces spokesman told the BBC his men hadn't been involved in any fighting.
This is the World News from the BBC.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted angrily to the broadcast of a cartoon by the Palestinian Islamist Movement Hamas, warning of the fate of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Mr. Netanyahu called it a despicable action. The three-minute message shows Gilad Shalit being returned to Israel in a coffin and calls on Israeli leaders to exchange Palestinian prisoners for his release.
President of South Africa Jacob Zuma has revealed that he is HIV-negative. Although several world leaders have publicly taken HIV tests, this is believed to be the first time a serving president has revealed that he does not have the virus. From Johannesburg, Andrew Harding reports.
President Zuma said he was revealing his HIV status to promote openness and to eradicate the silence and stigma that accompanies the AIDS epidemic. He told the crowd at a hospital near Johannesburg that he'd now had four tests, all negative. Mr. Zuma's sex life has been the focus of intense scrutiny and criticism in South Africa. He has three wives and has also admitted to having unprotected sex with other women. But if his private life is controversial, his public stands on AIDS has been broadly welcomed here. His predecessor Thabo Mbeki questioned main stream AIDS science and delayed the provision of life-saving drugs.
The first flight by an Iraqi airline between Baghdad and London has taken off after a gap of near 20 years. The Iraqi Airways' service was supposed to resume last week, but was grounded by the volcanic ash cloud over Europe. The fights to Britain will stop in Sweden for additional security checks. The return service is direct.
One of the world's leading scientists, the British astrophysicist professor Stephen Hawking, says aliens almost certainly exist, but humans should avoid making contact with them. In a television series for the Discovery Channel, Professor Hawking said it was perfectly rational to assume intelligent life exists elsewhere, but warned that aliens might simply raid Earth for resources, and then move on.
BBC News.