BBC news 2011-01-28 加文本

BBC news 2011-01-28

BBC News with David Austin

The ruling party in Egypt has said it's ready for dialogue with the public and opposition parties during a third day of protests against the government. The Egyptian opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei has meanwhile returned to the country, saying he intends to take part in protests on Friday to support demands for a better life. The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo says Mr ElBaradei may cause difficulties for the authorities.

He does present a big problem to the government. He's well-respected in this country, but he's also very well-respected overseas, and so if he's the head of the protest, then it'll be a dilemma. They can't really go in and break up the protests as they've been doing in the last few days, or it's very difficult for them to deal with that big international embarrassment. So that's the problem he creates for the government here.

In Yemen, too, tens of thousands of people have demonstrated, calling for the president of the past three decades Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave office. Protesters gathered in several parts of the capital Sanaa, chanting that it was time for change and evoking the popular uprising in Tunisia. One opposition politician, Salah Eldeen Ahmed, had angry words about Mr Saleh's assumed intention to install his son as his political heir.

"We want to say no to the extension of power and the succession, which would continue the corruption. This demonstration is a sign of rejection of that, and the people will not back down."

The Tunisian Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi is to stay on in his job but has reshuffled his cabinet, replacing his defence, interior and foreign ministers. Mr Ghannouchi said his government was transitional and would stay in office only until it'd completed its mission of taking the country to democracy. Earlier in the day, the interim Foreign Minister Kamel Morjane resigned from his post.

There's growing concern in South Africa about the health of Nelson Mandela, who's spending a second day in a Johannesburg hospital. Our correspondent Karen Allen is there.

There's been a stream of visitors from Mr Mandela's family and members of the ruling party, the ANC, but still no official word about his condition. President Jacob Zuma, speaking from a conference in Switzerland, called for calm, reiterating the line that the former leader is in hospital for a routine checkup, and said medical staff should be left to do their job. But close friends of Mr Mandela say privately at 92 his health has deteriorated over recent months. And the silence over his present condition is doing little to calm an anxious nation.

Prosecutors in Italy have released documents allegedly linking the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with an underage Brazilian prostitute. He's already being investigated on suspicion of paying a 17-year-old Moroccan dancer for sex, an allegation he denies. A parliamentary committee has recommended that investigators should not be granted a search warrant for Mr Berlusconi's home.

This is the World News from the BBC.

An official report in the United States says the American banking crisis that rocked the global economy three years ago was caused by the failure of regulators and excessive risk-taking on the part of the financial industry. The investigating panel said the crisis was avoidable and resulted directly from human action and inaction. But the panel divided along party lines with Republican members producing their own separate reports.

The authorities in Chile are to launch the first-ever investigation into the death of the socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973. His body was found in the presidential palace after it was attacked by troops and planes during the coup that brought Gen Augusto Pinochet to power. Here's Gideon Long.

The circumstances surrounding Salvador Allende's death have always been hotly debated. The most widely accepted version of it is that on 11 September, 1973 as Gen Pinochet's forces stormed the presidential palace where he was sheltering, Mr Allende committed suicide. A member of Mr Allende's medical staff who was in the palace at the time has confirmed that version of events, and the former president's family has accepted it. But the death has never been formally investigated, and some of Mr Allende's supporters on the political left insist he was shot dead by the soldiers.

The dispute over a game of billiards in central Nigeria has sparked a sectarian clash that left four people dead and dozens of buildings on fire. Police said five mosques and 50 homes were set alight in Tafawa Balewa as Christian and Muslim youths fought each other.

Mexican smugglers have adopted an ancient technology as a way of getting drugs into the United States. A US military surveillance system filmed several people using a 3m-tall catapult to fling packages of marijuana across the border from Mexico to Arizona. Mexican soldiers seized the catapult which was mounted on a trailer, but the smugglers escaped.

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