BBC news 2011-08-16 加文本

BBC news 2011-08-16

BBC News with Marion Marshall

Thousands of Palestinian refugees have been forced to flee from their camp in Syria, which has been hit by heavy fire from government forces bombarding the port city of Latakia. Reports said dozens of others have been injured. A United Nations spokesman, Christopher Gunness, told the BBC that at least four Palestinians have been killed. He said his staff in the camp needed urgent humanitarian assistance for those remaining.

"We have reports that more than half of the camp - the camp is home to 10,000 Palestinian refugees - more than half of them have fled. Some were told to leave by the Syrians; others simply fled. We have no idea where these people are. We have no idea what kind of medical attention they need, which is why we are calling on the Syrian authorities to give us expeditious access. We need to get in there to assess the need to see what people are suffering, and we need thereafter to take in urgently needed humanitarian supplies."

Turkey has warned Syria to end immediately and unconditionally the use of force against anti-government demonstrators. The Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the continued attacks on civilians could not be excused. He said this was Ankara's final word and that unless the violence ceased, Turkey would break off all dialogue.

The judge at the trial of the former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has ruled that future proceedings will not be televised. Judge Ahmed Rifaat said his decision was made in the public interest, but he didn't elaborate. Mr Mubarak, who appeared in court in Cairo for a second time, is charged with ordering the deaths of hundreds of protesters in the uprising. The BBC's Jeremy Bowen has more details.

The trial of former President Mubarak and his two sons is a big test for the new Egypt. Once again, the omens weren't good with the trial judge struggling to bring order to what had become judicial chaos. The judge complained about the noise being made by more than 100 lawyers, telling them to sit down and to show some respect. He's banned any more TV coverage of the trial in what seems to be an attempt to make it less of a circus. The pictures, though, have electrified millions in the Arab world, who thought they'd never see one of the region's strong men so humbled and humiliated.

The Internet giant Google has made its first significant move into hardware by announcing that it's to buy the American mobile phone maker Motorola Mobility. Rory Cellan-Jones has the details.

Google's Android operating system powers more smartphones than any other software. Now with the acquisition of Motorola, it will be able to make its own phones and tablet computers just like its great rival Apple, which has found that controlling everything from hardware to software to shops is the route to huge profits. But what may be more important to Google is the 17,000 patents that Motorola has accumulated over the years. With just about every major player in the industry suing each other at the moment, patents have become an important weapon in the battle for smartphone supremacy.

World News from the BBC

The Netherlands has unfrozen $143m in seized Libyan assets and given the funds to the World Health Organisation. A spokesman for the Dutch government said the funds would be used to provide medicines and surgical equipment in areas held by rebels fighting Colonel Gaddafi's forces.

Police in Nigeria have shot dead a suspected suicide bomber as he drove a car packed with explosives into the police headquarters in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. They say the Islamist sect Boko Haram, which wants to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria, was behind the attack. Mary Harper reports.

The police said they found large quantities of gunpowder and several cans of petrol in the vehicle, enough to cause a massive explosion right at the heart of police operations in Maiduguri. They've blamed Boko Haram, a radical Islamist sect that has for the last two years carried out numerous attacks mainly in northern Nigeria. For its side, the army is investigating alleged abuses of civilians and unlawful killings by soldiers involved in what's proving to be a long and difficult fight against Boko Haram.

President Obama has set off on a bus tour of Midwestern states to try to regain the political initiative after weeks of bad economic news and repeated attacks by Republican opponents. He's visiting Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa to spur his supporters in three states he took in the last presidential election, and can ill afford to lose next year.

Hundreds of Amazonian Indians in Bolivia have begun a long march in protest at the construction of a road through a pristine rainforest reserve. The activists say the highway, funded by Brazil, will encourage illegal settlement and deforestation in the Isiboro Secure National Park, which is home to several isolated tribes. The protest is an embarrassment for Bolivia's President Evo Morales, who's a prominent advocate of indigenous rights and the protection of what he calls Mother Earth.

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