BBC news 2011-04-16 加文本

BBC news 2011-04-16

BBC News with Julie Candler

Police in Syria have used tear gas and batons to break up crowds of anti-government protesters marching towards the centre of Damascus in a rare protest there. There have been other demonstrations in cities across Syria. Owen Bennett-Jones reports.

The protests were large and took place in towns and cities all over the country including Damascus. Many thousands of people marched towards the capital until they came face to face with a large deployment of security personnel determined to prevent them from reaching the centre of the city. Witnesses say the police beat the protesters with batons and used tear gas to disperse the crowds. There are also reports of live ammunition having been used in one Damascus suburb. Elsewhere including in the city where the protests began, Deraa, the authorities are reported to have allowed the protests to occur without trying to break them up.

Human rights groups say rape and sexual abuse have risen to alarming levels in Ivory Coast during the last few weeks, as forces loyal to the President Alassane Ouattara battled for control. The aid charity, the International Rescue Committee, spoke to women who had fled the conflict into neighbouring Liberia, where more than 100,000 refugees are seeking shelter. From Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan, John James reports.

Women who've fled the fighting in Ivory Coast have told aid workers stories of mass rape and abuse. In some cases, women have been imprisoned for up to a week as sexual slaves, brutally raped by numerous fighters before being released. Many others were killed. One woman was forced to watch the mass rape of her sister who then died from her injuries. The youngest reported victim was seven years old.

Final preparations are taking place in Nigeria for Saturday's presidential election, the biggest such poll in Africa. The head of the African Union's observer mission said it had found some shortcomings but was confident that the electoral commission would resolve them. The current President Goodluck Jonathan is regarded as the clear front-runner, even though his People's Democratic Party lost seats in parliamentary elections last week.

President Obama has said that failure to agree with Congress to allow the US to continue borrowing could plunge the world economy back into recession. He made the remark in an interview with the news agency Associated Press. Our economics correspondent Andrew Walker reports.

The United States government currently pays for a quarter of its spending with borrowed money, so the accumulated debt continues to rise, and in May it'll reach the maximum allowed by Congress, over $14tn. If Congress refuses to increase the limit, it would severely disrupt government business, and if that continued long enough, it could have a negative impact on the economy in the US and unsettle global financial markets. However, neither the Republicans in Congress nor President Obama would want to be blamed for that, so they have a compelling incentive to reach an agreement.

World News from the BBC

A meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Berlin has ended without a commitment from members of the alliance to send more strike planes to Libya. The Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the threat to Libyan civilians would not disappear while Colonel Gaddafi was still in power, but he reiterated that Nato was strictly conforming to the UN mandate to protect civilians.

The Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor has described as "unacceptable" the war crimes convictions of two former generals regarded as war heroes in Croatia. Ante Gotovina, one of the most senior Croats to be brought to justice, was jailed for 24 years for atrocities against Serbs in 1995 during the breakup of Yugoslavia. His co-accused Mladen Markac received an 18-year sentence. The Croatian prime minister said her government would appeal against the judgments.

A court in Chile has ordered the exhumation of the remains of the former President Salvador Allende as part of an investigation into the cause of his death in 1973. The exhumation must be carried out in the next 30 days. James Read reports.

Salvador Allende's body was found in Chile's presidential palace after it was attacked by troops and planes during the coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. Witnesses at the time said he killed himself rather than surrender using a rifle given to him by his friend, the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, but some supporters of the left-wing leader think he may have been killed by soldiers. A new investigation into his death was launched in January. It's one of hundreds of unresolved human rights cases dating back to military rule when thousands of Chileans were tortured and killed.

Severe storms in the United States have killed at least nine people. Strong winds caused extensive damage with electricity pylons being torn down in the state of Arkansas. At least 25 people were injured when a tornado flattened buildings and toppled trees in the small town of Tushka, Oklahoma.

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