BBC news 2011-07-17 加文本

BBC news 2011-07-17

BBC News with Sue Montgomery

The aid agency Unicef has airlifted food and medicine to malnourished children in southern Somalia, victims of the drought in the Horn of Africa. The delivery was the first since the Islamist militant group al-Shabab, which controls most of Somalia, dropped its ban on working with foreign relief agencies. Here's our Africa editor Martin Plaut.

Unicef has announced that it has flown a cargo of five tonnes of essential nutritional supplies and medicines to treat severely malnourished children into the town of Baidoa, northwest of the capital Mogadishu. The area is under the control of al-Shabab, which had until recently refused permission for international aid agencies which wanted to work in the areas they hold. Rozanne Chorlton, the Unicef representative for Somalia, said al-Shabab had provided assurances that the agency could operate without undue interference.

The prime minister of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, has called on all Palestinian militant groups to stop firing rockets into Israel. From Gaza, Jon Donnison reports.

This week's violence brought an end to several months of relative calm. At least nine missiles were fired into Israel by small militant groups in Gaza, sometimes called Salafist jihadis. They regard Hamas, who govern in the strip, as too moderate. This week, Israel has also launched attacks on Gaza, killing one Palestinian and injuring around 50. Now though the Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has called for an end to the escalation, he blamed Israel for the violence, but said all militant groups in Gaza must also stop firing. The move will be a test of Hamas's authority.

A conference in Turkey which aimed to unify the Syrian opposition has instead exposed divisions within its ranks. Kurdish activists pulled out after accusing other participants of marginalising them and ignoring the Kurdish issue. Syrian Kurds complain of decades-long discrimination against their community.

The Sudanese authorities are to issue new banknotes following the announcement that the newly independent country of South Sudan will launch its own currency. The Sudanese central bank governor Mohamed Kheir al-Zubeir told the BBC that South Sudan should surrender the two billion Sudanese pounds it was holding as they would soon be worthless.

"Our position is just to give it to us because it is valueless. We do not want to buy it; we want to just, they surrender it to us because it's valueless after they give the value to the Southern Sudanese citizens; then it is valueless."

Another three North Korean footballers at the Women's World Cup have tested positive for banned steroids, bringing the total caught up in the scandal to five. Fifa says the North Koreans have blamed a traditional Chinese remedy based on musk deer glands, which they said was given to the players after some of them were struck by lightning.

World News from the BBC

Tests to establish whether the adopted heirs to Argentina's main media group were stolen as babies during the years of military rule have proven negative. A DNA sample from Marcela and Felipe Noble Herrera did not match those taken from families whose relatives disappeared around the time of their birth. Here's Vanessa Buschschluter of our America's desk.

The negative result was welcomed by the lawyer for the Noble Herrera siblings, who've always maintained that their adoption was legal and that they were not stolen from left-wing prisoners. Their lawyer says this is conclusive proof they have no ties to the victims of Argentina's Dirty War. But human rights groups say birth dates were often falsified to erase the tracks of illegal adoptions and have demanded the siblings' DNA be compared to that of 200 more families.

***本段省略***

Otto von Habsburg, the eldest son of the last ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, has been laid to rest in the imperial crypt in Vienna. Ceremonies recalling the pomp of the empire lasted six hours as the funeral cortege processed through the city. Bethany Bell reports.

A requiem mass and military honours for a man who was once the crown prince of an empire which dominated central Europe for generations. Vienna's cathedral was full of European royals and men in brightly-plumed Habsburg-era uniforms. After the mass, Otto von Habsburg's coffin was brought in solemn procession through the city to the imperial crypt.

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