BBC news 2011-05-28 加文本

BBC news 2011-05-28

BBC News with Marion Marshall

The governing body of world football, Fifa, has opened ethics proceedings against its president Sepp Blatter at the instigation of his rival for the Fifa leadership Mohamed Bin Hammam. Both will answer questions about alleged bribery at Fifa's ethics committee on Sunday. Here's Alex Capstick.

Mohamed Bin Hammam, who is challenging Sepp Blatter for the Fifa presidency, has accused the incumbent of failing to report allegations of bribery. So both candidates for the top job in world football, along with the Fifa vice president Jack Warner, will be forced to defend their probity at a hearing on Sunday. Mohamed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner will be questioned over bribery charges, which relate to a meeting of Caribbean union officials earlier this month. Up to 25 delegates who will vote in the election were allegedly offered money for their support. Mr Bin Hammam denied the charges and said it was a smear campaign launched by those backing Sepp Blatter.

A Serbian judge has ruled that the former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic is fit enough to be transferred to the war crimes tribunal at The Hague. The general's lawyer said he would appeal against the decision on Monday on the grounds of his client's poor health. Meanwhile, the Serbian President Boris Tadic has announced that Ratko Mladic will be extradited despite his family's appeal. Mark Lowen reports from Belgrade.

The family of Ratko Mladic say he's a sick man, who needs an independent and urgent medical assessment in Belgrade, but that claim has failed to convince the Serbian president. Speaking to the BBC, President Tadic said that despite attempts to lodge an appeal against the extradition, Ratko Mladic will be transferred to The Hague to face charges of genocide and other war crimes, and that those who are found to have protected him during his years in hiding will be prosecuted too.

Crash investigators say the pilots of an Air France jet struggled for almost four minutes to regain control of their plane before it plunged, tail first, into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago. With more details, here's Mark Lobel.

The French officials said the pilots of flight 447 were guided by false readings from airspeed indicators as they tried to control the plane through turbulent weather. In the confusion, the pilots were unable to maintain the aircraft's speed, and the plane stalled. As the crew struggled to regain control, the plane dropped 38,000 feet in just three and a half minutes, tail first, killing all 228 people on board. The safety investigators, who will publish an interim report within the next few months, said the crew followed the correct procedure and that the weight and balance of the aircraft and responsiveness of its engines were satisfactory.

Russia, until now a fierce critic of military action in Libya, has joined world leaders in urging Colonel Gaddafi to stand down. At the end of a G8 summit in Deauville in northern France, the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the world no longer saw Colonel Gaddafi as the Libyan leader, so he should go into exile but not in Russia.

World News from the BBC

The Rwandan government has been accused of forcing people to exhume the bodies of relatives killed during the 1994 genocide for display at memorial sites. In a BBC documentary, the Rwandan opposition said the government threatened to send in prisoners if families refused to move the remains. Mary Harper reports.

The Rwandan Genocide Survivors Association supports the policy of exhuming the remains. Jean-Pierre Dusingizemungu is head of the association.

"The bodies should be preserved properly so that they can be displayed in this way for a long time."

The authorities want the remains of every victim to be shown in public to emphasise the scale and horror of the genocide. But many of those being asked to dig up the remains of those they lost 17 years ago would prefer them to rest in peace.

Six Italian soldiers have been wounded by a roadside bomb in southern Lebanon. It exploded as they were driving past in a United Nations convoy on the main road to the city of Sidon. Italian troops make up the biggest element in the UN force in Lebanon, tasked with keeping the peace in the border region with Israel.

Political parties in Greece have failed to agree on new austerity measures aimed at tackling the country's debt crisis. The opposition leader Antonis Samaras rejected a government plea for cross-party unity, saying he couldn't endorse a plan which, in his words, would flatten the economy and destroy Greek society. Greece is dependent on billions of dollars in loans from the International Monetary Fund and EU countries.

The Communist government of Cuba is easing its restrictions on privately-owned restaurants as part of new reforms announced today. Restaurant owners will be able to serve up to 50 guests at a time, almost twice as many as permitted before. Restaurants are a major source of income for Cuban families who open their homes to foreign tourists.

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