http://192.168.2.6/english/1117/20061112VOA.mp3

It's 15: 00 Universal Time and here is the news from the Voice of America.
I'm Saral Willims from the VOA news center in Washington.

Talks aimed at defusing Lebanon's simmering political crisis have collapsed after anti-Syrian leaders rejected demands from Hezbollah and its allies for a decisive role in government. Hezbollah and its allies are seeking a larger share of the cabinet and effective veto power over key decisions. Lebanese Christian leader Michel Aoun told reporters today that the weeklong talks failed to reach an agreement on key issues and that no date is set for another round of talks. The Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah guerilla group has threatened protests that could bring down the government if its share of portfolios is not increased.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he hopes to form a coalition government with the rival Hamas faction by the end of the month. Mr. Abbas expressed his views in a speech today marking the second anniversary of the death of his predecessor Yasser Arafat. The Palestinian leaders said great progress has been made toward a political settlement that will help form a unity government with his Fatah movement and Hamas. Mr. Abbas also used the speech to reiterate Palestinian plans for statehood with / East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. President Abbas says Palestinian people will not concede any of its land in the Gaza Strip and West Bank including Jerusalem.

A US-based advocacy group says it plans to seek criminal charges in a German court against outgoing US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his alleged role in sanctioning torture of prisoners in US custody. In a statement today the Center for Constitutional Rights says it will file its criminal complaint against Rumsfeld in a German court on Tuesday. Attorneys for the group say the case will ultimately look at the responsibility of high ranking US officials authorizing war crimes in the war on terror. They say the complaint is related to a 2004 case that was dismissed. The lawyer say the new case contains what it calls substantial new evidence and new circumstances following the resignation of Rumsfeld. The US Department of Defense has not commented /. Germany's universal Jurisdiction law allows the country's courts to hear cases originating from anywhere in the world.

Two car bombs have exploded in Baghdad among shoppers at a busy market killing at least 8 people. Iraq's Interior Ministry says twenty or more people were wounded when bombs hidden beneath two cars went off today at a square in the heart of the capital's main commercial district. In another development Iraqi police say about 10 mortar rounds exploded near the US government's representative office in central Iraq. A US spokesman says no embassy personnel were injured in the attack. Meanwhile the US military in Iraq says Washington is offering a reward of up to 50, 000 dollars for information leading to the recovery of an American soldier abducted nearly three weeks ago. The soldier was kidnapped while visiting his family in Baghdad. The US military also announced the deaths of five more American service members in Iraq.

A top United Nations official has met with detained Burmese pro-democracy leader, an Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon, but no details of their talks have been released.

From VOA Southeast Asian Bureau in Bangkok, Roger Wilkison reports UN Undersecretary General for political affairs Ibrahim Gambari is on a four-day-mission to Burma.
Gambari has been tasked by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan with persuading the generals who rule Burma to take what a UN spokesman called tangible steps forward on human rights, democratic reform and national reconciliation. His mission which began Thursday comes two months after the UN Security Council put Burma's human rights situation on its agenda. That means Burma's military government will come under closer UN scrutiny. The United States plans to introduce a resolution on Burma's human rights abuses after Gambari returns to New York. This was the second meeting Gambari has held with Aung San Suu Kyi. He met her last May on his first trip to Burma, and had hoped then that she would be released from confinement. Instead the Generals extended her house-arrest for another year. Aung San Suu Kyi has been under detention of one kind to another for most of the past 17 years. The United States, the European Union and Secretary General Annan have repeatedly demanded her release.
Roger Walksen for VOA news.