BBC news 2011-05-11 加文本

BBC news 2011-05-11

BBC News with Jerry Smit

The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says China will fail in what she says are its efforts to resist democracy. In an interview published during high-level talks with a Chinese delegation, she said China was running scared because of the popular uprisings in the Arab world and was trying to stop history. At a joint news conference, Mrs Clinton said the talks had been frank.

"We discussed everything, and whether it was something that was sensitive to us or sensitive to them, all the difficult issues including human rights. And we both have made our concerns very clear to the other. We had candid discussions on some of our most persistent challenges from addressing North Korea and Iran to rebalancing the global economy."

The world-famous sculptor Anish Kapoor has called on museums and galleries around the world to close for a day to protest against the Chinese government's detention of the artist Ai Weiwei. Speaking to the BBC, Mr Kapoor said that the cultural community needed to stand side by side with Ai Weiwei, a vocal critic of the Chinese government.

"We as a community of artists and cultural bond, if you like, need to voice our solidarity with Ai Weiwei. It's completely unacceptable that simply for recording the deaths that have occurred through bureaucracy and inefficiency in his country he has seemingly been arrested and put away in this way."

As Syrian troops continue to tighten their grip on cities where anti-government protests have been strongest, a human rights group says it has evidence that at least 750 people have been killed in the violence so far. The National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria says it has a list of names and causes of death for each victim.

In a decision that's outraged much of Belgium, the former wife and accomplice of a convicted paedophile is to be released early from prison, having served less than half of her 30-year sentence. Michelle Martin was charged for her role in assisting her husband Marc Dutroux to kidnap and rape six young girls, four of whom died. Bethany Bell reports.

The way is now clear for Michelle Martin to walk free. Under Belgian law, convicts can ask for early release after serving one third of their sentence. On Tuesday, the prosecutor's office did not lodge an appeal against the move. It's expected that Michelle Martin will move to a convent in France to serve out her probation. The decision has caused a huge outcry in Belgium. Parents of the victims have protested against her release, and a Facebook campaign opposed to her parole has attracted huge support.

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President Obama has called for a comprehensive overhaul of US immigration laws. Speaking in Texas close to the border with Mexico, Mr Obama said bringing illegal immigrants out of the underground economy would be good for the country as a whole. It's estimated that there are some 11 million illegal immigrants in the US. President Obama said fixing the system would reduce the number of people entering the country illegally to look for work and allow border agents to focus on threats from drug traffickers and terrorists.

Microsoft has agreed to buy the Internet telephone service Skype for $8.5bn, the biggest deal in the software maker's 36-year history. Owning Skype, which allows users to make voice and video calls over the Internet, will give Microsoft access to its 170 million monthly users.

Football's world governing body Fifa has promised to investigate bribery accusations made against senior members of its organising committee. The allegations made to a British parliamentary committee came from Lord Triesman, the head of England's unsuccessful bid for the 2018 World Cup. He said four Fifa members had behaved unethically during the bid process, one asking for a knighthood, and another asking for a payment of several million dollars. Lord Triesman told the committee how he and England's Fifa representative Sir Dave Richards had reacted.

"As he described it, Sir Dave nodded to me. I understood exactly what the nod meant. It meant this is what we probably came in the room expecting to hear. And I said immediately that in my view [the] proposition was out of the question."

The UN says four of its peacekeepers in Sudan have been wounded in a tense border region between the north and the south of the country. The attack, which the UN has called uNPRovoked, took place in the Abyei region, which is being claimed by both sides. There are concerns that a new civil war may break out if no solution is found.

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