2010-03-20 BBC
BBC News with Mary Small.
With a clock ticking down towards a crucial vote, President Obama has made a further strong bid for support for his health care reforms. The plan has become a defining issue of Mr.Obama's presidency. It's expected to be put to a Congressional vote this weekend. At a rally outside Washington, the President said it was the culmination of a century of struggle.
"I do know the impact it will have on the millions of Americans who need our help and millions more who may not need the help right now, but a year from now, or five years from now, or ten years from now, my answer is the time for a reform is now. We have waited long enough, we have waited long enough. And in just a few days, a century-long struggle will culminate in a historic vote."
Republicans are united in opposition to the plan; more than 20 Democrats have said they'll vote against. Mr.Obama's critics say it runs counter to America's free market principles.
Switzerland has halted the deportation flights for failed asylum seekers, pending an inquiry into the death of a Nigerian man at Zurich airport. The Nigerian, who had been convicted of drugs offences, died on the tarmac as police were attempting to put him on a flight back to Lagos. Police said they shackled him because he was violent. He'd reportedly been on hunger strike.
The International Middle East Quartet has called for Israel to freeze all settlement activity. After meeting in Moscow, the Quartet, including the UN, the United States, the European Union and Russia, condemned Israeli plans to build new homes in occupied East Jerusalem. The Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat welcomed the statement, but urged action.
It's time for the Quartet to move from the borders of the papers and statements towards finding mechanisms of reinstation and militants on the ground. What we need to see is Israeli compliance. So far, we have seen Israeli defiance of the Quartet's call.
The Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said it harmed the chances of peace. The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the BBC she expected the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver on his promise that he's committed to peace.
Hollywood and the Indian filmmakers have joined forces to tackle film piracy in India. They will work with cinemas to take stronger actions against pirates copying new films with camcorders. Electron Neil Smith reports.
The new alliance brings together seven Indian companies with the Motion Picture Association of America. It's aimed to help reduce the estimated one billion dollars lost in revenue each year to film piracy. They'll work closely with cinemas to prevent the copying of films with camcorders. Consumers in India are said to buy around 700 million piracy DVDs each year, as many as 90% of them that resort to people sitting in cinemas and secretly recording movies to copy and sell on.
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A judge in New York has sentenced a leading member of the Colombian FARC rebel movement to more than 20 years in prison for conspiring to import thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the United States. Jorge Enrique Rodriguez Mendieta, who was extradited to the US in 2007, had pleaded guilty in December. US prosecutors have accused the left-wing FARC rebels of being responsible for producing more than a half of the world's cocaine supply.
The Vatican is publishing its first public document on the sexual abuse of children by priests. Pope Benedict has written a pastoral letter to Roman Catholics in Ireland. The letter to be published on Saturday is expected to set out new guidelines covering the prevention and the punishment of child abuse. From Rome, here is David Willey.
The Pope decided to write a pastoral letter to the Catholic face of Ireland after meeting the 26 Irish bishops who he summoned to Rome last month to report on the pedophile priest scandal there. But since then, evidence of surveys of similar scandals in several other countries, including the Pope's homeland, Germany. A taboo that's endured for decades has been broken. And the Vatican is now taking a much harder line than in the past, recommending a zero tolerance attitude adopted by American bishops after widespread cases of sexual abuse of children by priests in the United States.
Some news just in. We getting reports of an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza. A French news agency quotes Palestinian medical officials as saying Israeli planes hit a disused airport, injuring three people.
A controversial law designed to increase patriotism in Slovakia has been vetoed by President Ivan Gasparovic. The law drafted by a radical nationalist party would have required all schools to display symbols of Slovak identity and for them to play the national anthem for every week. The bill was originally introduced in response to a perceived growth in anti-Slovak rhetoric in Hungary.