BBC news 2010-01-02 加文本

BBC news 2010-01-02

BBC News with Victoria Meakin.

A suicide car bomber in northwestern Pakistan has killed more than 85 people and left many trapped under collapsed buildings. Dozens were injured in the blast which took place near the town of Lakki Marwat. Aleem Maqbool reports from Islamabad.

Eyewitnesses say a volleyball match was under way when a car filled with explosives was driven onto the ground. They say it blew up when it hit a building close to where most of the 200 or so spectators were sitting. The force of the blast was such that houses close by were destroyed, and among the many dead are believed to be members of a local peace committee which campaigned for an end to Taliban influence in the area.

The Somali hardline Islamist group Al-Shabaab has declared that it's ready to send fighters across the Red Sea to support Islamist rebels in Yemen. A top Al-Shabaab official Sheikh Mukhtar Robeo Abu Mansur made the pledge at a rally on the outskirts of the Somali capital Mogadishu. With more, here is our Africa editor Martin Plaut.

Hundreds of Al-Shabaab fighters paraded through the streets of Mogadishu. The fighters who had completed training in camps in southern Somalia heard an address from a senior Al-Shabaab official. He promised support for Islamists confronting the Yemeni government just across the Red Sea. "Make preparations for our coming," he said. Yemen is already in crisis with the authorities attacking Al-Qaeda positions and the United States increasing military support to the government.

Britain has called an international meeting to discuss how to combat Islamic militancy in Yemen. The move follows the alleged attempt to blow up an American airliner on Christmas Day by a young Nigerian who's thought to have been trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen. The conference has been welcomed by Yemen which says it will attend. The Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi told the BBC his government hoped the meeting would provide help for Yemen to develop its economy so as to undercut the appeal of the militants. The conference is scheduled for late January to run parallel with talks about Afghanistan.

Heavy rain and landslides in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro have killed at least 30 people. Several were buried when a luxury guest house at a tourist resort was swept away. Other deadly mudslides have hit shanty towns where poorly built houses on hillsides have collapsed. The authorities have urged residents to move from high-risk areas. From Brazil, Gary Duffy reports.

The latest mudslide happened on Ilha Grande, an island just off the coast of the state Rio de Janeiro which is a famous tourist destination. The authorities say three houses and a luxury guest house were destroyed. Guests had apparently just returned to the rooms after the new year celebrations when the landslide happened after days of heavy rain. A search is continuing for survivors at the location which can only be reached by boat, and police helicopters and navy vessels are helping in the rescue effort.

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The Iraqi government says it will vigorously pursue court action against five security guards from the American company Blackwater who were accused of killing 17 unarmed civilians in Baghdad in 2007. A spokesman called the decision by a judge in the US to dismiss charges against the men unacceptable and unfair. He said Iraqi investigations had confirmed unequivocally that Blackwater guards had committed a crime when they opened fire at a busy road junction in the absence of any threat justifying such action. An American judge ruled on Thursday that the prosecution in the case had used inadmissible evidence.

The freed British computer expert Peter Moore, who was abducted in Baghdad more than two and a half years ago, has arrived back in Britain. He flew into a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire, north of London, following his sudden release on Wednesday. Mr Moore was seized with four British bodyguards while in the Iraqi Finance Ministry in May 2007 by militants posing as police. Three of the bodyguards were later killed and their bodies returned. The fate of the fourth man hasn't been confirmed, but the British government says it believes he too is dead.

Iran's opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has said the country is in a serious crisis and that the arrest or death of opposition leaders including himself would not calm the situation. The statement was his first since mass anti-government protests on Sunday. Bridget Kendall has the details.

This is a defiant statement cast in bold terms. Mr Mousavi warned Iran's leaders that their crackdown would not make opposition dissent go away. The only solution he said was to lift restrictions on the media and on peaceful rallies, release political prisoners and compromise with the protesters. Jailing or even executing them would only make matters worse. Already one senior cleric today has dismissed Mr Mousavi's statement as a new provocation.

BBC News.