BBC news 2009-07-11 加文本

BBC 2009-07-11


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BBC News with Aleem Maqbool

In Afghanistan, six more British soldiers have been killed in the latest fighting in Helmand Province. Friday's deaths bring the total number of British service personnel killed fighting the Taliban to 184, surpassing the number who've died in Iraq. The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has warned that British forces in Afghanistan face a very hard summer. Rob Watson reports.

When British troops were first deployed to southern Afghanistan three years ago, the then Defense Secretary expressed at least the hope that they would complete their mission without a shot being fired. It has instead been the most high-intensity fighting British troops have faced since the Korean War in the 1950s. Certainly, the deployment to Afghanistan of around 10% of Britain's army has proved a real strain on manpower, equipment and finances. For now at least though, Britain remains firmly committed to staying the course.

The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described the recent violence involving Muslim Uigurs and Han Chinese in China's Xinjiang Province as a kind of genocide. The Chinese government now says 137 Han Chinese and 46 Turkic Uigurs were killed in the ethnic clashes in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi last Sunday. Sarah Rainsford reports.

This is strong language from the Turkish Prime Minister, what looks like his reaction to growing public pressure at home to denounce the ethnic violence in China. He was speaking out, he said because the Turks are the ethnic brothers of the Turkic Muslim Uigur. But he was careful not to specify who he blames for the riots. Several key mosques in Turkey devoted Friday prayers to the Uigur this week and as the crowds left, there were a number of demonstrations against China.

The American carmaker General Motors, which for decades was the world's biggest producer has emerged from bankruptcy as a much smaller business largely state-owned. It will now make only four core vehicle brands and employ about 20, 000 fewer people. The car plants and the other branches of business that GM no longer wants will either be sold off or closed down.

Iraq's national football team has played its first match on home soil since the American-led invasion in 2003. Much to the delight of thousands of local fans, the Iraqis beat Palestine 3-0 in a friendly at a packed stadium in the northern city of Irbil. Gabriel Gatehouse reports from Bagdad.

It sounds the same in any language, but this was no ordinary goal. For the first time in more than seven years, the Iraqi national team was playing at home and they won. But it's not so much the victory as the match itself that is a symbol of promise. The game was played in the town of Irbil, capital of the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan, an opportunity for Arabs and Kurds so often at odds in today's Iraq to cheer for the same side.

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British police are to investigate claims by a former Guantanamo Bay detainee that British intelligence agents colluded in his torture. Binyam Mohamed, who was born in Ethiopia but moved to Britain as a teenager, was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan. He says he was repeatedly tortured by Pakistani agents and interrogated by the CIA and MI5. He was then flown to Morocco where he says his torturers were fed questions and information by British agents. He was finally moved to Guantanamo Bay in 2004, but released in February when he returned to Britain.

President Barack Obama has arrived in Ghana on his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa since becoming US president. Ghana was chosen because of its democratic track record and Mr. Obama is expected to use the trip to promote democracy across the continent. Will Ross reports from Accra.

President Obama is here for less than 24 hours. He may only be visiting one African country, but he wants to send a message to the rest of the continent. He will hold up Ghana, which has had a series of successful elections as an example for the rest of Africa to follow. Ghanaians are extremely proud of their democratic track record and of this presidential visit. While the spotlight is shone on the country, people have high hopes that the President of the United States will help tackle the wide-spread poverty here.

An Iranian American academic Kian Tajbakhsh has been arrested in Teheran for the second time in two years. A relative said he was detained late on Thursday at his home in the capital. There has been no confirmation from the Iranian authority. Mr. Tajbakhsh was held in prison for 4 months in 2007, accused of endangering national security. He denied the allegations.

The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said she hopes that North Korea will grant an amnesty to two American journalists who were jailed after apparently illegally entering North Korea from China in March. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were detained by North Korean border guards while researching a story on refugees.