BBC news 2011-10-15 加文本

BBC news 2011-10-15

BBC News with Gaenor Howells

The British Defence Secretary Liam Fox has resigned after days of controversy over his relationship with a personal adviser. Doctor Fox has been under pressure to explain why his friend Adam Werritty, who had no official role, attended some defence ministry meetings and frequently met him abroad. Doctor Fox said he had mistakenly allowed the distinction between his personal interests and his government activities to become blurred. Gary O'Donoghue reports.

It was Liam Fox's decision to resign, but in truth he had no choice: eight solid days of negative headlines and no sign of the problem going away. Once he acknowledged the blurring of the distinctions between the public and the private sphere, he was always going to be on the back foot. What really did for the defence secretary was the emerging detail of how his unofficial adviser and friend Adam Werritty was funded to fly around the world, attending conferences and private holidays without any of the backing being declared.

Gun battles have taken place in the Libyan capital Tripoli for the first time since anti-Gaddafi forces took control of the city in August. Residents in the Abu Salim neighbourhood say clashes broke out when Gaddafi loyalists tried to raise a symbolic green flag after morning prayers. The BBC's Rana Jawad in Tripoli has been following events.

The government says they are fully in control of the district now, but they are still carrying out an operation to clear out those loyalists that are hiding out there. We also know that there were some protests in the centre of Tripoli, an area called Dahra. Protesters took to the streets, and they were chanting "For Gaddafi". Pro-NTC forces moved in. I spoke to one eyewitness who said the protesters were unarmed, they were not shot at, but the forces that moved in fired shots into the air and dispersed them.

The government of Bahrain has admitted that its security forces have committed human rights abuses during efforts to quell anti-government demonstrations this year. The Bahraini Health and Human Rights Minister Fatima al-Balooshi told the BBC the abuses had been mistakes and the government had addressed them. She accused the demonstrators of also abusing human rights. An investigation has been commissioned by the king of Bahrain.

The BBC has condemned the conviction of its reporter in Tajikistan on a charge of assisting a banned Islamist organisation. The court sentenced the reporter, Urunboy Usmonov, to three years in prison, but it then ordered his immediate release under an amnesty. Mr Usmonov told the BBC Uzbek Service that he'd appeal.

"During the court hearings, they could not provide any evidence against me. I am innocent. There were witnesses. A witness during the court case said that he saw signs of torture on my face. The court ignored these testimonies. I did my job. I am a journalist and that is it. I am definitely going to appeal to a higher court."

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Representatives of the world's leading economies have gathered in Paris to look at ways of handling the faltering world economy and a European debt crisis that threatens to spread beyond the continent. One French official has described the eurozone as the epicentre of a global crisis.

The Somali Islamic rebel group al-Shabab has held a ceremony to present famine relief aid said to be from al-Qaeda. A man described as American and purporting to represent al-Qaeda addressed a crowd which had gathered in Ala-yasir, 50km from Mogadishu. Al-Shabab has largely prevented international aid agencies from operating in areas of Somalia under its control despite estimates that three quarters of a million people are at risk of death from famine there.

President Obama has announced he is sending 100 American troops to Uganda to help in the fight against rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army. The LRA is accused of human rights abuses during a 20-year campaign, in which tens of thousands of people have died. From Washington, here's Marcus George.

Announcing the deployment, President Obama said the atrocities committed by the Lord's Resistance Army pose a disproportionate threat to regional security. After more than two decades of murder, rape and kidnap, he said it was time to eliminate it. The contingent will assist national forces in Uganda and its neighbouring countries, in what's been described as an operation to remove its leader Joseph Kony from the battlefield. The force will use high-tech equipment to assist in what analysts say is a "kill or capture" policy.

The governing body of world football, Fifa, has banned four senior Caribbean officials for periods of up to 18 months for their part in an alleged conspiracy to buy and sell votes in Fifa's presidential election earlier this year. The four include one of the most senior women in world football - Franka Pickering of the British Virgin Islands - and a senior Jamaican official, Horace Burrell. In July, Fifa banned for life the former head of football in Asia, Mohamed Bin Hammam.

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