http://192.168.2.6/english/20061217BBC.mp3

The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has announced that the intense to call earlier elections to end the political crises that it’s raised fears of a Palestinian civil war. The Hamas Administration which has been in office less than a year, said the president didn’t have a constitutional authority and describe his move as a cruel. Its Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar said the government would ensure the call for elections came to nothing.

We are going not to participate or to allow what I think an election which is unacceptable, we are here, running governments, the governments * for any election. If we are not going to cooperate , there would be, practically, no election.

But one of those Abbas’s advisers said he could issue a presidential decree that the election could take place by the middle of next year. Following the announcement, rival supporters of Hamas and President Abbas’s Fatah faction exchange gunfire in the Gaza Strip.

The White House has said President Bush hopes the new elections call by President Abbas would help bring an end to the violence among the Palestinians. The British Prime Minister Tony Blair who is in Cairo on a tour in the Middle East, urged the international community to back the efforts by Mr. Abbas to resolve the impasse in Palestinian politics.

President Abbas’s saying there are going to be an election. The door is still open to Hamas at any point of time coming to a national community government. But he is assuming his responsibilities as president and saying if you’re not prepare to come in on the base of the whole international community one, then he’s going, he the president is going to find a different way forward and we have got to be there supporting him.

The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has repeated the call for former supports of the ouster leader Saddam Hussein including ex-soldiers to join a drive to end the violence in Iraq. Speaking at a national reconsideration conference in Baghdad, Mr. Maliki announced concession to former soldiers including on pensions. He also reiterated the problems being called by militia groups needed to be resolved. The BBC correspondent in Baghdad said Mr. Maliki has said this many times before, and many Iraqis are now looking for action on the issue.

Thousands of delegates from Nigeria’s governing People’s Democratic Party have been hoped again to hold a meeting in the central Abuja to select a candidate for next year’s presidential elections. The main Square in the capital was calling off for a day of deliberation and voting. Crowds of rival supporters beat drums and showed off posters and banner extolling their candidates. The Governor of C State OA is the favorite to win the nomination. *after that the Presidency O’ll receive his support of the Nigerian current leader Olusegun Obasanjo.

This is BBC World News.

The Governing Zanu-PF party in Zimbabwe has approved the steps toward extending President Robert Mugabe’s time in power. The main opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change has condemned the proposal as a worker of dictatorship. Here is our Southern Africa correspondent Peter Burgs.

Robert Mugabe looked sad to remain in power until he’s 86 years old. The annual conference of the governing party Zanu-PF has approved the plan to propone the next presidential election until 2010. So giving Mr. Mugabe an extra 2 years in office. The resolution was passed by conference delegates said there should be no debates about succession because there’s no vacancies. Behind the scenes though there’re serious political infighting within Zanu-PF and there’s no clear decision who should success Robert Mugabe as partly-wide the issue has been solved until 2010.

An official newspaper in Cuba says President Fidel Castro is spoken to communism party official by telephone. The first official news on the ailing leader for more than a week, the Cuban leader handed over control to his brother Raul in July when he underwent urgent intestinal surgery. From Havana, Steven Gats.

The state-run newspaper Gramma is reporting that the * assembly of people power here receive the phone call from Fidel Castro on Friday. According to the newspaper, it was greeted with warm applause by the delegates and the Cuban leader then listen to a summary of discussions. The report comes at time when speculation is again arrived that President Castro is gravely ill. His health is a state secret. No detail is about his unsatisfied gastric ailment has been released by the authorities there.

Federal police in Mexico * the 7-week occupation of the central square in the southern city of * where they were deployed to combat months of civil unrest.

BBC World News.