2010-05-05 BBC
BBC News with Jonathan Izard
An American of Pakistani origin, Faisal Shahzad has been charged with involvement in the failed car bomb attack in Times Square in New York City on Saturday. Mr. Shahzad was charged on five counts, one of which was attempting to explode a weapon of massive destruction. Barbara Plett reports from outside the Manhattan Courthouse.
Court documents said Mr. Shahzad had admitted trying to detonate the car bomb in Times Square. They said he reviewed that the plot began in December last year and that he had recently received bomb-making training in the tribal areas of Pakistan. However the documents did not say who gave him this training. They also made no mention of the Pakistani Taliban which claimed to be behind the aborted attack. Mr. Shahzad apparently left a trail of evidence in what was described as an amateur operation. He was arrested about 48 hours later trying to fly out of New York to Dubai.
Share prices in Europe and the United States have fallen sharply in the face of persistent worries about the Greek economy. The main index in New York fell more than 2%. London and Frankfurt closed down more than 2.5%, and Paris fell more than 3.5%. Here is our business correspondent Nils Blythe.
The 110 billion euro bailout for Greece announced over the weekend hasn’t settled the nerves of European financial markets. The concern is that other countries will also find themselves unable to borrow in the normal way and will then have to look for support from fellow eurozone countries. Portugal and Spain seem to be particularly vulnerable. And the Spanish Prime Minister Rodríguez Zapatero was forced to dismiss rumors that his country’s preparing a request for support. Even the New York share market, which often shrugs off events outside the US, has picked up the growing anxieties in Europe.
The giant oil company BP says it's preparing a new attempt to stem the flow of oil spilling from a sunken drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
It plans to use remote-controlled submarines to position a metal dome over the leak far beneath the sea. The aim is for the dome to funnel escaping oil into a pipe that will carry it to tankers on the surface.
BP says it hopes to get the dome in place in the next few days.
The Kenya Prime Minister Raila Odinga has criticized an American anti-abortion group for funding a campaign against Kenya’s draft constitution. The American Center for Law and Justice and its partner association in Kenya opposed an article in the draft document which they say would allow abortion on demand. The Kenyan authorities denied this, saying doctors would only allow abortions in medical emergencies. Mr. Odinga told the BBC the Americans were interfering.
That it is a very disturbing development indeed that American organizations start involved in negative campaign against the draft constitution，a real interference in the internal affairs of Kenya.Kenyans are due to vote on draft constitution by July.
World News from the BBC.
A special commission in Honduras has begun investigating last year's military-backed overthrow of the then President Manuel Zelaya. The body known as a truth commission was set up by the new President Porfirio Lobo shortly after his election in November in an attempt to restore some of the country’s international standing.
The World Health Organization has launched a website intended to help reduce the number of people killed or disabled by snake bites around the world. It estimates that some one hundred thousand people die every year out of the two and a half million who are bitten by snakes. Daniel Aberheart reports.
Do you know the difference between a puff adder and a gaboon viper? Where you'd want to if you'd got bitten by either one. They’re both deadly and look broadly similar. But some types of antivenoms only work for the puff adder. It's then that you’d want to access a site like this. This database provides a photographic guide to all poisonous snakes in the world and advice on appropriate anti-venoms. The WHO hopes it can be used by health workers and by governments to plan what antivenoms they should stockpile.
Parliament in France has voted to give the tattooed and mummified heads of some 15 Maori warriors back to New Zealand. The elaborately decorated heads, some with hair and teeth, were plundered by explorers long ago. This report from Hugh Schofield in Paris.
Two centuries ago it was a mark of success for Bukharin Colonists in New Zealand to possess the head of a dead Maori warrior. Overall it's reckoned that some five hundred Maori heads were taken abroad, many ending up in museums. Now attitudes have changed, more than three hundred have been taken back for reburial. France will now join that process. The will to make amends has long been there. But it’s required an active parliament because museums found that they were banned by law from giving up what was technically the inalienable property of the French state.
BBC News.