英国新闻听力 迈克尔-杰克逊将于生日当天下葬（在线收听）

Officials in Pakistan say the detained chief spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban has confirmed that their leader Baitullah Mehsud is dead. They said the spokesman, Maulvi Omar, acknowledged under interrogation that Mr. Mehsud was killed earlier this month. Maulvi Omar was arrested on Monday. From Islamabad, here's Aleem Maqbool.

The army here is claiming another crucial strike against the Pakistani Taliban. Maulvi Omar was the main spokesman for the organization and a close aide to Baitullah Mehsud, its leader. Pakistani and American officials claimed Baitullah was killed in an air strike earlier this month. Now government sources in Islamabad say Maulvi Omar has confirmed it. Pakistani ministers say they are confident that Taliban is under serious pressure now and its remaining leadership in disarray. But the militant infrastructure here has been built up over decades, and the underlying problems which feed it -- poverty and inequality-- remain.

An international tribunal in The Hague has ruled that Eritrea will have to pay Ethiopia millions of dollars in compensation for damage done during a two-year war between the two countries. Our Africa editor Martin Plaut reports.

After eight years of legal wrangling, the tribunal made an award across a vast range of issues. For example, it gave a monetary value to the damage suffered by Ethiopians injured during a notorious incident when Eritrean jets dropped cluster bombs on a school in the town of Mekele. But it also awarded Eritreans who lost their homes and properties in Ethiopia when they were seized by the government. In total, Ethiopia was awarded 174 million dollars while Eritrea got 163 million dollars, a net payment to Ethiopia of just over 10 million dollars. The real tragedy is that the money like the rest of the internationally supported peace process will settle very little.

In the latest violence in the run-up to Thursday's presidential election in Afghanistan, the NATO-led forces there say a suicide car bomber has killed ten people in an attack on one of their convoys in the capital Kabul. Hugh Sykes is there.

At about one o'clock in the afternoon here, a suicide car bomb exploded on the main road out of Kabul towards Jalalabad. It's also the road to the sprawling international military base at Bagram. The road's routinely used by Humvee armored cars and other vehicles driven by members of ISAF---International Stabilization and Assistance Force--in Afghanistan. Two suicide bomb attacks in three days demonstrate that determined militants can penetrate Kabul's election security and they are likely to make people nervous about going out to vote on Thursday.

The Uzbek former warlord in Afghanistan, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, has defended his return to the country from exile only days before the presidential election. In a BBC interview, General Dostum said his return was a matter for the Afghan authorities and he'd answer the allegations against him years ago.

The World Health Organization expects a vaccine against swine flu to be available by September or October this year. The organization's Director General Dr. Margaret Chan who's visiting Tanzania said the infected virus necessary for making the vaccine had been developed in the laboratory. She said it had taken five to six months and now the WHO was working with manufacturers to produce the vaccine.

The International Monetary Fund says a global economic recovery has begun, but that sustaining it will not be a simple task. Here’s our economics correspondent Hugh Pym.

Last month, the IMF said the global economy was beginning to pull out of recession. Today, its director of research Olivier Blanchard has stated in an article the recovery has started. He continues with a series of warnings about how difficult that recovery may be. He says there should be positive growth in most countries for the next few quarters, but he warns that unemployment will not peak till next year. Mr. Blanchard notes that higher taxation is inevitable because of the costs of the crisis. So the IMF remains cautious. But its view seems to be that the glass may now be half full rather than half empty.

Nigerian anti-corruption police are questioning chief executives of several banks which had to be bailed out by the government last week to save them from collapse. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have arrested three of the chief executives and they are still looking for two others, one is not in the country. Observers say the anti-corruption inquiry is a landmark because the bank heads had been seen as part of untouchable elite in Nigerian finance. The banks had taken on billions of dollars in bad debt.

Michael Jackson's family have announced that the singer will be buried on what would have been his 51st birthday, the 29th of August. He will be buried in the suburb of Los Angeles at Glendale Forest-Lawn memorial park. Michael Jackson died nearly two months ago of cardiac arrest in circumstances which remain unclear.

