BBC news 2009-05-25 加文本

BBC 2009-05-25


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BBC News with Fiona McDonald.

The defeated Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka have admitted for the first time the death of their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in the last days of the war against the military. Charles Haviland reports from the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.

A statement signed by the LTTE's head of international relations Selvarajah Pathmanathan said that their incomparable leader had attained martyrdom as he put it, fighting the military oppression of the Sri Lankan government last Sunday. Separately Mr. Pathmanathan told the BBC Tamil Service that the Tamil Tigers had given up violence and would enter a democratic process to achieve self-determination for Sri Lanka's Tamils.

Rival Sikh groups have clashed in the Indian state of Punjab after a fight at a temple in the Austrian capital Vienna left at least 16 people wounded. Indian police said protesters in the city of Jalandhar set fire to vehicles and put up roadblocks. Witnesses said the protest appeared to be a reaction to the fight at the Vienna temple where armed men with knives and a pistol attacked the preachers during a religious ceremony. Bethany Bell reports from Austria.

Vienna's tiny Sikh community is in shock. A religious service at one of the temples here came to an abrupt and violent end when five men armed with knives and one with a pistol started a fight. Several arrests have been made. A spokesman for Vienna's ambulance service said some of the injured had suffered bullet wounds to the head and were fighting for their lives. It's not yet clear why the fight broke out. But some reports suggest there have been feuds with other Sikh temples in Vienna.

There have been new revelations over expenses claimed by British politicians. The Daily Telegraph says nine cabinet ministers used thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money to pay for accountancy advice .The ministers are said to have used money intended to pay for their parliamentary offices to cover the costs of getting their personal tax returns filled in. James Landale has more.

Day 17 and still the revelations keep coming. In all, the Chancellor Alistair Darling, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband and the Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon and six other colleagues spent 11,000 pounds of taxpayers' money to pay for someone else to fill in their tax returns. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs advices that personal tax returns cannot normally be claimed as a legitimate business expense.

A statement from the Minister of Finance Alistair Darling said Mr. Darling employed an accountant to ensure he paid the correct amount of tax on his office costs.

Armed raiders have seized a Sudanese army base in the troubled region of Darfur. The base was at Umm Baru near Sudan's border with Chad. The identity of the raiders hasn't been confirmed, but the rebel Justice and Equality Movement has been active in the area in recent weeks. A week ago rebel fighters seized another Sudanese army base at Kornoi 50 kilometers west of Umm Baru .

World News from the BBC.

Pope Benedict has paid homage to the victims of the Second World War while visiting Monte Cassino --the scene of a bloody battle in central Italy. At a cemetery for Polish soldiers killed fighting there against Nazi Germany, the Pope prayed for an end to all wars. The Pope, who during the war was himself forced to join the Hitler Youth in his native Germany, also visited the 1,400-year-old Benedictine Monastery at Monte Cassino.

The space shuttle Atlantis has landed in California. It touched down at Edwards Air Force Base after a 12-day mission to repair the Hubble space telescope. The return had been delayed for two days because of bad weather. The Atlantis commander Scott Altman said he and six other astronauts were thrilled to be back.

Landing here I just felt great to everybody. So we're all thrilled to have the mission complete. It was a testament to the teamwork and cooperation of folks all across the country and we wanna express our thanks to everybody, especially to Edwards for all the folks who supported us, providing us a place to land and aren't too upset about us taking up their runway for a few hours today.

On the final day of the English Football Season, Newcastle and Middlesbrough have been relegated from the Premier League to the Championship while Hull and Sunderland survived. For the fans, the fight to stay in the top tier of English football have been even more emotional than usual, as all four clubs threatened by relegation today were from the northeast of England.

The Austrian director Michael Haneke’s film the White Ribbon has won the Palme d’Or of the Cannes Film Festival. The film was set in a small town in Germany just before the beginning of the First World War. Christoph Waltz was named as the Best Actor and Charlotte Gainsbourg won Best Actress. A Chinese director Lou Ye won best screenplay for his film Spring Fever. Lou said he hoped to be the last Chinese director to be banned.

BBC News.