BBC news 2010-06-21 加文本

2010-06-21 BBC

BBC News with Michael Powles.

Israel has released details of how it proposes to ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip, saying all civilian goods will now be allowed in. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the current system of listing goods permitted to enter Gaza would be replaced by a smaller list of the items that are banned. Israel has faced intense international pressure to ease the blockade after an Israeli raid on ships carrying aid to Gaza three weeks ago resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish activists. The Middle East envoy Tony Blair said today's statement would achieve three things.

"It moves from a situation where only those items on the permitted list can come into Gaza to a situation where things come into Gaza as a matter of course unless they are on the prohibited list. It allows us to facilitate the United Nations projects for reconstruction in things like schools and hospital and water sanitation and so on."

The German Development Minister Dirk Niebel has criticized Israel's refusal to allow him to enter Gaza. Mr Niebel, who is currently on a visit to Israel, said the government was hurting its own interests and making it difficult for its friends to understand its behaviour. He’d hoped to meet officials from the UN refugee agency in Gaza and visit a sewage treatment plant funded by a German development aid.

Police in Iraq say 26 people have been killed and more than 50 others wounded in two suicide car bombings. They happened outside a bank and the Interior Ministry in Baghdad. Jim Muir reports.

The two bombs went off about a minute apart as the suicide drivers blew up their cars at a checkpoint controlling access to the bank and the ministry building. The bank took the brunt of the blasts which ripped the front of the building. Security guards were among the dead and injured, but so too were people who happened to be in the area at a busy time, going to the bank or to the ministry building which gives out identity cards. Only last week, the heavily-guarded Iraqi central bank was attacked by suicide gunmen, prompting speculation that financial institutions may be the latest category of targets chosen by insurgents.

Exit polls from Poland's presidential election suggest that the acting President Bronislaw Komorowski has won the most votes but without the 50% needed for outright victory. His closest rival is Yaroslav Kaczynski, the twin brother of the late President Lech Kaczynski who was killed in a plane crash in Russia in April. Adam Easton reports from the capital Warsaw.

The three exit polls were announced immediately after the polling stations closed. They put Mr Komorowski in the lead by between 5 and 13 percentage points over his main rival Yaroslav Kaczynski. None predicted he had won more than 50% of the votes to avoid a second round. The exit polls suggest Mr Kaczynski, who campaigned on continuing his brother's legacy, received a significant sympathy vote following his personal loss but not enough to overcome Mr Komorowski.

BBC News.

Polls have closed in the deciding round of Colombia's presidential election. Turnout was reportedly lower than in the first round. Surveys conducted ahead of the elections suggested a win for the government candidate and former Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos, who narrowly missed winning outright in the first round. His rival is the Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus, a former mayor of the capital Bogota.

The State Department in Washington says the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have discussed the recent violence in Kyrgyzstan in which about 2,000 people are believed to have died. A spokesman said that during the phone call, Mrs Clinton and Mr Lavrov shared their concern over the continued ethnic tension there. Aid agencies say the violence has displaced 400,000 people, including 100,000 who fled across the border into Uzbekistan.

At the football World Cup, the French squad has boycotted the training session, prompting the team director Jean-Louis Valentin to resign. France have just one point from their first two matches, and are at risk of elimination. Alex Capstick in Johannesburg has the story.

Preparations for France's crucial qualifying match against South Africa on Tuesday have been thrown into chaos. The players refused to take part in a training session which was open to the public in protest at Nicolas Anelka's expulsion from the squad. The striker was thrown out of the team on Saturday following a heated argument with the head coach Raymond Domenech. Mr Domenech read out a statement written by the players which accused the French Federation of taking a decision based on facts supplied by the press. It's been reported there was also an altercation between the captain Patrice Evra and the fitness coach. The team director Jean-Louis Valentin has called the incident a scandal. He was so fed up. He decided to go home.

In the latest game, Brazil have beaten Ivory Coast three-one. Earlier, the current champions Italy were held to a one-all draw by New Zealand, and Paraguay beat Slovakia two-nil.

And that's the latest BBC News.