18/06/2011 BBC Weekend News

Good afternoon. President Karzai of Afghanistan has

confirmed the United States and other countries are engaged in

peace talks with the Taliban. He said negotiations had started and

were "going well". Shortly after the announcement, a group of

suicide bombers attacked a police station in Kabul, killing two

officers. Paul Wood reports from the Afghan capital.

Behind the scenes, a secret effort is going on to end this war. The

confirmation came from the Afghan leader at a news conference. Talks

with the Taliban have started, they are going well, said President

Karzai. The United States are carrying out the talks themselves.

The Taliban always said they would not open peace talks and will

foreign forces left. Only then would they negotiate with the in

the Afghan government. Who are the Americans talking to? The

leadership orate go-between, it is not clear. It is necessary to

engage with elements of the opposition in Afghanistan, to try

to split away parts of the insurgency that may be amenable to

being persuaded government positions or other incentives.

New York, the United Nations has voted to separate the sanctions

regime for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It is another step towards bringing

in the Taliban. Eventually, a peace agreement could mean the return of

the Taliban in some form, perhaps joining the Afghan government.

We can talk to Paul now, live from Kabul. Realistically, can these

talks lead to peace? We should be clear we are at the

very early stages and these are not substantive negotiations but simply

contacts, designed to prepare the way somewhere down the road for

serious talking to take place. Nobody should expect quick results.

NATO, the United Nations, the Afghan government, the Taliban, are

predicting another summer of fighting. If the prospects of talks

becomes more serious, you will see the violence being stepped up. That

is what we are hearing from the Taliban. NATO believes they have to

pound the Taliban on the battlefield now to make the outcome

of the talks more conducive to what NATO and the Afghan government

wants. In Kabul there has been a multiple attack in the heart of the

city, four suicide attackers at a police station close to the finance

ministry. One attacker blew himself up, two were shot dead. To one

attacker is left exchanging fire with the police. The leader of

Britain's biggest public sector union, Unison, has said workers

could mount the biggest campaign of industrial action since the General

Strike in 1926, in protest at plans to change their pensions. Dave

Prentis said unions were prepared for sustained strikes over

proposals to make public sector staff pay more for their pensions,

and work until they're 66. Our political correspondent Jo Coburn

reports. It was the largest public service

protest since the Iraq War, 250,000 people marching in London against

public spending cuts. Now government proposals for changes to

public sector pensions have led to two teaching unions and the PCAS

taking strike action on June 30th. But the stakes have been raised

higher today with threats of the biggest walkout since the General

Strike in 1926. The leader of the largest public sector union has

warned of a similar sustained wave of industrial action. In an

interview for the Guardian, Dave Despite the rhetoric, both sides

said they wanted a negotiated settlement, although Vince Cable

was recently heckled by union activists for warning of tougher

strike clause. David Cameron as Trade Union envoy said the

government of was a good one. need to give the government credit

for preserving a defined benefit pensions, the only part of the

British Labour force that the sees them. It is looking for an

achievable solution to finance them. You cannot expect the taxpayer to

keep picking up the tab. government has promised low-paid

public sector workers earning under �15,000 a year will not see their

contributions increase. Unions claim that isn't enough and they

will defend their members's writes. The Foreign Office has advised all

British nationals in Syria to leave now. This footage, which we have

been unable to verify, appears to show protesters in the city of Homs.

At least 18 people were killed during demonstrations across the

country yesterday. The Foreign Office says the British Embassy in

Damascus may no longer be able to provide a normal service to any

Britons who remain in Syria, if there is a further breakdown of law

and order. There has been a surge of

applications for voluntary redundancy in the British Army.

Figures obtained by the Daily Telegraph show that 900 soldiers

have applied, almost twice as many as required. Cuts in the numbers of

British military personnel were announced in the government's

strategic defence review last year. Efforts to clean huge quantities of

radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan

have suffered a setback. Engineers suspended the operation hours after

it began, because of a rapid rise in radiation. More than 100,000

tons of water built up during efforts to cool the reactors which

were damaged in the earthquake and tsunami in March. The South Korean

military says its troops have fired at a civilian airliner after

mistaking it for a North Korean air force plane. The soldiers were

stationed on an island near the border.

Officials say they fired rifle rounds, as the Asiana Airlines

flight from China came in to land at Seoul's international airport.

The plane landed safely. Five new witnesses are due to

appear at a court in Italy, during Amanda Knox's appeal against her

murder conviction. The American is also expected to make a statement

in the courtroom at the hearing. She is serving a 26-year jail