BBC news 2011-09-19 加文本

BBC news 2011-09-19

BBC News with Marion Marshall

The security forces in the Yemeni capital Sanaa have opened fire with machine guns on tens of thousands of anti-government protesters, killing at least 25 people and injuring hundreds more. Witnesses said the police even used anti-aircraft weapons against the demonstrators who were moving towards the presidential palace. Jon Leyne reports.

The new upsurge in violence happened as the Yemeni opposition stepped up protests, calling on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to hand over power. Witnesses said tens of thousands, or by some accounts more than 100,000 opposition supporters came out onto the streets of the capital and a number of other towns and cities. As a huge crowd surged towards the presidential palace, witnesses described how the security forces opened fire with machine guns and even anti-aircraft weapons.

A BBC investigation has heard allegations of the abuse of African migrant workers in Libya by anti-Gaddafi forces. Interviews detailed a violent campaign of intimidation against the black migrant community with hundreds of men imprisoned accused of being mercenaries for Colonel Gaddafi, and women and girls beaten and raped. Ian Pannell heard from one of the victims.

In a particularly brutal case, 20 fighters allegedly broke into one house, searching for mercenaries. They beat the people living there, stole their possessions, dragged the father of the house away and then raped his 16-year-old daughter.

"They locked my father and my mother inside the toilet. Six of them, they raped me. They took our belongings. My father tried to stop them. They hit my father with gun and carried him away. Since that day, I've not heard from my father. He's nowhere to be found."

In his first interview since losing his job as the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn has admitted that he was morally at fault when he had sex with a hotel maid in New York, but he told French television that he hadn't raped her. From Paris, Christian Fraser reports.

If Dominique Strauss-Kahn still harbours any ambitions as a politician - and from the tenor of this interview, clearly he does - then this was a performance that ticked all the right boxes. There was humility: first an apology to his wife, Anne Sinclair, who has stood so loyally by him; and second to the French people, with whom he said "I have missed my appointment", referring to his aborted campaign to run for president. He admitted his actions in the Manhattan hotel room were a "moral failing", but he denied passionately quoting from the prosecutor's report in his hand that he sexually assaulted the maid.

Switzerland's biggest bank UBS says unauthorised trading by an employee in Britain cost it more than it first feared. UBS now puts the losses at $2.3bn, an increase of $300m. On Friday, the trader, Kweku Adoboli, was charged with fraud and false accounting. UBS said he'd concealed the extent of the risks he was taking by disguising his trading positions.

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The Greek cabinet has been holding an emergency meeting to discuss new measures to deal with the country's debt crisis. The European Union has demanded deeper cuts in spending before it'll pay out the latest instalment of the Greek bailout agreed last year. An Athens newspaper has published what appears to be an email from the EU and the International Monetary Fund listing 15 measures Greece must adopt, including more redundancies in the civil service and higher taxes on heating oil.

A small group of online gamers has solved a problem that's baffled scientists for a decade. The gamers, who call themselves the Contenders, used a video game called Foldit to produce a three-dimensional image of an enzyme of an Aids-like virus. It took them just three weeks. Scientists say the breakthrough will provide new insights into the design of antiretroviral drugs for people with HIV.

Sudan and South Sudan have agreed to set up 10 crossings along their common border, the first deal over the disputed boundary since the South became independent in July. The border has been closed for months, and there have been several conflicts in the border region this year. The Sudanese government said the agreement on the new crossing points would help people move more freely between the two countries.

Dozens of women wearing miniskirts have demonstrated in the Indonesian capital Jakarta. They were protesting against a public official who blamed a recent gang rape on a woman's choice of clothing. Viv Marsh reports.

About 50 women wearing miniskirts, tank tops and tight leggings gathered in the centre of Jakarta. They carried placards reading "My miniskirt, my right" and "Don't tell us how to dress, tell them not to rape". They were furious about comments last Friday by the Jakarta city governor suggesting that women who wore tight or revealing clothing were to blame for an increase in the number of rapes on public transport. The governor quickly apologised, but his comments were publicised widely.

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