NPR 2008-11-10（在线收听）

President-elect Barack Obama's choice for White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says Senator Obama will push for a middle class tax cut soon after taking office. President Bush welcomes the President-elect and Mrs. Obama to the White House tomorrow. One of the leaders of Senator Obama's transition team Valerie Jarrett says there is a solid commitment to make the transfer of power as smooth as possible. "We will be looking to be efficient, transparent, bipartisan. We want the American people to understand the transition and how we are moving forward in the days and weeks ahead. Jarrett was on NBC's Meet the Press.

Meeting today at Red Sea resort in Egypt, international mediators pledged support for Israeli and Palestinian efforts to continue with peace talks that so far have shown few tangible results. From Sharm El-Sheikh, NPR's Eric Westervelt has the story.

It's been clear for some time that the Quartet, the UN, the EU, Russia and US will fail to reach the goal of sealing a peace agreement by year's end as outlined at the US-sponsored Annapolis Summit one year ago. Today the Quartet endorsed continuity of the process, and Israeli and Palestinian leaders pledged to continue bi-lateral talks. Quartet Mid-East envoy Tony Blair today urged the incoming Obama administration to make negotiations a priority from the start. "So there's a foundation it can be built on, and it has to be built on by treating this issue as of fundamental importance, not just to this region, but to the world from the first day of the next administration. " It's not clear if the process begun at Annapolis will survive upcoming national elections in Israel and ongoing internal disarray among Palestinians. Eric Westervelt, NPR News, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

The United Nations says there's been new fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo forcing thousands more people to flee the area. Doctors there are struggling to contain an outbreak of cholera in one of the sprawling refugee camps near Goma. More from NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton.

Thousands of worshipers packed church services to pray for peace in eastern Congo, they were also mourning the execution of apparently defenseless civilians by Tutsi rebels and rival pro-government militiamen. The UN peacekeeping chief in Congo Alan Doss has blamed both groups and condemned the killings. "We remind all concerned that under international humanitarian law, these actions will be considered as war crimes. " As medical relief agencies raced to curb growing numbers of choleraic cases around Goma, the strategic provincial capital, more civilians were fleeing yet another outbreak of fighting. This time the latest battlefront is in Gongo, 40 miles west of Goma, but outside the immediate conflict zone in the east. Ofeibea Quist-Arcton. NPR News, Harare.

Work crews in Cuba are trying to restore power and fix damage caused by Hurricane Paloma which has now been downgraded to tropical storm status. The storm caused damage across the eastern part of the island but not the widespread devastation seen after hurricanes Gustav and Ike. This is NPR News.

African leaders meeting in Johannesburg say Zimbabwe's rival political factions should share control of the Police Ministry as part of the effort to form a unity government. Then the leaders said both factions should focus on the country's economic crisis. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai signed a power-sharing deal in September, but the pact has stalled over the allocation of cabinet posts.

Police in Haiti have arrested the owner of a school building that collapsed killing at least 88 people, most of them school children. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports.

Search and Rescue teams from the US and France in addition to Haitian authorities continued to comb the wreckage looking for survivors and extracting the dead. The school collapsed on Friday during a party. Officials say there may have been 500 children on the premises when the building crumbled. On Saturday, rescuers pulled 4 students from the rubble alive. The head of civil protection for the region told the Associated Press that in addition to the dead, 150 people were injured and many more remained missing. Haitian President Rene Preval toured the disaster site on Saturday, afterwards he attributed the school's collapse to shoddy construction, and he said it is a problem that plagues buildings throughout his country. Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Mexico City.

There's been no letup in the plunging gasoline prices. Over the past two weeks, prices at the pump fell 48 cents a gallon on average nationally to $2. 30 for self-service regular. Industry analyst Trobi Lambert says there are two key reasons for the sharp decline. "What we have is much lower crude oil prices, and shrinking U. S. gasoline demand. " But Lambert says gas prices may level off now unless crude oil prices fall further.