BBC news 2011-04-04 加文本

BBC news 2011-04-04

BBC News with Jonathan Izard

Troops supporting the two rival leaders in Ivory Coast have continued to fight for key buildings in the main city Abidjan, including the presidential palace and state television station. There were reports of heavy artillery fire as forces loyal to the man internationally recognized as the new president, Allasane Ouattara, closed in on those supporting his rival, Laurent Gbagbo. Four United Nations soldiers were seriously wounded during the day. Andrew Harding reports.

Allasane Ouattara’s forces say they are now making a final push to seize the city. Reinforcements have been pouring in – pickup trucks packed with young men. But the fighting appears haphazard and likely to drag on. Laurent Gbagbo, who lost last year’s presidential election, remains somewhere in the city. It’s hard to see how his forces can win this, but they are clinging on. The battle for Abidjan will be decisive.

The American offshore oil and gas drilling contractor Transocean has paid its top executives bonuses for achieving what it said was its best year in safety performance. This is despite the deadly oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico a year ago. Andy Gallacher reports.

A presidential commission concluded that the explosion was caused by cost-cutting and directly blamed Transocean, BP, and Halliburton for the disaster. Despite that Transocean handed out huge bonuses to its executives, citing the company’s best year for safety ever, Transocean’s annual report acknowledges the explosion. But it goes on to say they exceeded internal safety targets. Transocean has always maintained that BP is solely responsible for the oil spill.

Israel has called on the United Nations to scrap a report which accused it of war crimes during its Gaza offensive two years ago. The Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the report was a farce which must be rectified immediately. Its author Richard Goldstone wrote in an American newspaper that his report would have been a different document had he known then what he did today. Judge Goldstone said investigations by the Israeli military and recognized by a UN committee had shown that Israel did not intentionally target Palestinian civilians.

Another attempt is being made to stop radioactive contamination leaking into the sea at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power station in Japan. A crack was discovered on Saturday in a concrete pit at the plant’s number two reactor. From Japan, Rachel Harvey.

A photograph released by officials shows water pouring in a steady jet from a crack in a wall. The water is contaminated with radioactive iodine and it’s leaking into the sea. Attempts to plug the gap with concrete have proved unsuccessful. The next plan is to dig a hole in the trench just behind the pit and fill it with an absorbent polymer. The authorities say the radioactive material will rapidly dissipate in the sea and is not thought likely to endanger health. But the pools of contaminated water within the nuclear plant are hampering efforts to stabilise the reactors.

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The top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, has said the UN will not be driven out of the country in what he called a 'delicate and crucial period’. He was referring to an attack on UN personnel on Friday in the city of Mazar-e Sharif when 14 people, seven of them UN staff, were killed in a protest against the burning of a Qu'ran in the United States. President Obama said the burning of any holy text was an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry.

The man who has ruled Kazakhstan for more than 20 years, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is standing for re-election today with a strong likelihood that he will win again. Under constitutional changes made in 2007, Mr Nazarbayev is allowed to stand as many times as he wishes. From Alma-Ata, Rayhan Demytrie.

Voters in Kazakhstan have the choice of four candidates: three rather obscure politicians and the incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev. But with the main opposition parties boycotting the vote there is no genuine competition. And it is widely expected that after more than 20 years in power, Mr Nazarbayev will win another term. The government wants to ensure high turnout, but it might be difficult as there is certain apathy among the voters.

A state-funded human rights organization in Mexico says thousands of people have disappeared there over the past five years. The National Commission on Human Rights said almost 5,400 people have been reported missing since 2006 when the President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug cartels. A study by the UN has suggested that Mexican security forces may have played a part in the disappearance of some of those missing.

A court in Guatemala has ordered the divorce proceedings of the country’s first couple to be halted. The first lady, Sandra Torres, announced last week that she would divorce the President, Alvaro Colom, so she could stand for election to succeed him. Guatemala’s constitution bans close relatives of the president from running for the top office. Petitioners said the planned divorce was a farce aimed at circumventing the constitution.

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