BBC news 2009-10-29 加文本

BBC 2009-10-29


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BBC News with David Austin.

The US government says the attack on a United Nations guesthouse in Afghanistan would not succeed in derailing the second round of the presidential election in 10 days time. Five UN workers and three local staff were killed when militants stormed the building in the capital Kabul. The Taliban said it was the first step in their campaign to disrupt the vote. A spokesman for the State Department Ian Kelly had this assessment of the situation in Afghanistan.

This is all part of an overall campaign to intimidate the Afghan people, to try and discourage them from exercising their democratic rights. It is also a way to try and discourage their international supporters. If that is their purpose here, to try and discourage us and intimidate us, it’s not going to work.”

More than 90 people were killed when a huge car bomb tore through the main market in the city of Peshawar in northwest  Pakistan. More than 200 people were injured. The attack took place as the market was thronged with morning shoppers. Most of the victims were women and children. Local people say a nearby mosque was brought down along with several other buildings. Mark Dummett reports from Islamabad.

This has been an especially bloody month and Peshawar has been especially badly hit. Militants have launched a wave of attacks in response to a major army operation against their strongholds on the Afghan border. The army says it is going after the man it holds responsible for the bombings and that it is making progress. The militants meanwhile are sending out a very clear message that they haven’t been defeated and that they can fight back.

The Prime Minister of Somalia Omar Sharmarke says his government will eradicate piracy off its coast within the next two years. Here is Mary Harper from our Africa desk.

Mr Sharmarke told the BBC that his government lacked the resources to deal with piracy but was seeking assistance from abroad. He’s currently in Britain seeking help. He said he’d eradicate piracy through a civil affairs and information campaign, backed by military force. But given that the government only controls the few districts of the capital, Mogadishu, it is difficult to imagine how it will deal with the pirates, who operate in areas outside government control.

Mary Harper with that report.

The UN special investigator on torture, Manfred Nowak, is reported to have been stopped at Harare airport as he was trying to enter Zimbabwe. Mr. Nowak told the BBC that officials were refusing to allow him to enter despite him having a written invitation from Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. The trip had originally been arranged as a week-long fact-finding mission but it was blocked at the last minute by the Zimbabwe Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Nowak believes he may be forced to fly back to South Africa on Thursday.

World News from the BBC.

State police in Bosnia have arrested three former Serb policemen suspected of genocide during the Bosnian war. According to police reports, the three men were part of the Bosnian Serb forces, who overran the UN protected enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995 and then took part in the summary execution of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

Workers began in southern Spain to excavate a mass grave which may contain the remains of the dramatist and poet Federico Garcia Lorca. Lorca, a left-wing sympathizer, was shot dead in 1936 by supporters of General Franco during the Spanish Civil War. The grave is being excavated at the request of another victim’s family.

Senior public officials in Kenya have until today to give up their luxurious official cars and exchange them for smaller ones. They are being told to replace their 4×4s and Mercedes limousines with more modest Volkswagens as part of a government economy drive. From Nairobi, Johanna Fisher.

Kenya’s bloated and much criticized government wants to show it is in touch with the economic reality. So that was supposed to mean the end of the road for the Mercedes Benz, for years the ministerial vehicle of choice. In June, Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta announced in his budget that government cars would have their engine sizes capped at 1,800 cc, a measure designed to more than halve fuel and maintenance costs. 130 of the more modest Volkswagen Passats were bought. But despite a deadline of Wednesday for the trade down, ministers appear to be in no hurry to comply.

Bangladesh has created its first ever national plan to conserve the Royal Bengal tiger. The Tiger Action Plan aims to save an estimated 200 or 300 tigers in the Sandarbans, an area of mangrove forests in the south of the country. The forest’s home to one of the world’s biggest remaining tiger populations.

And those are the latest stories from BBC News.