http://192.168.2.6/music/20060903/2006VOA0903.mp3

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has met Iranian officials in Tehran to discuss the country’s nuclear program and the Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire. Mr. Annan has held talks Saturday with the Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and later he planned to meet the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the UN chief said he looked forward to discussing ways to implement a UN resolution that ended the conflict between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, that measure also aims to block arm supplies to Hezbollah which were received support from Iran and Syria. Meanwhile a French newspaper quotes Mr. Annan as saying he favors negotiations not sanctions to resolve the dispute about Iran’s nuclear program.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian government employees who have not been paid in months went on strike on Saturday, as Robert Burger reports from VOA’s Jerusalem bureau the labor unrest poses a major challenge to the Palestinian government led by the Islamic militant group Hamas.
Some 37,000 unpaid Palestinian teachers went on strike across the West Bank and Gaza Strip on the first day of the school year, the were joined by 40,000 civil servants who worked off the job shutting down government offices and services. Garbage collectors went on strike earlier this week and amounts of trash rotting on the streets have left rancid stench in the air. The strike is aimed that the Hamas-led Palestinian government which has been unable to pay most salaries since it took power 5 months ago. Hamas has broken the wake of international sanctions imposed because of its refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence. The United States and European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization. Robert Burger for VOA news Jerusalem.
Iraqi officials say insurgents have killed 14 South Asian Muslim pilgrims earlier this week as they traveled to the holy-Shiite city of Kerbala. The bodies were discovered Friday. Officials said on Saturday that the pilgrims have been shot with their hands bound and leads some shown signs of torture. The victims were mostly Pakistani nationals but they included some Indians. In Baghdad nearly simultaneous explosions on Saturday killed at least 3 people and wounded 16 others.
President Bush has used his weekly radio address to reemphasize the administration’s position that victory in Iraq is key to winning the war on terror. In his speech Mr. Bush said if the United States would have pulled its troops out of Iraq before winning there, future generations would face a Middle East dominated by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons. He said commanders on the ground say insurgents are still the main threat to peace. “They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence while the overwhelming majority want peace and a normal life in a unified country.” Now on Friday in a quarterly report to Congress the US Defense Department said insurgent and sectarian attacks in Iraq have become more frequent and that report said current conditions in Iraq could lead to civil war.
African Union officials say the Sudanese government has launched attacks on several villages in northern Darfur. Reports of a renewed heavy fighting began to surface Friday, VOA confirm them on Saturday, details of the fighting and destruction are not yet available. In an attempt to control ramped violence in Darfur the United Nations Security Council on Thursday passed a resolution that calls for the deployment of UN forces to that war-torn region but Sudan has rejected to the resolution.
A NATO aircraft has crashed in southern Afghanistan, details are sketchy but an alliance spokesman says the aircraft went off the radar and crashed in the open area near Kandarha. Officials say the aircraft was supporting a mission in the country’s south but no indication of enemy action causing the crash.
Peace talks between Somalia’s interim government and rebel Islamists resumed on Saturday in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, the air beleaguered hosting those talks, discussions are expecting to include the controversial plan to deploy East African peacekeepers and the alleged presence of Ethiopian troops and the government base in B.
British police say they’ve detained 14 men in an antiterrorism raids in south and east London as well as two others in the city of Manchester. Authorities say the arrest came late Friday and early Saturday.