BBC news 2011-09-26 加文本

BBC news 2011-09-26

BBC News with Sue Montgomery

The US and Britain have welcomed the announcement by the king of Saudi Arabia that women will for the first time be able to participate in municipal elections. King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz said that women will now be able to vote as well as stand for election. Saudi women currently face severe discrimination, including a ban on driving. Emily Buchanan reports.

The historic announcement was made by King Abdullah to the all-male Shura Council, Saudi Arabia's parliament. Women are to be allowed to be members for the first time, and they'll be allowed to stand and vote in municipal elections in four years' time. King Abdullah is known as a reformer and has been gently pushing his highly conservative country towards change. Activists applauded the move as an important step in the right direction even though the municipal councils have very little power.

Libya's National Transitional Council has announced that it found a mass grave in Tripoli containing 1,270 bodies. The remains are believed to be of inmates who were killed by security forces in 1996 in the Abu Salim prison. Jonathan Head was at the site.

Scrabbling in a patch of wasteland next to the Abu Salim prison walls, a man pulls out a pair of torn trousers and searches inside for a name; another man shows a fragment of skull - apparently human - and some other bones. We were invited to this site by the Libyan authorities because they said they now had good information from former guards that this was where hundreds of prisoners had been buried after the so-called Abu Salim massacre in 1996. Until recently, little was known about the circumstances in which the prisoners died.

The uprising in Libya earlier this year began with the demand for the release of a lawyer who represented families of the Abu Salim inmates.

The President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has said he's committed to handing over power to end months of protests against his rule. This was his first speech since returning from Saudi Arabia, where he'd received treatment after an attack on his compound in June. Bethany Bell reports.

President Saleh said a peaceful transfer of power should come through the ballot box, and he said he was committed to a Gulf Arab peace initiative. But his speech offered few concrete concessions to protesters, who want him to step down immediately. Earlier, there were more clashes between troops loyal to Mr Saleh and his civilian and military opponents. The opposition fears the country could slip towards civil war if Mr Saleh continues to cling to power.

A court in Bahrain has jailed six men for 15 years for cutting off the tongue of an Asian muezzin, the caller at a mosque who summons the faithful to prayer. Correspondents say Asian Sunni Muslims perceive hostility from Bahrain's Shia majority, who accuse the country's ruling Sunni dynasty of favouring fellow Sunnis.

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The head of the International Monetary Fund is due to hold talks in Washington shortly with the Greek finance minister to discuss the country's economic crisis. The meeting comes amid reports that the group of 20 leading economies are considering to allow Greece to partially default on its debts.

A delegation is leaving Namibia to bring back 47 skulls which have been kept in the German capital Berlin for the past century. The Namibians will collect the skulls from a museum. They were brought to Berlin after the German colonial power committed genocide in Namibia from 1904, killing tens of thousands of people. The Namibian minister of culture told the BBC they will be given a hero's welcome by the Namibian president.

Up to 20,000 people have packed a stadium in Barcelona to watch the last bullfight in Spain's autonomous region of Catalonia. The region banned the sport after almost 200,000 people signed a petition against it. From Madrid, Sarah Rainsford.

Matadors at the city's Monumental bullring shout their final "Ole" tonight after a campaign by animal rights activists led the regional parliament to ban the blood sport. For fans, though, the battle between man and bull is a display of daring and high art. On the bill for the emotional final fight of some of Spain's top matadors, the event is a sell-out. But such large crowds had become rare in Barcelona. Catalans say it's because they are more civilised than other Spaniards. Critics say Catalan nationalists just wanted to snub Spain by rejecting one of its most symbolic traditions.

A 62-year-old American woman has abandoned her second attempt in as many months to become the first person to swim from Cuba to the United States without the protection of a shark cage. Diana Nyad gave up after she was repeatedly stung by Portuguese Man o' War. Doctors said another sting by the poisonous jellyfish-like creatures could be life-threatening.

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