BBC news 2011-03-11 加文本

BBC news 2011-03-11

BBC News with David Legge

President Obama's top intelligence adviser says he expects Colonel Gaddafi to win his battle to stay in power. The US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, told a Senate hearing that the Libyan leader's forces had better equipment and were better trained and would probably prevail over the long term. Mark Mardell reports from Washington.

President Obama has said that Gaddafi should go, but now his top intelligence adviser has said the Libyan ruler will probably win his battle to stay in power. The director of national intelligence, Gen James Clapper, has told politicians on Capitol Hill that over time, in the longer term, Gaddafi will probably prevail because he has better trained and equipped troops. He added another possible outcome was the breakup of Libya into what he called three semi-autonomous mini states. He didn't answer questions from politicians who felt that meant imposing a no-fly zone was urgent.

Nato defence ministers have resisted calls for an air exclusion zone over Libya. The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has meanwhile said her main aim was to build momentum behind any action against Colonel Gaddafi.

"We are working to create an international consensus. You can see that there's a lot of ambivalence in the international community. People don't know what the opposition represents. They don't know the most effective way to try to, you know, get rid of Gaddafi. So everybody is working hard. We are internally in our own government looking at every option imaginable."

In Libya itself, rebels holding the eastern oil port of Ras Lanuf have come under heavy attack from Colonel Gaddafi's forces. Heavy fighting has also been reported further east in the rebel-held town of Brega, which has been bombed by government planes. The International Committee of the Red Cross has meanwhile said that Libya has now descended into civil war.

Police in an eastern province of Saudi Arabia have opened fire on a rally as protesters took to the streets to call for political reforms in the kingdom. Witnesses have reported gunfire in the city of Qatif, and there are reports of stun grenades being used on the demonstrators.

Representatives of Laurent Gbagbo, the Ivory Coast's leader who refuses to leave, have rejected an African Union proposal aimed at resolving the country's crisis. The plan was drawn up by a team of five African heads of state who were given the task of resolving the dispute. Will Ross reports.

Mr Gbagbo boycotted this summit probably because leaving the country would be risky for the man seen by much of the international community as the illegitimate president of Ivory Coast. An official from his party suggested the AU would be responsible for pushing the country into civil war if it insisted on recognising Alassane Ouattara as the rightful president. The hardline position stated by Mr Gbagbo's team might push Africa's presidents towards favouring a power-sharing deal to try to prevent the slide into civil war.

World News from the BBC

Human Rights Watch has criticised Russia for allowing the Chechen authorities to introduce a compulsory Islamic dress code for women. The report details the testimonies of women who say they've been victims of intimidation. Here's Sam Wilson.

The report highlights the story of a young woman walking down the street in the Chechen capital Grozny. Her hair is uncovered. A car pulls up, and she's shot in the chest with a paintball gun. Human Rights Watch says such attacks are part of what's been called a "virtue campaign", mounted with the explicit support of Chechnya's President Ramzan Kadyrov. It says few women now dare to step out without head scarves and long dresses. The campaign group says Russia's leaders have turned a blind eye, even though a religious dress code breaches the country's constitution.

The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has accused the United States and the United Nations of conspiring to defame his government. He said criticism by the US and the UN drugs agency over Bolivia's handling of the war on drugs were part of a strategy to falsely link his government to drug trafficking. Mr Morales said the US was trying to force him to invite American anti-narcotics agents, which he expelled in 2008, back in the country.

A controversial congressional hearing on the alleged radicalization of the American Muslim community has opened amid tight security in Washington. The committee chairman Peter King defended the panel.

"Let me make it clear today that I remain convinced that these hearings must go forward and they will. To back down would be a craven surrender to political correctness and an abdication of what I believe to be the main responsibility of this committee - to protect America from a terrorist attack."

But a civil liberties group has compared the hearings to Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch-hunt against Communist sympathisers in the 1950s.

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