BBC news 2009-07-27 加文本

BBC 2009-07-27


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BBC News with Cathy Clarkson.

The American Middle-East envoy George Mitchell has reassured Israel of what he called "Washington's unshakable commitment"to its security during talks in Tel Aviv with the Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Relations have been tense since President Obama demanded a halt to all settlement building on Palestinian land. But Mr. Mitchell today played down such differences. Here's Katya Adler from Jerusalem.

Israelis are impressed by the string of big names from the Obama administration billed to hit town. But they are also concerned. Israeli media headlines scream of US-Israeli relations being at their worst in a decade. There's even been talk Israel may be losing its best friend abroad. So George Mitchell's remarks in Tel Aviv on Sunday will be met with a relief. He said that current exchanges between Israel and the US were discussions amongst friends, not disputes amongst adversaries.

Mr. Mitchell is now in the Egyptian capital Cairo on an unscheduled visit.

Almost 40 people have been killed in northern Nigeriain gun battles between police and a radical Muslim group. The fighting in the city of Bauchi began when armed men attacked a police station,apparently in retaliation for the arrest of one of their leaders several days ago. From Lagos, Caroline Duffield.

The city of Bauchi is under curfew. The Nigerian military are now controlling roads leading into the area. It's understood that dozens of men armed with grenades and locally made guns attacked a police station early on Sunday morning. Local people at the scene counted five dead bodies afterwards. The police responded,attacking a settlement where the men lived on the edge of the city. And it was here that most of the young men died in a firefight. The religious group that they came from is known locally as Boko Haram. In the local Hausa language it means "Western education prohibited".

A suicide bomber has killed six people in the Russian Republic of Chechnya. Four policemen died as they tried to prevent the attacker from entering a public building in the capital Grozny. Two bystanders were also killed. Nicholas Walton reports.

Recent events in the north Caucasus show that rebellion against Russian rule is far from being contained. In this latest incident, Chechnya’s Emergency Ministry said a suicide bomber was stopped by police from entering a concert hall in Grozny, where a play was to be staged. The Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said the attack showed that the rebellion against Moscow's rule was in its death throes. Security forces are currently engaged in operations against the rebels in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy is to remain in hospital under observation until Monday after collapsing while jogging.He’s had a series of tests at a military hospital and so far his office said nothing had been found. His chief of staff said Mr. Sarkozy who is54 was doing well and talking normally to medical staff.

BBC News.

The authorities in Pakistan have arrested the radical cleric Sufi Mohammad, who brokered a controversial peace deal between the government and the Taliban in the Swat Valley. Officials said he'd been arrested outside Peshawar, and will be tried for supporting terrorism. Sufi Mohammad was let out of prison last year to negotiate a deal which would have seen Sharia law introduced in some areas of the northwest in exchange for the Taliban disarming. The agreement collapsed in April.

A suicide bomber has attacked the funeral of a policeman in central Iraq, killing two people and injuring 13. The attack took place in the town of Khladiyah outside Fallujah as a family were receiving condolences for the death of their relative--a police lieutenant colonel killed in an explosion on Saturday in Fallujah.Gabriel Gatehouse reports from Baghdad.

The attack took place as the mourners had gathered for the evening meal. When police tried to search the bomber, he detonated an explosive vest, killing two officers. Saleh al-Marawi, the officer whose funeral it was, had been killed the day before along with two other policemen when his car was targeted by an improvised bomb.Sunday's attack was the latest in a spate of similar incidents in the area. Fallujah was not until relatively recently one of the centers of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, but attacks have reduced significantly since many tribal leaders were persuaded to desert the insurgence and throw their support behind American and pro-American Iraqi forces.

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sacked one of his ministers a day after being forced to cancel the appointment of the man he wanted as vice president. No reason has been given so far for the sacking of the Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei.

This year's Tour de France cycle race has been won by the Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador, who was cheered by a crowd of thousands on the streets of Paris. Andy Schleck of Luxembourg was second and the American Lance Armstrong finished third.

BBC News.