BBC news 2010-10-24 加文本

BBC news 2010-10-24

BBC News with Fiona MacDonald

Gunmen have shot dead at least 13 young people at a party in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's most violent city. At least 15 others were wounded, among them a nine-year-old child. It's the latest massacre in what is Mexico's most violent city. Here is James Read.

Prosecutors said the attackers arrived at the house party at around midnight on Friday in several cars and opened fire with automatic weapons. Local media showed bodies strewn across the garden, and police found more than 70 bullet casings at the scene. In Ciudad Juarez, such killings have become familiar. The city is a battleground between rival drugs cartels, with about 5,000 murders in the last two years alone.

A stampede among football supporters in Kenya has killed at least seven people as they tried to get into a stadium to watch a match between two of the country's most popular teams. A Red Cross official said six of the fans were killed at the Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi, and the seventh died later in hospital. Will Ross reports.

Those who died were crushed as the crowd of supporters surged forward to get into the stadium. Dozens of injured were taken to hospitals across the capital. Play was suspended for about 15 minutes and then the match continued. There will no doubt be questions about the organisation of the game. It had been raining heavily prior to the match, which meant many fans struggled to arrive on time. This could have contributed to the last-minute rush to get in.

There has been more violence in the West African state of Guinea after a presidential run-off vote due to be held on Sunday was postponed indefinitely. Rival supporters fought running battles on the streets of the capital Conakry. Police intervened and shots were fired. Had the run-off gone ahead, it would have completed Guinea's first free and fair election since independence from France in 1958.

In an interview with BBC Persian television, the former First Lady of the United States Laura Bush has said that women's rights in Afghanistan should not be sacrificed in any reconciliation with the Taliban. Jill McGivering reports.

Laura Bush was America's first lady in 2001 during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban. She spoke passionately at the time about the need to restore women's rights in the country. Now she's added her voice to the growing debate about talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. People in the United States and in allied countries should know, she said, that if there was some sort of reconciliation with the Taliban, women's rights could not be sacrificed.

Roman Catholic bishops from the Middle East have called on the international community to implement United Nations resolutions and end Israel's occupation of Arab lands. The bishops said this would allow the Palestinians to have an independent and sovereign homeland and give the state of Israel security within its internationally recognised borders.

World News from the BBC

The high court in Egypt has ordered the government to abolish police units at university campuses. The court rejected an appeal by the government against an earlier ruling which declared the permanent deployment of police on campuses a violation of the constitution. Rights groups have long criticised the presence of police on campuses, saying its sole purpose was to prevent students from engaging in politics.

The Wikileaks website has defended its release of secret American files about the conflict in Iraq, saying the disclosure was aimed at revealing the truth about the war. The documents suggest US forces turned a blind eye to torture by Iraqi security forces. The Pentagon said it had no plans to reinvestigate the alleged abuses because its troops passed on reports of such incidents to the Iraqi authorities at the time. Steve Kingstone reports.

In a written statement to BBC News, a US military spokesman, Colonel Dave Lapan, said American policy was consistent with the United Nations Convention Against Torture. He stressed that when allegations involved the abuse of Iraqis by Iraqis, the role of American soldiers was to "observe and report" what they'd seen to their superiors, who would then pass on the evidence to the Iraqi authorities. Colonel Lapan said this was "customary international practice".

Opposition Social Democrats have secured a majority in the Czech senate for the first time. Voters were selecting a third of the senators for the 81-seat upper house of the Czech parliament, and the Social Democrats now control 41 seats. Correspondents say the Social Democrats' gains could allow them to slow down reforms proposed by the centre-right government.

The President of Malawi Bingu wa Mutharika has opened a waterway that links his landlocked country to the Indian Ocean. When fully operational, it will run more than 200km from an inland port in southern Malawi to the coast of Mozambique. The president said the waterway would boost trading opportunities for Malawi as well as its neighbours, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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