BBC news 2009-07-13 加文本

BBC 2009-07-13


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BBC News with Victoria Meakin.

Senior Democrats in the Untied States say the former Vice President Dick Cheney may have broken the law if he ordered the CIA to conceal a counter-terrorism program from Congress. The new chief of the CIA Leon Panetta is reported to have told the Senate Intelligence Committee last month that Mr. Cheney had made that direct order. Kim Ghattas reports from Washington.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein who chairs the Senate Select Intelligence Committee said it was wrong to keep Congress in the dark and she said it should never happen again. She also suggested that it may have been illegal. By law the government is required to keep Intelligence Committees briefed but there's some leeway for exceptionally sensitive matters. House Democrats have now signaled they might launch a formal investigation into the nature of the program and the secrecy surrounding it. But Republican Senator John McCain said it was too early to discuss any investigation.

The US military in Afghanistan says two marines were killed in a bomb blast in the southern Helmand province on Saturday. A massive operation is under way there. The troops are said to be meeting with little head-on resistance but remain vulnerable to roadside and suicide bombs.

There's been a series of apparently coordinated bomb attacks on six Christian churches across the Iraqi capital Baghdad, leaving four people dead and at least 30 wounded. The four deaths were in the biggest explosion. Gebril Gathouse reports from Baghdad.

The biggest attack was a deadly car bomb in eastern Bagdad timed to coincide with the church service. The explosion which happened at around seven o'clock in the evening local time could be heard several kilometers away. In all there have been six attacks targeting Christian churches across Baghdad since Saturday evening. The other bombs, most of them hidden in cardboard boxes, injured more than ten people though they were not fatal. Iraq's Christian community is thought to number around three quarters of a million and its members have been targeted in the past. Most of the violence in Iraq though is either sectarian between Sunni and Shiite Muslims or ethnic between Arabs and Kurds.

Police in India say Maoist guerrillas have carried out their most deadly attack for some time, killing at least 23 policemen in the eastern state of Tajikistan. The officer leading the operation against the Maoist said a patrol was ambushed early on Sunday.

The American space shuttle Endeavor is due to launch shortly after being delayed three times. The latest postponement came on Saturday when Endeavor was hit several times by lightening. From Florida, Andy Gallagher has the details.

If the crew get off the ground this time, they will be delivering the final part of the Japanese laboratory known as "Kibo". During the planned 16-day mission, the astronauts will also be building a platform in space so that experiments can be carried out in a vacuum. In all five spacewalks planned in the International Space Station will be at its most crowded. The seven astronauts will join six crew members already on board.

World News from the BBC.

Thousands of Turks have taken part in a rally in Istanbul in support of the Uigur minority in China after nearly 200 people died in ethnic violence in the northwest of the country. Demonstrators chanted China the murderer and free east Turkistan, the name some Muslims use to refer to Xinjiang province. Turks share an ethnic and cultural bond with Muslim Uigurs and last week the Turkish Prime Minister described the violence in Xinjiang as a kind of genocide.

Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential nominee, who last week said she would resign as Governor of Alaska, now says she plans to get back into national politics. Mrs. Palin told the Washington Times Newspaper she intends to campaign around the US for candidates who believe in the right thing regardless of their party affiliation.

Votes have been counted in a presidential election in the west African state of Congo-Brazzaville. Opposition parties have called for a boycott saying the poll wasn't free or transparent. There are thirteen candidates taking part. Thomas Fessy reports from Brazzaville.

The head of the African Union observers Dieudonne Kumbo Yaya told the BBC that his team had not noticed any cases of fraud. This may be correct as far as polling stations were concerned, but I witness people distributing money to the population in the southern area of the capital. People there confirmed that they were asked to vote for Sassou-Nguesso. Results should be announced early this week but it is widely expected that the incoming president will retain the polls he's held for all but five years of the last three decades.

Police in Brazil have arrested the wife of the former world boxing champion Arturo Gatti who was found dead in a holiday apartment on Saturday. They said she hadn't explained how she had stayed in the apartment in northeastern Brazil for ten hours after the former welterweight champion was apparently strangled with a handbag strap. She's denied any wrong doing.

BBC News.