BBC news 2011-05-04 加文本

BBC news 2011-05-04

BBC News with Iain Purdon

The American intelligence agency, the CIA, has said the United States did not inform Pakistan about the operation to capture Osama Bin Laden because it feared the Pakistani authorities would alert him. Pakistan has described the US raid on Sunday in Abbottabad as an "unauthorised unilateral action" and said it should not be taken as a rule. From Washington, here's Mark Mardell.

Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA, has told Time magazine it was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardise the mission. He also reveals that the final decision to opt for a commando raid rather than firing cruise missiles at the compound from the air was only taken last Thursday. Panetta says that President Obama was in the end swayed by the number of dead a cruise missile attack would leave and the risk of hitting other homes. So the CIA chief told the Navy Seal team "Go in there, get Bin Laden, and if Bin Laden isn't there, get the hell out."

The White House has said Osama Bin Laden was not armed when he was killed by US forces, but he resisted the attempt to capture him alive. Also from Washington, here's Paul Adams.

On Monday, the president's counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan suggested that Osama Bin Laden might have been armed during Sunday morning's assault. Now the White House spokesman Jay Carney says this was not the case. Mr Brennan also raised the possibility that one of Bin Laden's wives was shot dead when someone used her as a human shield. But Mr Carney says that Bin Laden's wife was shot in the leg when she tried to stop a member of the American team from reaching her husband. He says another woman was killed in crossfire but on a different floor of the building. Meanwhile, the White House is still hesitating over whether to release a photograph of Osama Bin Laden's dead body.

The United States has condemned Syria for using force against protesters, saying the deployment of tanks and mass arrests amounted to barbaric measures. Hundreds of people are thought to have been killed or injured in recent days, particularly in the southern city of Deraa. One eyewitness who didn't want to be named said the main hospital there was being closely monitored by security forces.

"Deraa national hospital has become a military barracks that's being occupied by the army. They're arresting everyone there, including the injured. The only hospitals people can use now are the ones in the outskirts of the town or the smaller hospitals in neighbouring villages."

At least four people have been killed in a car bomb attack in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Many others were wounded in the blast. It happened near a market in a southern area of Baghdad.

About 80 people suspected of having links to the mafia have been detained in Italy. Forty arrests were made in a series of dawn raids in Calabria in the south. Those detained included a mayor and local officials. Another group of 40 people accused(口误成excused) of extortion and drug smuggling between Italy and Spain was arrested around the city of Naples.

World News from the BBC

Portugal has reached an agreement on a financial bailout package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The Prime Minister Jose Socrates said that the three-year loan would reach about $116bn. Portugal is the third eurozone country after Greece and Ireland to reach an agreement on a joint bailout from the EU and the IMF.

At least 14 miners are trapped underground at a coal mine in Mexico following a gas explosion. It happened in the northern state of Coahuila. One of the miners managed to get out alive. He's thought to be a 14-year-old boy, who sustained severe injuries. It's not yet known whether his colleagues are alive.

An inquest jury has found that a man who died in the fringes of the protests against the G20 summit in London in 2009 was unlawfully killed by the police. The case caused controversy at the time as police alleged that Mr Tomlinson had died of natural causes. Gabriel Gatehouse reports.

Amateur footage shows Ian Tomlinson walking slowly away from a police line. He has his hands in his pockets, and he's swaying slightly. Suddenly an officer wearing riot gear pushes Mr Tomlinson in the back, sending him crashing to the ground. He died shortly after that incident. PC Simon Harwood admitted pushing Mr Tomlinson, who was not taking part in the protest, and hitting him with a baton. The jury at the inquest ruled that he had used excessive and unreasonable force, and the policeman could now be charged with manslaughter.

Hundreds of Palestinians, many of them schoolchildren, packed into a hall in Gaza for a rare classical concert led by the Israeli-Argentine conductor Daniel Barenboim. A collection of musicians from across Europe, known as the Orchestra for Gaza, performed a peace concert, opening with a work by Mozart. It was the first time that Daniel Barenboim, a campaigner for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, had visited the territory.

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