2010-05-13 BBC
BBC News with KathyClugston
Britain’s new Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg are insisting that their recently formed coalition, Britain’s first in decades,is strong and will last. At a good humored news conference, punctuated by jokes, the former rivals said their parties were united and would serve a full five-yearterm. Mr. Cameron said the new government had the potential to change Britishpolitics.
“It can be a historic and seismic shift in our political landscape. It can demonstrate in government a new progressive partnership. Believing in enterprise, markets and fiscal responsibility, committed to civil liberties and curbing the power of the state, passionate about building a green economy,and determined to build the big society, where families and communities are supported and strengthened”.
The main ministerial portfolios in the coalition have gone to Mr. Cameron’s Conservatives, but Mr Clegg's Liberal Democrat Party has got five cabinet posts. The new government has pledged to start tackling Britain’s huge budget deficit immediately by making nine billion dollars of public sector savings this year, a move welcomed by the Governor of the Bank of England.
President Obama says American-led forces inAfghanistan have begun to reverse the momentum of the Taliban insurgency. However he warned that there was still tough fighting ahead. At a news conference in Washington with the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Mr. Obama also said tensions between them which had recently strained tieshad been overstated. On the central issue of future strategy, he said he was at one with Mr. Karzai.
"Obviously there're going to be tensions in such a complicated, difficult environment in a situation in which both Afghans and Americans are making enormous sacrifices. We've had very frank discussions and President Karzai agrees with me that we can't win through a military strategy alone, that we are going to have to make sure that we have effective governance, capacity building, economic development in order for us to succeed."
Brazil and India have begun a trade dispute with the European Union over the seizure of generic medicines in transit. The dispute is at the initial stages in the World Trade Organization but could lead to a special panel being created to adjudicate.Andrew Walker reports.
The case at the centre of the dispute was a consignment of a blood pressure drug known as losartan.It was seized while in transit through the Netherlands. It’s reported that India has complained to the European Union over a number of other seizures of generic medicines. The motive for the seizures was concerned about possible breaches of patents but India and Brazil say the moves are incompatible with WTO rules. Patent regulations in the WTO are especially controversial because they can be used top revent developing countries producing cheap versions of drugs. The industry says the rules are needed to ensure that they can recover the cost of developing new medicines.
World News from the BBC.
Trades unions in Spain have expressed anger at measures announced by government to tackle the country’s big budget deficit,including pay cuts for public sector workers and a freeze on pensions. The unions are angry that the Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero didn't agree the cuts with them beforehand.
A bill to fight global warming and reduce America's reliance on foreign oil is being unveiled in the US Senate today. The bill's being backed by two leading senators, John Kerry, who is a close ally of President Obama and Joe Lieberman. But observers say its chances of success are slim,especially after the recent massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. From Washington, Madeleine Morris reports.
The headline aim of the American power act is to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17% in a decade’s time and 80% by 2050, ambitious by any standards. To tryto achieve this, the bill pushes nuclear power and so-called “clean coal” by giving financial incentives. Controversially the bill supports oil exploration off the US coastline. Because of the recent oil spill blighting the Gulf of Mexico, a provision was added atthe last minute, allowing states to veto drilling less than 100 kilometers off their own coastlines.
German police have detained two Russians at Tegel Airport in Berlin after a woman who overheard them told police she suspected they were plotting a hijack.The men aged 49 and 26 were booked on a flight to Moscow but were taken into custody before boarding the aircraft. They are now being questioned. The plane was evacuated and inspected and the other passengers put on another flight.
The first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, has criticized President Obama's plans to cut back on human space flight programs. Mr. Armstrong warned a US Senate hearing that America risked losing its leadership in human space exploration to other nations.
BBC News.