BBC新闻:美国要求封堵墨西哥湾废弃油井

BBC News with Jonathan Izard.

One of the Pope’s former senior advisors says he won’t be accompanying the Pontiff on his historic visit to Britain, which begins on Thursday, because of illness. The announcement follows the publication of an interview in which the advisor, Cardinal Walter Kasper, said “when you landed at London’s Heathrow Airport, you sometimes think you’ve arrived in a Third World country”. A spokesman said the Cardinal had been misunderstood and the comments were not negative in intent. David Willey reports from Rome.

Cardinal Kasper, who’s 77, has just retired as head of the Vatican department which deals with relations with other Christian churches. The cardinal had been invited by the Pope to join the party of thirty or so senior Vatican officials accompanying him this week on a state visit. The cardinal’s private secretary told me that the cardinal had had a bad attack of gout, but the cancellation of his name from the Pope’s entourage came after publication of an interview he gave last week to a German magazine, in which he talked of an “aggressive new atheism” spreading throughout Britain.

The French government has made more angry comments about the criticism by the European Commission of France’s expulsion of Roma migrants. The French European affairs minister, Pierre Lellouche, attacked comments by the EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding. The president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said Ms Reding had his support. Oana Lungescu reports from Brussels.

Both Paris and Brussels have been calling for calm, but the war of words over the Roma continues. Jose Manuel Barroso said the justice commissioner had his personal backing, but the president of the European Commission suggested that Viviane Reding was wrong to mention the war. What seems to have angered France most is Mrs Reding’s apparent comparison between the persecution of Jews and Gypsies in Nazi-occupied France and today’s expulsions of the Roma. “That unseemly blunder”, came back the report from the French minister for Europe, Pierre Lellouche

The Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has announced that he intends to run for the presidency in next year’s election. Writing on the social networking site Facebook, Mr Jonathan said his pledge was to promise less and deliver more. Mr Jonathan took over as president in May last year, following the death of his predecessor, Umaru Yar'Adua.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders have had a second day of Middle East peace negotiations. The American Middle East envoy George Mitchell said the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas had tackled the issues that lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict upfront.

“I will say that the two leaders are not leaving the tough issues to the end of their discussions. We take this as a strong indicator of their belief that peace is possible and of their desire to conclude an agreement.”

Mr Mitchell said negotiators would meet next week to prepare the next round of leadership talks.

World News from the BBC.

Election officials in Guinea say the second round of the presidential election due to be held on Sunday will be postponed. The officials, talking to journalists in Conakry, said they would meet on Thursday to decide a new date. The second round had been in doubt all week after days of clashes between rival supporters of the former Guinean Prime Minister Cellou Diallo and his opponent Alpha Conde.

A former senior member of the Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka has said he now believes their decades-long war against the government was “a waste of people’s lives”. Velayutham Dayanidhi told the BBC what the Tamil people wanted was education, and the war had little popular support. Mr Dayanidhi surrendered to Sri Lankan forces just before the civil war ended. He was released on bail a year ago and is now living in Jaffna, one of the Tamil Tiger’s former strongholds.

One of the drills being used to bore a hole to rescue 33 miners trapped underground in Chile has been brought back into use after it broke last Thursday. Part of the drill had broken off when it hit an obstruction. Gideon Long reports.

The engineers are digging two escape tunnels for the men, and plan to start on a third one soon. Work on the second of the tunnels is going particularly well. Rene Aguilar, one of the chief engineers at the site, said he expected the drill to reach the area where the miners are sheltering this weekend. Then the engineers will haul the drill up to the surface and start digging again to widen the shaft until it’s big enough to serve as an escape route. Aguilar said the team expected to rescue the men in early November.

The US government says it’s requiring oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico to plug thousands of non-producing wells and dismantle hundreds of unused platforms. The Interior Secretary said the move would prevent potential leaks at wells that may have been abandoned for decades. The order comes nearly five months after an explosion at a BP well caused the worst ecological catastrophe in recent American history.

BBC News.

