BBC news 2011-01-23 加文本

BBC news 2011-01-23

BBC News with Julie Candler

Riot police in Algeria have broken up an opposition demonstration by dozens of people in Algiers, who’ve been calling for greater freedom. Officials say 19 people were injured. The opposition puts the figure at more than 40. Several arrests were also made. Some of the demonstrators were waving Tunisian flags that link to the unrest in neighbouring Tunisia. Chloe Arnold in Algiers says the protest was short-lived.

It was broken up almost before it had begun. There were people wearing Tunisian flags and Algerian flags, but an enormous police presence here. I’ve never seen so many riot vans on the streets, helicopters circling overhead. And not actually that many protesters. I mean we are talking about a few hundred at most. But it just shows the extent to which the government is concerned about what’s happening in neighbouring Tunisia that they put on so much of the security force to clamp down on this demonstration.

In Tunisia, several thousand demonstrators including a number of police officers have taken to the streets of the capital Tunis, from where Magdi Abdelhadi reports.

This is a dramatic and extraordinary turn of events in the Tunisian uprising that forced the president to flee the country a week ago. Members of the police, who last week were defending the old regime, have now joined in the demonstration. They say they are victims of the ousted president as much as any other ordinary Tunisian. Despite promises by the interim government to introduce genuine democratic reforms and to hold free and fair elections, the protests don’t seem to end.

The Prime Minister of the Irish Republic Brian Cowen has resigned as leader of the governing Fianna Fail party, but says he will stay on as prime minister until after a general election due in March. The opposition is demanding an immediate dissolution of parliament. Claire Savage reports.

After two-and-a-half years in office, Brian Cowen says he acted on his own counsel to resign as leader of Fianna Fail. Although he won a secret leadership ballot on Tuesday, it was still a week of huge political turmoil for him, in which he saw the resignation of six of his government ministers. The Irish prime minister’s ratings plummeted after criticism over his handling of the country’s economic crisis.

Talks in Istanbul between world powers and Iran over the Iranian nuclear programme have broken up without progress. The chief negotiator for the six world powers, Catherine Ashton, said it was clear that Iran was not ready for detailed discussions and had insisted on preconditions including the lifting of sanctions. The Iranian negotiator said the talks needed common logic and must avoid subjects that give rise to animosity. No new talks have been arranged.

The influential Iraqi Shia cleric, Moqtada Sadr, is reported to have gone back to Iran, less than three weeks after he returned to Iraq in a blaze of international publicity from self-imposed exile in Iran. It’s not clear how long he’ll stay out of Iraq, though one source told BBC the cleric was resuming his religious studies in Iran.

World News from the BBC

Opposition parties in Albania are threatening more protests following violent clashes on Friday between police and tens of thousands of demonstrators, in which three people were killed. Prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for six members of the national guard in connection with the deaths. Our Balkan correspondent Mark Lowen reports.

A spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office confirmed to the BBC that the arrest warrant for the national guard members was issued on Saturday, but has still not been carried out by the state police. The fallout is now being felt from Friday’s clashes, in which three demonstrators were killed outside the office of the Prime Minister Sali Berisha. He is blaming the opposition socialist leader Edi Rama for fermenting the violence. For his part, Mr Rama has accused the prime minister of being the orchestrator of the deaths of the three demonstrators. Video footage aired on the Internet appears to show the shots coming from inside the prime minister’s compound.

A group of West African heads of state have forced the resignation of the governor of the West African Central Bank in an effort to keep up the pressure on Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to step down as president of Ivory Coast. The move came as the European Union said it would impose sanctions on the bank’s governor. From the Ivorian commercial capital Abidjan, John James reports. 

In a month since the Central Bank governor was told to give Alassane Ouattara unique access to the Ivorian bank accounts, Laurent Gbagbo has been able to withdraw around $160m, money that will help him pay army salaries this month and stay on in power. That left heads of state from the West African Monetary Zone meeting in Mali this weekend little choice but to ask the bank governor to resign, which he did. For Mr Gbagbo’s administration, the loss of access to the state accounts will increase the financial pressure. They are already facing travel bans, asset freezes and the threat of a regional military intervention.

BBC News