BBC news 2010-11-02 加文本

BBC news 2010-11-02

BBC News with Marion Marshall

British security officials say the crucial tip-off on the parcel bombs addressed to a Chicago synagogue and discovered on cargo planes on Friday came from a suspected al-Qaeda member. The man is a Saudi Arabian national. More from our security correspondent Gordon Corera.

It appears that a member of al-Qaeda who had been to the Saudi rehabilitation programme, then left and went and joined al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, but then left again and left the al-Qaeda grouping and returned to the Saudi authorities. About two weeks ago, we think, and with him came a tip-off and the intelligence about this potential plot which was then shared by the Saudis with American and other authorities, and clearly that was vital because if these devices had got through the initial security screening, and so without that tip-off, they may well have exploded.

The British government has introduced new security restrictions in the wake of the parcel bomb discovery. Air passengers will no longer be able to carry printer cartridges in their hand luggage and no unaccompanied air cargo will be allowed into Britain from Somalia.

Campaigning is drawing to a close across the United States in national elections that will decide control of Congress. Opinion polls suggest President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party could lose control of the House of Representatives, but the campaign for the Senate is expected to be much tighter. More from Jonny Dymond.

After a frantic final four-state swing, President Obama has spent this last day before the elections in the White House, recording radio interviews and rallying volunteers by phone. Up and down the country, the airwaves are heavy with blast and counter-blast from candidates who have outspent any that have come before them. One non-partisan group estimates that the final spend on this election will be $4billion.

President Barack Obama has renewed American sanctions against Sudan for another year in an effort to keep the pressure on Khartoum to resolve the conflicts in the country. But a spokesman said the US would reconsider its approach if there was progress in resolving a bitter North-South dispute and improve the humanitarian situation in Darfur.

The electoral commission in Ivory Coast has said the turnout in Sunday’s presidential election was about 80%, a figure it called “historic”. The election, the first in ten years, is aimed at bringing an end to a civil war which left Ivory Coast divided for several years. John James reports from Abidjan.

So far only results for Ivorians who voted outside the country have been partially published. They suggest a second round between current President Laurent Gbagbo and former International Monetary Fund economist Alassane Ouattara. But these results represent a tiny percentage of the overall electorate. A large proportion of the country’s 5.7 million voters came out to cast their ballots on Sunday, creating long queues in front of many of the voting centres. The head of UN peacekeeping mission said the turnout was one of the highest-ever in Africa.

BBC News.

American health authorities say the cholera strain which has killed more than 330 people in Haiti most closely resembles a strain found in South Asia. The US Centre for Disease Control found that Haitian cholera patients had all been infected by the same strain of the disease. The Haitian health minister said it was unlikely to have originated in Haiti.

A judge in Uganda has ordered a newspaper to stop publishing the names, addresses and photographs of people it says are homosexual.A Uganda gay rights group minortity requested the injunction after the newspaper published for a second time the identities of some people it said were homosexual. A spokesperson for the group, Pepe Julian Onziema, said the newspaper caused a lot of problems in the gay community.

"It created a lot of scare. The community were very afraid. For myself, it was like 'I cannot keep only living in fear in this country'. My rights have been violated by me being outed in that paper, and my colleagues as well."

The newspaper editor last month defended his decision to name homosexuals, saying they were trying to recruit children.

The Turkish Kurd militant group, the PKK, has said it had nothing to do with a suicide bomb attack in Istanbul on Sunday, in which 32 people were wounded. The group said it was out of the question that any of its fighters could carry out a bombing which would hurt civilians.

Police in Northern Ireland say a bomb discovered in a car at Belfast International Airport at the weekend could have been there since last year. The device, found in the long-stay car park near the airport, was found to contain flammable liquid. It was made safe by a bomb disposal team.

The Catholic Church in Cuba says the government has agreed to release three more dissidents. One of the men has served more than 25 years in jail for stealing seven rifles when he was 19 years old. Under the deal brokered by the church, the three would be exiled in Spain.

BBC World Service News