BBC news 2007-07-18 加文本

BBC 2007-07-18


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Bulgaria has welcomed the decision in Libya to commute to life imprisonment the death sentences on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor found guilty of infecting Libyan children with HIV. The Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin described the ruling by Libya's top legal review body as a big step in the right direction. Nick Thorpe reports from Sofia.

"All that matters now to Bulgaria is that the nurses and the Palestinian doctor who has recently been granted Bulgarian citizenship be allowed to return home. What would happen there to their sentence to life imprisonment is not being publicly discussed, but as national heroes, it's hard to imagine that they would be taken into custody."

In the past few minutes, we've been getting reports of an accident at an airport in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo. A passenger airplane crashed into a building on landing at Congonhas airport. Gary Duffy has just filed this report from Sao Paulo.

The plane is thought to have overshot the runway as it landed at Congonhas airport in the heart of Sao Paulo. It is thought to have crossed the busy road in a residential area and struck a fuel depot. Brazilian TV is showing pictures of a large fire at the scene. The weather has been bad in Sao Paulo all day, and there has been concern for some time about safety in Congonhas during heavy rain.

Police in Pakistan say a suicide bomber has struck in the heart of the capital Islamabad killing at least 13 people. The attack targeted crowds gathering for a rally by Pakistan suspended chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, who has become a focus for opposition to president Musharraf. He was not present at the time. Our Islamabad correspondent Dan Isaacs says the motives for the attack remained unclear.

The only motive if it were militants is, perhaps because there were many security officials guarding the venue of that scene. But that is far too early to tell exactly what that is about, I think over the next few hours ahead we're gonna learn a little bit more about what sort of motives lay behind this, but clearly this is a very different type of attack to what we have been seeing in the past few days and the threats by Islamic militants to disrupt security officials around the country.

A new American intelligence report warns that Al-Qaeda has regrouped and re-strengthened on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan and it's determined to carry out new attacks on the United States. The report which was based on information compiled from all of the American intelligence agencies also expresses concern that global anti-terror cooperation may be waning as the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001 become a distant history. However, President Bush says America and its allies have made progress in what he describes as the war on terror.

"Al-Qaeda is, is strong today, but they are not nearly as strong as they were prior to September 11, 2001, and the reason why is because we have been working with the world to keep the pressure on and stay on the offense to bring them to justice, so they won't hurt us again."

World news from the BBC.

The Russian government has given a considered response to the expulsion of four Russian diplomats by Britain. The Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said any Russian action will take into account the interests of ordinary people and businessmen but he was not specific, the British move came on Monday after Russia refused to extradite the main suspect in the murder in London last year of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian intelligence agent. The Russian ambassador to the UK, Yuri Fedotov, told reporters the affair had damaged relations between Russia and the UK.
"There are problems in our bilateral relations that it is true so we have to think what can be done in order, in order to overcome this current stage of the deterioration of bilateral relations. But it will depend on the political will of the British government."

The United States says it's ready to hold a second round of talks with Iran to discuss security in Iraq. In Tehran an Iranian spokesman said the Iranians were willing to meet again if Washington officially conveys such a request. The US accuses Iran of supporting Shiite militias in Iraq.

The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila has expressed his appointment that Switzerland hasn't returned at least 1 billion dollars that he believes Congo's late ruler Mobutu illegally placed in Swiss bank accounts. Mr. Kabila was responding to a comment by the visiting president of Switzerland, Micheline Calmy-Rey, who said her country was willing to send back the six million dollars worth of Mr. Mobutu's funds it had found in its possession.

Anti-races groups in France have accused government officials of trying to undermine the new Justice Minister Rachida Dati, the first French cabinet member of North African origin. They say she's been targeted by members of the French establishment who resent her rapid rise to power. Ms. Dati has suffered a series of setbacks in recently weeks including the resignation of an aide over an apparent personality clash.