BBC news 2010-02-27 加文本

2010-02-27 BBC

BBC News with Jerry Smit

The British government has defended the reputation of its domestic security service MI5 after a judge questioned what he called the dubious record of some of its staff. The Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain had the finest intelligence service in the world, and MI5 did not use torture or ask others to torture on its behalf. He was responding to comments by a judge who said it appeared that MI5 officials had not told the truth when they denied knowledge of the alleged torture of a British resident Binyam Mohamed in American custody. Rob Broomby reports.

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that the intelligence services could not defend themselves in public against many of the allegations made about them, but he could. He said he had every confidence that their work did not undermine the principles and values that were the best guarantees of future security. "We do not torture or ask others to do so on our behalf", he said. The home secretary said he was deeply disappointed by the criticism of the security services, but calls for a judicial inquiry to establish whether MI5 turned a blind eye to torture continue to mount.

The Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that anyone plotting against the elected government will face punishment. He was speaking as the security forces announced they'd detained another 18 military personnel suspected of plotting a coup seven years ago. Thirty one Turkish officers have already been charged this week in connection with the alleged plot. Here is Jonathan Head.

The message from Tayyip Erdogan could hardly have been clearer. The days when soldiers could intervene whenever they judged a government to be going off course, he said, are over.

"No one is above the law, no one has impunity," he told the gathering of party loyalists in Ankara, "those who make plans behind closed doors will face justice."

India says up to 9 of its citizens were among 16 people killed in militant attacks in the Afghan capital Kabul. The Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna said the violence was aimed at undermining the friendship between India and Afghanistan. Here is Anbarasan Ethirajan in Delhi.

The Foreign Ministry's statement said it was the third attack on Indian officials and interests in Afghanistan in the past 20 months. The Indian embassy in Kabul has come under attack on two different occasions in the past, killing diplomats, officials and several Afghan nationals. The statement described the latest incident as a heinous terrorist attack, the handiwork of those who did not want to see a strong, democratic and pluralistic Afghanistan.

Some of news just in. A 7.3 magnitude earthquake has struck in the Pacific Ocean around 80 kilometers off the coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa. The Japanese Meteorological Agency has issued a tsunami warning and ordered the evacuation of the seashore in the Okinawa islands.

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The Supreme Court in Thailand has ruled that the government can confiscate 1.4 billion dollars from the exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. That's about half of the assets frozen when he was deposed in a coup in 2006. The court said the amount was based on the profit he had made while in office. Mr.Thaksin, who remains very popular in rural Thailand, denies any wrongdoing.

Palestinians have clashed with Israeli security forces in the West Bank city of Hebron after Israel decided to add a religious site there to its national heritage list. The Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the site belonged to a future Palestinian state. Our correspondent Jon Donnison witnessed the clashes.

Israeli soldiers fired rounds of teargas at about 100 Palestinian youths on the streets of central Hebron. Tyres were also set on fire. Hebron is / home to the Ebrahimi mosque, known to Jews as the Tomb of the Patriarchs. It is sacred to Muslims and Jews, as well as Christians. This was the fifth day of protests in Hebron after Israel named the city's tomb on a list of Israeli heritage sites. There have also been demonstrations and a general strike in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem where Rachel's Tomb was also added to the Israeli list.

The United Nations in Liberia has sent troops to the north of the country to deal with religious clashes between Christians and Muslims. Witnesses said three people were killed in the unrest. The French news agency said the violence started when a young Christian woman was found murdered, triggering a string of reprisal attacks on both sides.

Tens of thousands of people in Britain who use Twitter, the social networking website, have fallen prey to identity theft. Twitter users were tricked into putting their passwords on another website. Their accounts were then hijacked and used to send sexy, obscene messages to other users.

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