BBC news 2010-09-13 加文本

BBC news 2010-09-13

BBC News with Neil Nunes

The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the government has comfortably won a referendum on a series of changes to the constitution. Mr Erdogan said according to provisional results, the changes to curb the power of the army and reshape the judiciary had received almost 60% approval. The Turkish government says the amendments are needed to strengthen democracy, but opponents fear they could give the government excessive influence over the courts. From Istanbul, we get this report from Jonathan Head.

"We passed a historic milestone towards a better democracy," said the Turkish prime minister, as he announced a victory for his reform package. He promised to push for further amendments to the constitution in future but said next time he would seek a consensus with the opposition parties, an apparent acknowledgement by Mr Erdogan that the bitterly fought campaign preceding this referendum was not the best way to bring in such important changes. Critics say the mutual mudslinging stifled any proper debate of the amendments.

Senior bank regulators from leading rich and developing countries have agreed new rules for the international banking system that aim to reduce the risk of future financial crisis. At a meeting in the Swiss city of Basle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, said the new rules would make a substantial contribution to long-term financial stability and growth. The BBC's economic correspondent Andrew Walker has more.

One of the lessons of the financial crisis was that banks and other firms in the sector did not have enough capital, a financial shock absorber to protect them from losses. One of the key elements in the international post-crisis reform agenda was to agree new rules that would require banks to hold more. Central bank governors and other regulators have now reached an agreement which will more than triple the amount of the most basic form of capital that banks must hold.

British military police are investigating allegations that British soldiers are involved in smuggling heroin from Afghanistan. It's thought the inquiry is focused on soldiers based at Camp Bastion and Kandahar in the south of the country. Afghanistan is the world's biggest producer of opium, the raw material that is refined into heroin.

The Israeli army has killed at least three Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. A spokesman said the soldiers opened fire after a number of suspects armed with rocket-propelled grenades were spotted approaching the border with Israel. Our Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison has this report from Ramallah.

Doctors in Gaza say the three people killed were all civilians. They say one was a 90-year-old man; a 17-year-old and a 35-year-old were also killed. The attack happened close to the village of Beit Hanoun, right on the border with Israel. Palestinian militants often fire rockets from this part of the Gaza Strip, and local witnesses say at least two were launched earlier in the day. There were no Israeli casualties.

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Israeli officials say the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the Middle East envoy Tony Blair there is no question of extending the current restrictions on building Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinians have threatened to pull out of the newly-launched peace talks if the partial building moratorium, which is due to expire in two weeks, is not extended. But correspondents say both sides' positions suggest there may still be enough room for maneuver to prevent any immediate breakdown of the talks.

A team of French judges and legal experts has arrived in Rwanda to begin a week-long investigation into the killing of President Juvenal Habyarimana 16 years ago. The move follows a thaw in relations between the two countries which restored diplomatic links last year. The ties were broken off in 2006 after an earlier French investigation blamed forces close to the current Rwandan President Paul Kagame for the assassination of President Habyarimana.

The Muslim cleric behind plans to build an Islamic cultural centre near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York says it would have been a disaster if a small church in America had gone ahead with its threat to burn the Koran. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told US television that the burning would have strengthened radicals in the Muslim world.

"This issue has riveted the attention of the whole Muslim world. And whatever we do and whatever we say and how we move and the discourse about it is being watched very, very closely. And if we make the wrong move, it will only expand and strengthen the voice of the radicals and the extremists."

A newborn baby boy has been found in a rubbish bin offloaded from an airliner that landed at Manila in the Philippines. The baby was taken to an airport clinic for medical attention before being handed to social workers. The aircraft had arrived from Bahrain, where many Filipinos work as maids.

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