2010-05-03 BBC
BBC News with Michael Powles
President Obama has said the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a potentially unprecedented environmental disaster. And the British company BP will have to meet the cost of dealing with it. Mr Obama said his government would work to prevent further damage to the region, but he stressed BP was responsible.
"Let me be clear. BP is responsible for this leak. BP will be paying the bill. But as president of the United States, I'm gonna spare no effort to respond to this crisis for as long as it continues, and we will spare no resource to clean up whatever damage is caused. And while there'll be time to fully investigate what happened on that rig and hold responsible parties accountable. Our focus now is on a fully-coordinated, relentless response effort to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the Gulf."
The US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the authorities are taking the car bomb that was defused at Times Square in New York very seriously. She described it as a potential terrorist attack, but added that it hadn't been a very sophisticated one, and there was no evidence it was more than a one-off event. Times Square was packed with thousands of people when the bomb was discovered. This man, a T-shirt seller, raised the alarm.
"I saw the car sitting on the corner. The keys were in it and the car was running. Police officers walked towards me asked me if it was my car and I said 'No, I don't know whose car it was in this stuff.' So shortly after that, the smoke started coming out of the car, you know it was like, wow, you know, and maybe about three or four minutes after that that's when we first heard the popping sound and it was like a firecracker was going on and black smoke, and then that's when everybody just ran down the street. I took off, everybody took off."
The countries using the euro have approved and made public the massive deal aimed at rescuing the Greek economy. It includes a loan package agreed with the International Monetary Fund worth 146 billion dollars over three years. In return, Athens is expected to embark on a program of severe budget cuts, tax increases and structural reforms. The Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou gave details of some of the cuts and their likely impacts.
"The fiscal adjustment includes measures such as reduction in public sector wages, reduction in pensions, trying, however, to protect the low paid and the low pensions as well as increases in VAT, increases in other excise taxes. We are fully aware that this is a program that is not gonna be easy. We are absolutely convinced that this is a necessary program."
Two years after a devastating cyclone hit Burma, the aid agency Oxfam has appealed for more aid for the survivors, saying international plans for funding have not been fulfilled. Oxfam said that two years into a three-year appeal only about a quarter of the money needed had been promised. With the monsoon season approaching in Burma, shelter and agriculture were priorities.
World News from the BBC
Somali insurgents have taken control of one of the main pirate havens in the south of the country. Residents said several hundred rebels from the group Hizbul Islam had taken over the coastal town of Haradhere without a fight on Saturday and the pirates had fled. Here is the BBC's Will Ross.
A senior official of the group said his troops moved in after receiving a request from local residents for help with security. The insurgents have reportedly earlier tried to negotiate a share of the profits with the pirates who had refused. This would suggest that rather than trying to shut down the piracy, the insurgents simply aim to take over. This whole event puts the hundreds of hostages currently being held in a more precarious position. Another insurgent group al-Shabab has also been closing in on the pirate's strongholds in recent weeks.
An explosion at a mosque in the southern Somali city of Kismayu has killed at least one person, at least five worshipers were injured. Reports said that a bomb exploded during prayers. It was the third attack on a mosque in Somalia in a week.
Officials in Mexico say five people have been killed and at least a dozen more injured during a stampede at a concert in the northern state of Nuevo Leon. Police said panic broke out when shots were heard at a pop concert in Guadalupe, sending around 500 people scrambling for cover. The area has seen an increase in drugs-related violence over the past three months after an alliance between two rival drugs cartels broke down.
Pope Benedict has visited the northern Italian city of Turin to see a relic which many Roman Catholics believe is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. The relic, known as the Shroud of Turin, shows a man's body and face. It's on public display for the first time in ten years. After arriving in Turin, the Pope celebrated an open-air mass outside the cathedral which houses the shroud. The Roman Catholic Church has never pronounced on the authenticity of the shroud which some dismiss as a medieval forgery.
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