BBC news 2008-06-29 加文本

BBC 2008-06-29

 
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BBC News with Jonathan Weekley

Reports from Zimbabwe say President Robert Mugabe will be sworn in on Sunday for another term in office after a presidential run-off election boycotted by the opposition MDC and widely dismissed as a sham. Peter Bowes now reports from neighboring South Africa.

The governing ZANU-PF Party had been desperate for as many voters as possible to turn out and support Mr. Mugabe. The head of one of the African election observer teams, Marwick Khumalo, from the Pan-African Parliament says there was a lot of intimidation forcing people to vote. The Southern African Development Community was given the task of ensuring free and fair elections were held in Zimbabwe. The response of the SADC team should give an indication of whether Southern African states are prepared to take a strong stand by declaring Mr. Mugabe's election victory illegitimate.

President Bush says he will be pressing for strong action by the United Nations against, what he called, the illegitimate government in Zimbabwe. He says he wants an arms embargo and a travel ban on government officials. Our Washington correspondent Adam Brooks now reports.

President Bush is angry. He spoke of Robert Mugabe's blatant disregard for the Zimbabwean people's democratic will and their human rights. He said he was instructing the US Treasury and State Department to come up with new sanctions. The US already has in place some sanctions on Zimbabwe. They are targeted for the most part against individuals in the government. But this time, officials say US sanctions could target the entire Zimbabwean government and its agencies.

Tens of thousands of supporters of the Iranian opposition in exile have held a rally in France to call for the lifting of international bans on their movement's armed wing, the People's Mujahideen. The United States and the European Union list the wing as a terrorist organization, although Britain lifted its own ban in the past week. The Iranian opposition leader, Maryam Radjavi, said outlawing the People's Mujahideen played into the hands of the Iranian government.

Serbs living in the breakaway Republic of Kosovo have inaugurated their own assembly separate from the government representing the ethnic Albanian majority. The unofficial parliament was launched on Saint Vitus' Day when Serbs mark a defeat by Ottoman forces in 1389 that still lies at the core of their national identity. Hundreds of Serbs attended a prayer ceremony at a monument near the battle site where the head of Kosovo's Serb Orthodox Church Bishop Artemije said the territory was central to Serbia's identity.(Www.hxen.net)

Kosovo is not only part of Serbia, it is their heart of Serbia. Without Kosovo, Serbia can not exist and will not exist. We are praying here in this holy place to prove our existence. I call upon you to protect Kosovo and ask his holiness to give us the power.

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Police in Malaysia say the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been accused of sodomy, the same charge that led to him being sent to prison ten years ago. Mr. Anwar called the allegations a complete fabrication and said they were politically motivated. In March this year, Anwar Ibrahim oversaw the opposition's best-ever election results. And in April, he was allowed to return to front-line politics in Malaysia after the ban expired. Mr. Anwar had been sacked as Deputy Prime Minister in 1998.

Barack Obama and his Republican rival for the US presidency John McCain have clashed over their commitments to immigration reform. Speaking to a largely Latino audience, Mr. Obama accused his opponent of walking away from an earlier commitment to support foreign workers without documents on the path towards US citizenship. Here is our America's editor Warren Bull.

Barack Obama and John McCain have stepped up their efforts to court the Hispanic vote, and one of the key issues for America's largest minority is immigration reform. Mr. Obama accused his opponent of walking away from an earlier commitment to support foreign workers without documents on the path towards US citizenship. But Mr. McCain, whose immigration bill was blocked by the Senate last year, said that such a proposal would not make it through Congress unless the American people were convinced the issue of border security had been adequately addressed, and that should be the priority.

Hundreds of thousands have joined traditional gay pride marches across Europe. However, events in Bulgaria, Croatia and the Czech Republic were marred by homophobic incidents that led to dozens of arrests. In Germany, the marches were joined by the 95-year old, Rudolf Brazda, thought to be the last survivor of the Nazi persecutions of homosexuals. In Paris, more than half a million gathered for a parade which took discrimination at French schools as its annual theme.

BBC News.