BBC news 2010-09-08 加文本

2010-09-08 BBC

BBC News, this is Mike Cooper.

Militants have carried out a second big bomb attack in as many days against police in northwestern Pakistan. At least twenty people were killed. The Pakistani authorities say militants may be taking advantage of the floods to step up their attacks, as Marian Lanceho reports.

Police say a car bomb detonated at the gates of a residential police compound. The powerful explosion caused several buildings to collapse and more people are feared to be trapped under the rubble. With the run up to Eid, the festival celebrating the end of Ramadan, many people were out in the streets about to break the fast when the bomb went off. There have been three other big bomb attacks in Pakistan in the last week alone, killing almost 120 people. On Monday, the Pakistan Taliban said they carried out the suicide bombing on a police station that killed 19 people.

There's been widespread condemnation of plans by a small church in the United States to burn copies of the Koran on Saturday. The White House said any activity that put American troops in harm’s way was of concern, while NATO said such action contradicted all the values the alliance stood for. There were protests in Afghanistan and in Indonesia, and Iran warned that publicly burning the Koran could unleash an uncontrolled Muslim response. The Florida church says it wants to counter what it describes as “the evil of Islam”.

The United States army says two of its soldiers have been killed and nine wounded in northern Iraq. It said the troops were involved in an exchange of gunfire inside an Iraqi army compound near the city of Tuz. These are the first American military deaths since President Obama declared an end to combat operations in Iraq last week. Gabriel Gatehouse reports from Baghdad.

The shooting happened inside an Iraqi army base. A group of American troops was meeting counterparts from the Iraqi security forces when a man wearing an Iraqi army uniform walked in and opened fire. He wounded 11 US soldiers before he himself was shot and killed. Two of the soldiers later died of their injuries. Nine are being treated on an American base. A spokesman for the US military, Major Lee Peters, told the BBC it was not clear at this stage whether the assailant was an infiltrator or a soldier.

The campaign group, Human Rights Watch, has been promised $100 million by the philanthropist, George Soros. The group must match this donation by raising $10 million a year for ten years. The executive director of Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth, said the money would transform his organization into a truly global one.

“Traditionally, Human Rights Watch has deployed our information in major western capitals to try to get those governments to use our influence on behalf of human rights. But in parts of the world today, there are emerging powers which are also quite significant, for example in Zimbabwe. We need the help of the South African government. So, George's gift is going to allow us to move into key southern capitals. ”

I'm Mike Cooper in London with World News from the BBC.

Nigerian officials say that suspected members of an Islamist sect, Boko Haran, have attacked a prison holding some of the group in the north of the country. Local residents heard gunfire around the central prison in Bauchi, but latest reports say the firing has died down. The sect carried out a series of attacks last year which left hundreds dead.

Mozambique has reversed an increase in the price of bread that sparked off three days of rioting last week killing 13 people. Then government said bread would be sold at its previous price backed by government subsidies. The country's Trade and Industry Minister told the BBC they'd listened to the people.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has arrived in Rwanda to try to ease tensions following a dispute over a leaked UN report. Rwanda threatened to withdraw its troops from UN peacekeeping missions because a draft report accused its army of possible genocide against Hutu refugees in the 1990s.

The authorities in Slovenia say they found a mass grave dating back to the end of the Second World War which could hold the remains of 700 people. The site is in a forest in northern Slovenia. Bethany Bell has more.

Officials in Slovenia said the grave contains the bodies of both men and women with their hands tied behind their backs. Some appeared to have been shot; others hacked to death. It's thought that they were the victims of an atrocity in immediate aftermath of the war, possibly killed by anti-fascist groups seeking revenge on Nazi collaborators. The remains were found last week in a 21-metre long pit. If prosecutors decide to launch an investigation, the bodies will be exhumed.

The Australian author Peter Carey could become the first to win the prestigious Man Booker literary prize three times after making the shortlist for this year's award. His novel, Parrot and Olivier in America, is one of six books in the running for the $77,000 prize.

BBC News.