巴基斯坦官员称，被拘留的塔利班分子首席发言人已证实塔利班头目马哈苏德的死亡。他们表示，首席发言人欧玛(Maulvi Omar)在审讯中承认，马哈苏德已于本月初被击毙。欧玛在周一被捕。伊斯兰堡，Aleem Maqbool报道。

巴基斯坦军方称这是对巴基斯坦塔利班分子的又一次关键打击。欧玛是塔利班组织的主要发言人，是其头目马哈苏德的特别助理。巴基斯坦和美国官员均称马哈苏德在本月初的空袭中被击毙。现在，来自伊斯兰堡的政府消息来源称，欧玛已证实了这一消息。巴基斯坦部长称，他们相信塔利班分子目前正面临极大的压力，其领导秩序依然混乱。但是好战分子的基础设立已经建立了几十年的时间，基本的贫穷和不平等状况依然存在。

海牙国际法庭判决厄尔特里亚向埃塞俄比亚支付数百万美元以赔偿两国之间为其两年的战争所造成的损失。我们的非洲编辑Martin Plaut报道。

经过八年的司法争议之后，国际法庭最终针对一系列问题作出裁决。例如，在臭名昭著的事件中，厄尔特里亚飞机在Mekele镇向一个学校投掷集束炸弹，造成许多额尔特里亚人员伤亡，法庭为这些伤亡赋予了金钱价值。但是还补偿了那些被政府占领时失去家园和财产的人。总的来说，将向埃塞俄比亚支付1.74亿美元，而厄尔特里亚降获得1.63亿美元，也就是厄尔特里亚将向埃塞俄比亚支付1000万美元。真正的灾难是，国际支持的和平进程的剩余问题没有得到解决。

在周四的阿富汗总统选举竞选活动导致的最新暴力事件中，北约驻阿富汗军队称，一起汽车爆炸在首都喀布尔袭击了一辆护航车，造成10人死亡。Hugh Sykes在现场报道。

在当地时间下午一点，在喀布尔通往Jalalabad的道路上发生自杀式汽车爆炸事件。这同时也是通往国际部队驻Bagram基地的道路。该道路通常是由联合国稳定和救助部队(ISAF---International Stabilization and Assistance Force)装甲车队和其他车辆使用。三天之内发生的两次自杀式爆炸袭击表明，决心坚定的好战分子能够渗透喀布尔的选举安全力量，他们可能会使人们时刻紧张，而不敢在周四外出投票。

乌兹别克驻阿富汗前军阀Abdul Rashid Dostum为其在总统选举前几日结束放逐回国的行为作出辩护。在BBC的采访中，Dostum将军称，他回国是应阿富汗官方的要求，回应几年前对他的指控。

世界卫生组织预期对抗猪流感的疫苗有望在今年九月份或十月份产出。该组织总干事陈富珍女士正在访问坦桑尼亚，她说，生产疫苗所需的感染病毒已经在实验室进行研制。她说，研发工作总共历时五六个月，现在，世界卫生组织正和生产商一起生产疫苗。

国际货币基金组织称，全球经济复苏已经开始，但是保持经济复苏不是一项简单的任务。下面是我们的经济通讯员Hugh Pym的报道。

上月，国际货币基金组织称全球经济开始走出衰退。今天，研究主任Olivier Blanchard在一篇文章中表明，经济复苏已经开始。他还提出了一系列预警，说明了复苏可能会非常困难。他说，未来的几个季度，大多数国家的经济都会出现比较乐观的增长，但是他警告说，失业率到明年才达到最高峰。Blanchard指出，由于经济危机成本高昂，更高的税率是不可避免的。所以，国际货币基金组织仍然非常谨慎。但是，他的观点似乎表明，形势已经比较乐观。

尼日利亚几家银行接受政府资助，使其免于破产。反腐警察正对这几家银行的执行董事进行审问。经济和金融犯罪委员会逮捕了其中的三名执行董事，目前仍在搜寻其他两人，其中一人已经出国。观察员表示，反腐审讯是划时代的事件，因为在尼日利亚金融体系中，银行领导是不可触碰的精英。这些银行的坏账高达数十亿美元。

迈克尔·杰克逊的家人宣布，将在其51岁生日，8月29日那天将其埋葬。杰克逊将被葬在洛杉矶郊外“森林草坪”公墓。迈克尔·杰克逊于大约两个月前心脏骤停去世，目前当时的情况还不明晰。