BBC news 2010-03-07 加文本

2010-03-07 BBC

BBC News with Zoe Diamond.

Riot police in the Togolese capital Lome have fired tear-gas grenades at supporters of the opposition presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Fabre. Provisional results continuing to flow from Thursday's presidential poll indicate a lead for the current President Faure Gnassingbe including in some opposition strongholds. Opposition supporters came out on the streets to claim the election was being stolen from them. Our correspondent is Caspar Leighton.

During the afternoon, the partial results that were being read out at electoral commission were transmitted by local radio, and it started to emerge that President Faure Gnassingbe was taking a lead. So what happened was that the opposition supporters went down to Independence Square, one of the big collection points in the city. The leader Jean-Pierre Fabre was there, and he was saying that his victory, he saw it was being stolen from him by the electoral commission. And while I was there, the riot police were gathering at crossroads with tear-gas grenades on the ends of rifles, and shortly afterwards, tear gas was indeed fired to disperse the crowd.

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has visited British troops in Afghanistan as controversy continues over the evidence he gave to a public inquiry into the American and British invasion of Iraq. Mr Brown told soldiers they'd soon receive new patrol vehicles with better protection against roadside bombs. In Britain, two former military chiefs have questioned Mr Brown's assertion on Friday that as chancellor of the exchequer during the Iraq conflict, he never turned down a request for extra military equipment. Some families of British soldiers killed in Iraq say they died because they lacked the right equipment.

The Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki has urged voters to turn out in large numbers for Sunday's parliamentary elections. He said voter participation would strengthen democracy. On the eve of the polls, security was stepped up across Iraq. Earlier on Saturday, a car bomb ripped through the city of Najaf, killing several Shi'ite pilgrims.

Football's rule-making body has rejected the use of electronic technology to help with decisions over disputed goals. At a meeting in Zurich, the International Football Association Board voted against any further experiments, and said that the human referee's decision would remain final, right or wrong. Imogen Foulkes reports from Switzerland.

Tennis has Hawkeyes; skiing and horse racing have photo-finish, but after today's IFAB decision, football will continue to rely on the eyes of the referees. After a spate of disputed decisions, among them, Thierry Henry's handball which put France into the World Cup at the expense of Ireland, IFAB had been under pressure to introduce goal-line technology and video replay. But IFAB members said goal-line technology risks disrupting the flow of a match with endless replays and that the human factor in football - mistakes and all was worth preserving.

This is the World News from the BBC in London.

Reports from Burma say about 3,000 employees at South Korean-owned garment factories in Rangoon stopped work for several hours to complain about low pay and poor working conditions. The protest ended after military officials intervened and a compromise was found. Until recently, such stoppages were rare events in Burma, but there have now been at least 10 at foreign-owned firms in the past month.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been visiting areas in Chile that were worst hit by the massive earthquake last weekend. He said that the UN would discuss how best to send temporary bridges and field hospitals to Chile where some survivors are still waiting for help. The country has launched a major vaccination campaign because of fears of an epidemic.

The Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak taking ill on a visit to Germany has undergone an operation to remove his gall bladder. Official reports say the 81-year-old president is now recovering in intensive care. The BBC Cairo correspondent said President Mubarak's ill health has inevitably sparked renewed speculation about a likely successor, widely tipped to be his son Gamal.

German police say armed robbers have raided a luxury hotel in central Berlin where a poker tournament was taking place. It's unclear how much money was stolen, but initial reports said hundreds of thousands of dollars were carried off. There were no serious injuries. Steve Rosenberg reports from Berlin.

With a jackpot of more than a million dollars, this was the biggest poker tournaments ever held in Berlin and the most dramatic. On Saturday afternoon, the card tables of the 5-star Grand Hyatt Hotel turned into a crime scene. Up to six attackers armed with machine guns and machetes burst in. The tournament was being streamed live on the Internet. Video of the moment the robbers struck shows pandemonium in the poker hall with people diving for cover and scenery being torn down.

That's the latest BBC World News.