BBC news 2011-07-08 加文本

BBC news 2011-07-08

BBC News with Iain Purdon

News International, the media group at the centre of a major phone hacking scandal, says this Sunday's edition of its News of the World newspaper will be the last. The company's chairman James Murdoch said the paper had been in the business of holding others to account but had failed when it came to itself. Here's Rob Watson.

The statement says if the allegations against the paper are true, they are "inhuman" and the newspaper "has no place" in the News International company. Mr Murdoch says the paper has a proud history of fighting crime and exposing wrongdoing, but that the good things it does have been sullied by behaviour that was wrong. This truly dramatic move seems designed to take some of the sting out of the crisis and to show that the Murdoch empire is punishing itself.

Some analysts have suggested that the company might launch a new Sunday paper with a different name.

The Metropolitan Police in London say detectives investigating the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World have identified 4,000 potential victims. They say hundreds more people have contacted them, suspecting that their phone messages have been accessed.

The European Court of Human Rights has ordered Britain to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the relatives of Iraqis killed by British troops during the occupation of Iraq. Britain had maintained that human rights laws did not apply to its troops based outside Europe. Campaigners say the ruling paves the way for other Iraqis to seek redress in British courts.

Just over a month since the rocket attack that nearly killed him, the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has appeared on state television, thanking the Saudi authorities, who've overseen his medical treatment. President Saleh, who is still receiving treatment in the Saudi capital, said he'd had several operations.

"I've undergone more than eight successful operations. I had burns because of the incident. A number of other officials, such as the speaker of parliament, the prime minister, his deputy and the governor of Sanaa, have also received treatment. More than 87 people were injured in this incident."

President Obama says Democrats and Republicans are still far apart in talks over America's growing debt. He said both parties now had to accept painful choices. From Washington, Jane O'Brien.

Negotiations over the US budget are becoming urgent because Republicans say they won't raise the national debt ceiling until spending cuts are agreed. That gives the government just a few more weeks to reach a deal or face defaulting on its loans. The biggest sticking points are possible cuts to welfare payments to poor and elderly Americans; another is higher taxes. There's speculation that the White House is hoping to draw support from Democrats and Republicans by agreeing to a bigger budget reduction - $4tn over the next 10 years.

World News from the BBC

There have been new calls for the release of the BBC journalist Urunboy Usmonov, who was detained in Tajikistan last month on charges that he is a member of a banned Islamic group. Amnesty International and Europe's human rights body, the OSCE, said he must be freed immediately. Amnesty said that Usmonov appeared to have been tortured while being held by the Tajik authorities. The BBC says the allegations against Mr Usmonov are unfounded.

The Egyptian authorities have charged 25 people in connection with an attack on protesters in Tahrir Square at the height of the Egyptian revolution earlier this year. Supporters of the then President Hosni Mubarak mounted on camels and horseback forced their way through the crowds, injuring many of the demonstrators and sparking violent clashes. Those indicted include Fathi Sorour, the former speaker of parliament, and Safwat el-Sherif, who headed the former ruling party.

Research by an international team of scientists has found that all polar bears descend from a single female brown bear. It lived between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago in what is modern-day Ireland. Tim de Valmont has the details.

Polar bears and brown bears became distinct species around 150,000 years ago, but have occasionally interbred ever since. The research used DNA samples from bears from across their entire range in Russia, Canada, Greenland, Norway and Alaska. This mother of all bears may show that interbreeding, which had been thought to have threatened the species, may have actually played a key role in helping the polar bear to evolve. There are currently around 20,000 polar bears left living in the wild.

Celebrations have begun in Peru to mark 100 years since the official rediscovery of the ancient mountaintop city of Machu Picchu. A traditional ancient Inca ceremony was held at the site, with dancers dressed in brightly-coloured robes and musicians playing drums and panpipes.

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