BBC news 2008-05-22 加文本

BBC News with Michael Poles.

The President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki has approved the deployment of the army to halt attacks on foreign migrants. Angry mobs have been roaming the townships, killing at least 40 people and driving some 30,000 from their homes since the unrest began more than a week ago. From Johannesburg, Will Ross reports.

The police force has clearly been overstretched as attacks on foreigners have spread to several areas of Johannesburg and beyond. In the past few days, there have been calls from civil society for the army to intervene as mobs have roamed the townships looking for foreigners, many of whom have sought refuge in police stations, churches and community halls. Some South Africans accused foreigners including Zimbabweans of taking jobs from locals and committing crime. But until now, the idea of deploying the army had been rejected as unnecessary.

Football, Manchester United / won the European Champions League. They beat Chelsea 6-5 on penalties after the game ended 1-1(one all). The decisive moment came when United's goalie Edwin van der Sar saved Nicolas Anelka's penalty. It's the second time United's manager Alex Ferguson has won the cup. The BBC's Mihir Bose watched the match.

Great occasions like this rarely produce great matches. But this was a compelling encounter with both Manchester United and Chelsea vividly displaying their contrasting stars. United took the lead midway through the first half and could have scored twice more. Chelsea, somewhat fortunately, equalized just before half-time and had the better of the rest of the match. But in the end, it came to football's awful lotteries penalties. John Terry, the Chelsea captain, could have won the cup but missed his penalty. Then Edwin van der Sar, the United keeper, saved one from Anelka. Terry cried in anguish, United players cried in joy.

The United States has given a cautious welcome to the announcement by Israel and Syria that they have been holding indirect peace talks for the last year. A senior State Department official said an agreement would be helpful but reserved the most praise for Turkey for its role as mediator. The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described the talks as exciting. From Jerusalem, here's our Middle East correspondent Tim Franks.

The momentum has stepped up since Monday with both Syria and Israeli envoys in Turkey. The two countries have tried and failed before to reach agreement most recently eight years ago. There is, however, profound skepticism as to why the existence of these talks should be confirmed now. Many in Israel believe it reflects a lack of progress in negotiations with the Palestinians and the Prime Minister's own domestic political difficulties.

The United Nations General Assembly has elected fifteen new members for its Human Rights Council. Pakistan and Bahrain were among those chosen and pressure groups have immediately criticized this selection because of their human rights record, saying their inclusion risked making the council look like a cabal of abusers.

World News from the BBC.

The Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has claimed victory for his party after exit polls showed it may have won up to 2/3 of the votes in Wednesday's general election. Matthew Collins in Tbilisi has the latest.

President Saakashvili said these elections proved democracy was alive and well in Georgia. But the people who've gathered here after midnight in the Georgian capital strongly disagree. One of the demonstrators told the BBC the polls were a fraud committed by a government which was only pretending to be democratic to please its western allies. The leaders of the main opposition coalition have rejected the results of the exit polls which suggested President Saakashvili's party won 63% of the vote. (Www.hxen.net)

Neo-Nazis in Germany have tricked the national postal service into printing a personalized postage stamp bearing the image of Adolf Hilter's deputy Rudolf Hess. The spokesman for the postal service said an order for twenty stamps had slipped through the company's monitoring procedures. The postal service has offered personalized stamps since February. From Berlin, Cristalin More reports.

Under new service, customers can upload their photos over the Internet to create their own stamps. It's normally used for birthdays or other special occasions. But clearly this time, a group of neo-Nazis managed to evade the company's control procedures. According to the post office’s spokesman, only twenty stamps with a Hess picture were ordered and the company has now launched an inquiry. Although this appears to be a one-off case, it highlights the increasingly brazen action of neo-Nazi groups here in Germany. Since last year, there has been a steady increase in the number of attacks carried out by right-wing extremists, especially in eastern Germany.(Www.hxen.net)

The original manuscript of one of the most important documents in the history of modern art, the Surrealist Manifesto, has been sold in an auction in Paris for just over five and a half million dollars. Written in 1924 by the French poet Andre Breton, the Manifesto marked the official launch of the art movement which expressed the unconscious workings of the mind.

And that's the latest BBC News.