BBC news 2010-10-11 加文本

BBC news 2010-10-11

BBC News with Julie Candler

The Israeli cabinet has approved a proposal to make non-Jews who want to become citizens swear an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. This loyalty oath has been condemned by a number of Israeli politicians and Arab groups as inflammatory and racist. But the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the oath would make clear the essentially Jewish nature of Israel.

"The state of Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people and a democratic state belonging to all its citizens. Jews and non-Jews enjoy full rights. To my regret, there are those in the world who are trying to blur not only the unique connection between the Jewish people and its homeland, but the unique connection between the Jewish people and its state."

Some commentators suggest that Mr Netanyahu needs the bill in order to secure the support of right-wingers in his coalition for a renewed settlement freeze, saving the peace talks with the Palestinians from collapse.

Almost 100 people, mostly police officers, have been injured in street battles between anti-homosexual protesters and police at a Gay Pride event in the Serbian capital Belgrade. From there, Mark Lowen reports.

Calm has now returned to Belgrade after hours of street battles across the city. Protesters hurled stones and petrol bombs at armed police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. The headquarters of the governing Democratic Party was set alight, and over 80 police officers injured. The Serbian government has responded angrily to scenes all too redolent of the country's violent ultra-nationalist past. A peaceful gay parade was intended to show a democratic modern Serbia striving for EU membership. That image has now been significantly damaged.

The mining minister in Chile says all is going well in the efforts to bring to the surface 33 miners who have been trapped deep underground for more than two months. James Menendez reports from the scene.

The mining minister told a packed news conference the work to install a metal casing in the rescue shaft began early on Sunday and should be finished by around nine o'clock on Monday morning local time. He said that so far, three sections had been lowered into the tunnel. The top 15% of the shaft needs to be lined in order to make sure that a rescue capsule that will be used to raise the miners to the surface can run smoothly. After the casing is complete, testing will then begin on the capsule itself. That could take up to two days, meaning that the rescue may not start until Wednesday.

A United Nations official in Zimbabwe has called for urgent action to support the country's healthcare system, saying 100 children are dying there every day, mostly from preventable causes. Peter Salama of the UN children's agency Unicef said Zimbabwe urgently needed hundreds of millions of dollars invested in its health system.

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The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has warned that if South Sudan votes for independence in January, separatism could spread, in his words, like a "contagious disease" to the whole of Africa. He said the partition of Sudan would change the map of that country, but other African countries would change, too.

Efforts are continuing in Hungary to build a wall around a reservoir, part of which gave way last week, releasing thousands of tons of toxic waste that killed at least seven people. The state secretary for environmental protection said that it was only a matter of days before the rest of the reservoir crumbled, releasing more sludge. Nick Thorpe has been to the scene.

The damaged reservoir looks from its edge like a big rectangular lake of red mud, sloping down to a gaping hole in the northwest corner, through which the original tidal wave of mud was released nearly a week ago. We walked briefly along the northern wall, which officials say is almost certain to collapse, sending the remaining sludge down through the valley. There are three long cracks in the top, each about 15cm wide. Further down the valley, some 3,000 people have been told to prepare for evacuation from the town of Devecser if the reservoir breaks.

Votes have been counted in Kyrgyzstan in the first parliamentary elections since inter-ethnic fighting in June killed more than 400 people. Twenty-nine political parties were competing for 120 seats in what have become the most contested elections in the country's history. There were no reports of violence. The first results are expected on Monday.

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