罗马天主教皇一名前顾问表示，由于身体不适，他不会陪同教皇对英国进行具有历史意义的访问。访问将于周四开始。在之前的一次采访中，枢机主教卡斯帕(Cardinal Walter Kasper)声称，“在伦敦希思罗机场降落后，你会以为到了第三世界国家”。该采访公开之后他宣布了上述决定。一名发言人表示，主教被人们误解，他的说法并不是有意否定。David Willey在罗马报道。

今年77岁的卡斯帕主教已经退休，不再担任梵蒂冈负责与其他基督教堂关系的部门负责人。主教受到教皇邀请加入大约30名梵蒂冈高级官员的行列，陪同他在本周进行国事访问。主教的私人秘书告诉我，主教患上痛风，但是他的名字被取消是在上周德国杂志的一份采访发表之后。在采访中，他说，“无神论”正在英国蔓延。

针对欧洲委员会对法国驱逐罗姆人移民政策的批评，法国政府发表了更多愤怒的评论。法国欧洲事务国务秘书勒卢什(Pierre Lellouche)抨击了欧洲司法专员雷丁(Viviane Reding)的评论。欧洲委员会主席巴罗佐(Jose Manuel Barroso)表示，他支持雷丁的说法。Oana Lungescu在布鲁塞尔报道。

巴黎和布鲁塞尔方面都呼吁大家冷静，但是关于罗姆人政策的口舌之争仍在继续。巴罗佐表示，他个人支持司法专员的说法，但是欧洲委员会主席表示，雷丁提到战争的做法是错误的。似乎最激怒法国人的是雷丁拿纳粹控制的法国迫害犹太人和吉普赛人与今天驱逐罗姆人相提并论。

“这是非常不恰当的，大错特错”，法国欧洲事务国务秘书勒卢什(Pierre Lellouche)说。

尼日利亚总统乔纳森(Goodluck Jonathan)宣布，他计划在明年的选举中再次竞选总统。乔纳森在社交网站Facebook上写道，他的誓言是，承诺更少，实现更多。去年五月份，前总统亚拉杜瓦(Umaru Yar'Adua)去世之后，乔纳森接任了总统职位。

以色列和巴勒斯坦领导人进行了第二天的中东和平谈判。美国中东特使米切尔表示，以色列总理内塔尼亚胡和巴勒斯坦领袖阿巴斯已经解决了位于以巴冲突最核心的问题。

“我要说的是，两位领袖并没有将最艰难的问题留在讨论的最后。我们认为，这强烈地表明了和平的可能性，表明了他们想要达成协议的愿望。”

米切尔表示，谈判人员将于下周会晤，为下一轮的领袖会谈做准备。

BBC世界新闻。

几内亚选举官员表示，原定于周日举行的第二轮总统选举将被推迟。这些官员向科纳克里的记者表示，他们将于周四举行会晤，商讨新的日期。几内亚前总理狄亚洛和竞争对手康得的支持者之间发生冲突之后，第二轮选举一直受到质疑。

斯林兰卡塔米尔猛虎组织前高级成员表示，他现在相信，他们对政府进行的长达几十年的斗争纯粹是“浪费人们的生命”。Velayutham Dayanidhi告诉BBC，塔米尔人民需要的是教育，几乎没有人支持战争。内战结束之前，Dayanidhi向斯里兰卡军队投降。一年前他获得释放，现在居住在贾夫纳，塔米尔猛虎组织以前的堡垒之一。

用于钻孔来拯救智利被困33名矿工的一枚钻孔机上周四损坏，现在已经运回现场重新开始工作。遇到障碍之后，这个钻孔机的部件遭到损坏。Gideon Long报道。

工程人员正在钻凿两条逃生隧道，而且正在计划尽快开凿第三条。第二条隧道的进展状况良好。在现场的总工程师Rene Aguilar表示，预期本周末可以到达矿工藏身之处。然后，工程人员将把钻井拖到地面上，开始将隧道变宽，足够作为逃生通道。Aguilar说，预期11月份初期这些被困矿工可以获救。

美国政府表示，他们要求墨西哥湾所有石油和天然气公司封堵不再生产的油井，拆除数百座不再使用的钻井平台。内政部长表示，此举可以防止已经废弃几十年的油井发生泄漏。BP石油公司油井爆炸造成美国近代史上最严重的漏油事件五个月之后，内政部下达了该命令。