BBC news 2011-02-14 加文本

BBC news 2011-02-14

BBC News with Julie Candler

Two days after taking power, Egypt's military authorities have announced they are suspending the constitution and dissolving parliament. A statement said the Higher Military Council would be in power for about six months or until elections could take place. A new committee is being formed to draft a new constitution. From Cairo, Jon Leyne reports.

This sweeping announcement was made on state television less than 48 hours after the departure of President Mubarak. The constitution is being suspended, a committee is being set up to re-draft it and parliament has been dissolved. In some ways, this was expected. The military are already disregarding the constitution; there is no president at the moment for example. The opposition will almost certainly welcome the dissolution of parliament. It was elected in a vote last autumn that was widely condemned as rigged. But the opposition will want to know who will be on the commission to amend the constitution.

Reports from Tunisia say the new government has rushed security forces to coastal areas to stop a Europe-bound exodus of people fleeing poverty and political turmoil in Tunisia. The Italian government has declared that it wants to move Italian forces onto Tunisian territory to stop the tide of immigrants. Duncan Kennedy reports from Rome.

On Sunday alone, around 1,000 migrants from Tunisia crossed the Mediterranean. Italy has declared a state of humanitarian emergency to deal with the large numbers arriving. Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini is due to meet his Tunisian counterpart in the next week to find ways of curbing the inflow as this unexpected fallout from Tunisia's political turmoil gathers momentum.

State media in Burma have published their first direct criticism of the democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi since her release from house arrest after elections last November. A commentary in state-run newspapers came after a statement by Aung San Suu Kyi's party on Western sanctions on Burma. Here's Vivien Marsh.

Since Aung San Suu Kyi's release, the military-backed authorities in Burma have shown little reaction to her frequent public appearances and contacts with foreign media and officials. That silence is now at an end. The newspaper commentary came days after her party, the NLD, refused to advocate the lifting of Western sanctions, saying they primarily affected Burma's rulers, not the people. It said that if she and the NLD ignored the country's march towards democracy, then they would meet what it called their "tragic end".

Swiss voters have decided in a referendum to retain the current system which allows army-issue weapons to be kept at home. It means several million Swiss men won't have to deliver their weapons into army arsenals. A coalition of civil and religious groups and centre-left parties had wanted the system overturned, arguing that Switzerland has one of Europe's highest gun-related suicide rates. But traditionalists said banning the weapons would have broken the long-standing trust between the Swiss people and the army.

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Tens of thousands of women have been demonstrating across Italy to protest against the conduct of the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Some women carried banners reading "Italy is not a brothel" in response to several recent sex scandals in which Mr Berlusconi is accused of attending sex parties and consorting with prostitutes. He's denied any wrongdoing.

Some 17,000 people have formed a human chain in the German city of Dresden to mark the anniversary of the 1945 Allied bombing campaign that flattened the city centre. The participants said they wanted to remember not only the more than 20,000 victims of the bombing, but also those who perished in German bombing raids. They were also opposing and vastly outnumbered a far-right rally, as Steve Evans reports.

Outside Dresden's main station, extreme-right and extreme-left gathered, both dressed in black and separated by riot police with dogs. The left waved the flags of the United States and Britain, the flags of the victors. The right had slogans "Kraft fur Deutschland", power for Germany. The right says the bombing was a war crime and Churchill was the criminal. Their view is not shared by the people in the human chain.

The latest figures from Bangladesh show there's been a marked drop in the number of women who die as a result of being pregnant. From Dhaka, Anbarasan Ethirajan.

The report says that in less than a decade, the number of women dying during pregnancy or childbirth has reduced by 40%. The sharp fall is due to better healthcare facilities, education and the widespread use of mobile phones. The study also shows Bangladeshi women are having fewer babies. Only one fifth of them have four or more children. Now experts say the country needs to achieve a UN goal of reducing the rate even further in the next four years.

Britain's top film awards ceremony, the Baftas, is taking place at the Royal Opera House in central London. The favourite is the British film, the King's Speech.

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