BBC news 2010-10-27 加文本

BBC news 2010-10-27

BBC News with Fiona MacDonald

A series of natural disasters has struck Indonesia. More than 100 people were reported to have been killed by an earthquake and tsunami in a remote group of islands west of Sumatra. Shortly afterwards, the country's most active volcano Mount Merapi in central Java erupted, killing 13 people. Karishma Vaswani reports from Jakarta.

Officials in West Sumatra said the three-metre-high tsunami washed away at least 10 villages in the Mentawai islands, but getting information from the worst-affected parts of the islands has been challenging. Bad weather has meant no search and rescue teams have been able to arrive in the area as yet. Meanwhile, black ash and soot has been spewing out of Mount Merapi ever since it erupted. Officials say more than 13,000 people have to be moved away from the volcano to refugee camps nearby.

The former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz has been sentenced to death by a court in Baghdad. He was convicted of persecuting Iraq Shia parties during the 1980s and 1990s. Mr Aziz was jailed after the US-led invasion of Iraq. His son Ziad described the verdict as disgraceful.

The UN's top human rights official Navi Pillay has called on Iraq and the United States to investigate allegations of detainee abuse revealed in the release of confidential American military documents by Wikileaks last week. The UN special rapporteur Manfred Nowak went further, calling for a full investigation into any torture practices carried out by US military and intelligence officials. Barbara Plett reports.

Navi Pillay said the leak of American field reports added to her concerns that serious breaches of international human rights law occurred in Iraq. She said the documents indicated that the US continued to transfer detainees to Iraqi forces, despite knowledge of widespread abuse. But the UN's point man on torture, Manfred Nowak, said it wasn't enough to investigate just what happened in Iraq. He urged President Barack Obama to launch a full investigation into any torture practices carried out by US military and intelligence officials, including those who handed detainees to states such as Egypt, Morocco and Syria, knowing they would be ill-treated there.

The authorities in Pakistan have allowed journalists to interview a 14-year-old boy being held in detention, who says he was trained as a suicide bomber by the Taliban. The boy told the BBC he'd been recruited by a friend who'd fought in Afghanistan. He said members of the Taliban had visited him once or twice a week to explain how to carry out attacks.

Leaders of three Latin American countries at the centre of the battle against the drugs trade have called on voters in California to reject the legalisation of marijuana. The presidents of Mexico, Costa Rica and Colombia said legalising marijuana would send a contradictory message.

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The French Senate has given its final approval to plans to raise the retirement age in France from 60 to 62. The reforms have sparked weeks of protests and industrial action. Here is Christian Fraser.

After 143 hours of debate, the French Senate has finally approved Nicolas Sarkozy's controversial pension reforms. In the end, 177 voted in favour, 151 against, 2 abstained, perhaps unsure what it might all mean to the French way of life. The unions are more certain. It's the first assault on hard-earned welfare provision. On Thursday, there'll be another day of demonstrations. But the momentum is draining away - 59% of people say they are now opposed to the blockades of roads, refineries or depots.

Candidates running for the United States Congress have spent more money on their campaigns than in any previous mid-term election. Reports suggest that with one week to go, candidates are on the way to spending more than $2billion. On average, $4million have been spent for every congressional seat up for election. Most of the money has been spent on about 90 marginal seats in the House of Representatives.

The team managing England's bid to host the 2018 football World Cup has made an official complaint to the world governing body Fifa against the head of the rival Russian bid. It concerns remarks he's alleged to have made about crime and alcohol in London. Alex Capstick reports.

Criticising rival candidates is against Fifa rules, but Alexei Sorokin, the head of Russia's bid for the 2018 World Cup, said there's been a misunderstanding. His remarks, which were published in a Russian newspaper, were translated as saying London suffered from a high crime rate and had problems with young people drinking alcohol. Fifa will now have to decide whether there's a case to answer. But a spokesman for the Russian bid, Andreas Herren, said Alexei Sorokin was misquoted.

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