BBC news 2010-02-03 加文本

2010-02-03 BBC

BBC News with Iain Purdon.

The Defence Department in Washington has announced a review of how to lift a ban on openly homosexual people serving in the US military. The Obama administration says the current policy is harming military effectiveness by driving key personnel out of the armed services. From Washington, Kevin Connolly.

The policy known as "don't ask, don't tell" emerged as a compromise in the early 1990s, permitting gay men and women to serve in the American military but preventing them from doing so openly. As attitudes towards gay rights in America have steadily evolved, the compromise has begun to look a little dated. President Obama promised in his State of the Union address to move towards repealing the measure. And while there is still resistance among some senior military officers, the Defence Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Forces Committee that he wanted to see change.

A big air attack in Pakistan by American pilotless planes has killed at least ten militants near the Afghan border. The United States has stepped up drone attacks since a suicide bomber killed seven CIA personnel in eastern Afghanistan at the end of December. Jonny Hogg reports.

Pakistani security sources say that at least ten al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters were killed in the American drone attack, the latest and largest in a series of such operations in recent weeks. They say the unmanned aircraft fired 18 missiles at various targets in North Waziristan, on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This strike comes amid continued confusion as to whether a senior Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, died in a similar attack in January.

Ukraine and Russia have publicly accused each other of spying. The incident comes just two weeks after a Russian ambassador returned to Ukraine following an absence of five months and less than a week before the second round of the Ukrainian presidential election. James Rodgers has more.

Ukraine says that the five alleged Russian spies were caught with a camera concealed inside a pen, other espionage equipment and 2,000 dollars, a reported bribe for a Ukrainian contact. The head of Ukraine's security service says the five were trying to obtain military secrets. Four of them have been expelled from Ukraine, while the fifth has been detained. Russia's security service, the FSB, has confirmed the detention but denied the Ukrainian version of events. The FSB said its actions were a response to the recruitments of Russians by the Ukrainian security services.

A leading British medical publication, the Lancet, has formally retracted a study it published 12 years ago, suggesting a link between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, MMR, and autism. Britain's General Medical Council said the author of the report, Doctor Andrew Wakefield, had been dishonest and irresponsible. The study had caused a large drop in the number of children receiving the vaccine, as many parents believed it was unsafe.

World News from the BBC.

The American airline Continental and five men have gone on trial in France over the crash of a Concorde supersonic airliner outside Paris, which killed 113 people ten years ago. They are accused of manslaughter after an official report said that during take-off the Concorde hit a piece of metal, which had fallen off a Continental plane. All those charged deny any wrongdoing.

The United Nations has warned of a potentially volatile situation in Haiti after gunmen attacked a food convoy. There are also reports of violence and looting inside the camps set up to house the survivors of last month's devastating earthquake. From Port-au-Prince, here is Nick Davis.

The medical needs of Haitians hurt in the earthquake exactly three weeks ago continues to be an ongoing issue. The long-term treatment of the injured and the job of health care teams (are) made more difficult by sporadic outbursts of gang violence in some parts of the city. The UN reports that a food convoy has been attacked and the Haitian police are increasing their patrols. The threat of gang violence has been blamed by the US military for delays in aid distribution in neighborhoods like Cite Soleil. In the past, it was a notorious area with hundreds killed during the political instability five years ago.

The head of national intelligence in the United States has described the recent reports of cyber attacks on Google in China as a wakeup call. Speaking in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Dennis Blair said malicious activity was occurring on an uNPRecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication. He said neither the US government nor the private sector could fully control or protect the country's information infrastructure.

The nominations for next month's Academy Awards have been announced in Hollywood. The science-fiction epic “Avatar” and the Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker” have been nominated for nine Oscars each, including the category “Best Film”.

BBC News.