BBC news 2011-09-21 加文本

BBC news 2011-09-21

BBC News with Marion Marshall

The man leading Afghanistan's efforts to negotiate peace with the Taliban has been killed by a suicide bomber at his home in the capital Kabul. Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president of Afghanistan, was meeting two members of the Taliban at the time. Police say the attacker had a bomb concealed in his turban. David Loyn reports from Kabul.

Among the dead and injured with former President Burhanuddin Rabbani in his home was Masoom Stanekzai, a close adviser to President Karzai, who's returning from the UN General Assembly in New York to Afghanistan to deal with the crisis. The explosion could hardly be heard a street away, but its shock wave will spread across the country. Former President Rabbani may have died trying to negotiate peace, but in his life he was a highly divisive figure. His death may not necessarily derail the prospects for peace talks with the Taliban, depending on who'll succeed him, but it will make the process far harder to manage.

The International Monetary Fund has warned that the global economy is entering a dangerous new phase. It says the United States and the eurozone are at increased risk of falling back into recession. Here's our economics editor Stephanie Flanders.

There's plenty of bad news to go around. The growth forecast for this year and next has been cut for almost every country listed in the report. Continued volatility in the eurozone was one of the two largest risks to the recovery identified in the report; the other was the possibility of a prolonged slowdown in the US. The fund said that politicians in Washington needed urgently to reach a long-term solution to America's debt problems to free up money to support the recovery right now.

The Greek finance minister is engaged in a new conference call with debt inspectors to try to persuade them to release the next phase of the international bailout. Greece says it needs the new loan of $11bn or it'll run out of cash by the middle of next month.

President Obama has welcomed Libya's transitional leader to the United Nations in New York. The new Libyan flag flew outside UN headquarters as Mr Obama and other world leaders greeted Mustafa Abdul Jalil. Mr Obama praised the Libyan people's achievement in liberating their country.

"Today, the Libyan people are writing a new chapter in the life of their nation. After four decades of darkness, they can walk the streets, free from a tyrant. They are making their voices heard in new newspapers and on radio and television, in public squares and on personal blogs. They are launching political parties and civil groups to shape their own destiny and secure their universal rights."

The African Union has ended weeks of internal discussion and formally acknowledged the National Transitional Council as Libya's sole legitimate authority. The debate over recognition of Libya's former rebel movement caused deep divisions within the AU, which includes several countries that had close links with Colonel Gaddafi.

World News from the BBC

The Pakistan Air Force has flown its first mission to deliver relief supplies to people hit by widespread flooding in the south of the country. Helicopters were used to drop aid to isolated villages in the worst affected province of Sindh. The United Nations says three million people in Pakistan are running desperately short of food as a result of the floods.

The World Health Organisation has confirmed that polio has spread to China from Pakistan. China had been polio-free for more than a decade. The UN's health agency warned there was a high risk of the crippling virus spreading further during Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca. Viv Marsh reports.

A statement by the UN's health agency said a strain of polio had been isolated in China that was genetically linked with the wild polio virus type 1 currently circulating in Pakistan. The organisation said at least seven people in China had contracted that strain, all of them in the far western region of Xinjiang, which has a border with Pakistan. Polio was last brought into China from India in 1999. China's last indigenous case was in 1994. Pakistan is one of a handful of countries where polio remains endemic.

Vote counting is getting underway in presidential and parliamentary elections in Zambia. Observers say voting was generally peaceful despite scattered violence in the capital Lusaka. Cars were set alight, and youths tore down posters of Zambia's President Rupiah Banda after some polling stations opened late. President Banda is thought to be facing a strong challenge from his main opponent, the Patriotic Front leader Michael Sata.

Prosecutors in Mexico say officials in charge of the prisons from which dozens of inmates escaped have been detained. Thirty-two prisoners staged an almost simultaneous breakout from three jails in western Veracruz state on Sunday. Prosecutors said the prison directors and their deputies were detained on suspicion of helping the inmates to escape.

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