BBC news 2011-10-13 加文本

BBC news 2011-10-13

BBC News with Marion Marshall

The man accused of trying to blow up an airliner over the American city of Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 has dramatically changed all his pleas to guilty. Nigerian-born Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is facing charges of trying to kill the 300 people on board the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam. Jonny Dymond reports.

After a 45-minute recess at the start of proceedings, US District Judge Nancy Edmunds asked Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab if he wanted to plead guilty and waive his right to a trial. "That's right," he replied. Then each charge was read out to him. Standing in front of the judge, flanked by the defence and prosecution lawyers, he replied to each one "I plead guilty." In a statement to the court, Abdulmutallab said his attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 was a religious obligation driven by what he called US attacks upon Muslims.

The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has described an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US as a dangerous escalation of Iran's sponsorship of terrorism. Speaking earlier at a conference in London, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi ambassador to the US, said the plot was criminal.

"This has been a case that has been followed from the very beginning by authorities in various countries. The amount of evidence on the case is overwhelming and clearly shows official Iranian responsibility for it. This is unacceptable."

Earlier, Iran's foreign minister warned the US against confrontation over the accusations. The US has charged two Iranians and imposed sanctions against senior members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard and an Iranian airline.

A UK-based oil company has strenuously denied allegations made in Ugandan parliament that it had offered financial inducements to government ministers there to facilitate contracts. The chief executive of Tullow Oil, Aidan Heavey, told the BBC that forged documents, which he said had been investigated a year ago and proved to be false, have been presented in Uganda's parliament to taint a firm that had invested billions of dollars in the country. Earlier, Ugandan MPs voted unanimously to call on three senior government ministers, including the prime minister, to be suspended.

Lawyers representing Michael Jackson's doctor say they are dropping their claim that the singer caused his own death. From Los Angeles, Peter Bowes.

According to the defence, a study they commissioned has shown that any effect from swallowing the anaesthetic propofol would be trivial. Doctor Murray's legal team had previously claimed that Michael Jackson killed himself by ingesting the drug while his doctor was out of the room. A latest witness, a cardiologist who reviewed Doctor Murray's care of Michael Jackson, has told the court the physician made six extreme deviations from the expected standard of care. Doctor Murray denies a charge of involuntary manslaughter.

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A Syrian-born American man has been charged in the United States with spying for Syria. The US Justice Department said Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid had gathered information on people protesting in America against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. He was allegedly directed by Syrian intelligence agencies to collect video and audio recordings, phone numbers and emails. Many Syrians abroad have complained of systematic harassment by agents of the Syrian government.

The president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has set out a plan for tackling the crisis in the eurozone. He said it was time to remove doubts about whether the EU could cope. Part of the plan will be to strengthen banks against losses on loans to Greece, which is at risk of default. Mr Barroso said struggling banks must improve their capital reserves, or he said they should face a ban on paying dividends or bonuses.

Scientists have reconstructed the entire genetic map of the germ that caused the Black Death, the bubonic plague that has killed millions in the 14th century. Matt McGrath has the details.

Humans have rarely encountered an enemy as devastating as the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Between 1347 and 1351, it sparked the Black Death, an infection carried by fleas that spread rapidly across Europe, killing around 50 million people. Now scientists have uncovered some of the genetic secrets of the plague thanks to DNA fragments drilled from the teeth of victims buried in a graveyard in east London. The researchers say that all current strains circulating in the world are directly related to the medieval bacterium.

Masked thieves have stolen an invaluable Christian relic from an ancient monastery in the south of the Irish Republic. The relic, said to be part of the cross on which Jesus died, was kept in a gold and bronze case in the shape of a cross. A local priest appealed to the thieves to return the relic, which he said had an immeasurable religious and emotional value.

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