BBC news 2011-06-01 加文本

BBC news 2011-06-01

BBC News with Stewart Macintosh

Less than a week after his arrest in Serbia, the former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic has arrived in The Hague to face charges of genocide in an international war crimes tribunal. General Mladic has been taken to a UN detention unit where he joins more than 30 other inmates indicted for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Chris Morris is in The Hague.

Two helicopters circled the prison on the outskirts of The Hague - one swooped down while the other hovered overhead. A few minutes later, a convoy of cars with blue flashing lights swept in through the prison gates. Sixteen years after the end of the Bosnian war, Ratko Mladic is finally here in The Hague under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He will receive a full medical examination before appearing in court in the next few days, charged with 11 counts of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The English and Scottish football associations have called on the sport's world governing body Fifa to postpone its presidential election amid a row over corruption allegations. Fifa's incumbent president Sepp Blatter is standing unopposed in the election due on Wednesday. The English FA says it's essential an alternative candidate comes forward.

A panel advising the World Health Organisation on cancer says using a mobile phone may increase the risk of certain types of brain tumor. However, they say more research is needed into the effects of what is still a new technology. Imogen Foulkes reports from Geneva.

There are an estimated five billion mobile phones worldwide; three quarters of the world's population uses one. Today, the World Health Organisation's cancer experts said some evidence linking mobile phones to an increase in some forms of brain cancer means that mobile phone use is "possibly carcinogenic". So what should users do? Using a hands-free set does reduce exposure, they said. But they added mobile phones are still a new technology and the work of accurately assessing their possible health risks is only just beginning.

The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has issued a decree granting a general amnesty to political prisoners including members of the Muslim Brotherhood. More than 1,000 people have died in anti-government protests and countermeasures by the security forces. Jim Muir reports.

The announcement of a general amnesty was flashed repeatedly as an urgent item on Syrian state TV. It said President Assad had ordered forgiveness for all crimes committed before 31 May by people belonging to any political movement, including the Muslim Brotherhood. It's a banned organisation which was behind an uprising in the town of Hama in 1982, which was ruthlessly repressed. It's also been expected that the authorities will launch an attempt at national dialogue in the next few days.

This is the World News from the BBC.

There's been international condemnation of the violent suppression of dissent by security forces in Yemen. The United States accused the Yemeni government of indiscriminate attacks in the city of Taiz, where at least 12 protesters have been shot dead. In the capital Sanaa, fighting has continued between government troops and tribesmen who back the revolt against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Lina Sinjab reports from Sanaa.

Tension is felt all around the country. People are worried the situation could turn into a civil war. Opposition groups accuse the president of arming civilians to turn the peaceful protest into one of force. Moderate voices in Yemen are concerned and fear they might use arms at some point to defend themselves if violence continues. But the government say it is launching these attacks against those who broke the law. Pro-democracy activists are calling on the international community to be the guardian of their peaceful demands for change.

German officials say [an] E. coli outbreak that has killed 16 people was not caused by contaminated cucumbers from Spain as they initially reported. The health minister of the city of Hamburg said bacteria found on the imported cucumbers had not caused the infections. Spain says the allegations have severely damaged its agricultural exports.

A draft report commissioned by the United States government suggests far fewer people died in last year's earthquake in Haiti than the Haitian government reported. The report says between 46,000 and 85,000 people were killed. The Haitian government says 316,000 died, and it's standing by its figures.

The International Monetary Fund has reached agreement with Ivory Coast on a $130m loan to help rebuild the country after the violence following last year's disputed election. The IMF predicts that Ivory Coast will continue to feel the after-effects of the conflict.

And that's the latest BBC News.