http://192.168.2.6/english/20061129BBC.mp3

BBC world news with Johnason Weekly.

NATO leaders have begun a summit in Latvia by reportedly agreeing to ease restrictions on how the alliance's troops are deployed in Afghanistan. NATO sources say more than 3 quarters of the 32,000 strong NATO force in Afghanistan will soon be allowed to be deployed in any part of the country if need be. It follows tension between NATO members over the reluctance of France, Germany, Spain and Italy to send their troops to southern Afghanistan where a Canadian British or Dutch contingent had been struggling to contain the Taliban insurgency. Earlier, Mr. Bush said he wouldn't consider pulling US troops out of Iraq until they had accomplished their mission.

"We'll continue to be flexible, and we'll make the changes necessary to succeed. But there is one thing I'm not gonna do: I'm not gonna pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is completed. The battles in Iraq and Afghanistan are part of a struggle between moderation and extremism that is unfolding across the broader Middle East. And in the struggle, we can accept nothing less than | victory for our children and our grand-children."

American military forces in Iraq say that five young girls have been killed during a clash with insurgents in the western city Ramadi. A US army statement said that according to local residents, the building at the centre of the fighting was a known insurgent safe house, Andy Galihar reports from Baghdad.

According to the American forces, a patrol discovered an improvised explosive device on Tuesday morning in the northeast of Ramadi. The US soldiers say as the bomb was being defused, 2 Iraqi men took up positions on the roof of a nearby house. As the US patrol began to defuse the device, they say the 2 insurgents began firing at them. A statement released by the American forces says that the patrol firstly identified the men, and then returned fire with tank rounds. After carrying out a search of the house, the bodies of 1 man and 5 girls were found.

Pope Benedict has called for dialogue between Christians and Muslims, based on a respect for their differences, and recognition of what they have in common. He was speaking in the Turkish capital Ankara where he met religious and political leaders at the start of a 4-day visit. Our Vatican correspondent David Willy who's travelling with the Pope said Vatican officials feel the trip so far has gone well.

"The Vatican people here are fairly upbeat about what's going on, big preparation is going on of course of when the Pope arrives in Istanbul. The spin that Vatican officials are putting on, the question of Turkey's entry into the European Union is that the Vatican itself has no particular view on what is essentially a political question, in other words, the Vatican doesn't really want to get embroiled in political row such as that which is developed between Turkey and EU."

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A parliamentary study in Brazil has found that as many as 1/5 of the guns in the hands of criminals were originally registered to the police. The study looked into the origins of ten and a half thousand guns taken from suspects in Rio de Janeiro and found that around 2,000 had previously belonged to police or armed forces personnel. Law markers use gun manufactures to help them establish the sources of the weapons. The BBC correspondent in Brazil says anti-gun campaigners suspected that Rio police officers had been selling their personal weapons on the black market.

The loser of the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo Jean-Pierre Bemba has said he accepted the election result and from now on will work as opposition leader. From Kinshasa Alnald Zickman reports.

Former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba said in order to avoid further chaos and violence, he will now operate as opposition leader. However Mr. Bemba who appeared on his private TV Station said he was disappointed by the way Congo's Supreme Court rejected his legal challenge to the elections. He said his critique of the elections still stands. Mr. Bemba lost the elections with about 42% of the votes. It is not clear at this stage whether all the Congolese opposition figures will accept Mr. Bemba as the leader.

The United Nation’s Secretary General Kofi Annan has criticized the main nuclear powers, saying their reluctance to give up nuclear weapons has encouraged other countries to acquire them. In the latest of his farewell speeches before stepping down at the end of the year, Mr. Annan said the world was asleep at the controls of a fast-moving aircraft. He said the fact that North Korea, Indian, Pakistan and Israel had nuclear weapons but weren’t in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty amounted to a major crisis of confidence and he urged nuclear states to agree on timetables for disarmament.

For the moment, that's the latest BBC World News.