BBC news 2011-11-17 加文本

BBC news 2011-11-17

BBC News with Iain Purdon

An Arab League council meeting in Morocco has given the Syrian government three days to stop what it called the "bloody repression" of Syria's people and accept Arab League observers to verify the situation. The move follows attacks by Syrian government supporters on the embassies of several Arab countries, which began after the league voted to suspend Syria. Jon Leyne reports from the Moroccan capital Rabat.

Once again, Arab ministers have been extremely tough with Syria. They've given President Assad's government just three days to accept a plan for 500 human rights monitors, military observers and journalists to be deployed there. If Syria does not agree, then the Arab League will impose unspecified economic sanctions. The Qatari foreign minister said they were close to the end of the road in diplomacy with Syria. The Syrian government continues to insist it is battling armed gangs not attacking protesters, so the monitoring could be a way of demonstrating its version of events. But all the signs from Damascus suggest no compromise.

The Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has been sworn in as head of a new government made up entirely of technocrats. The country's new leader said he would also take on the finance portfolio and his main aim was Italy's economic growth. Our Europe correspondent Chris Morris reports.

A ceremony to swear in a new government in Rome. And anyone uncertain about the extent to which the eurozone crisis is bringing about profound change should consider this: Italy, a major European power, now has a cabinet made up entirely of technocrats. Unlike in Greece, there's not an elected politician among them. Mario Monti's government intends to usher in rapid economic reform to try to calm financial speculation.

Greece's new Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and his three-party coalition government have won a confidence vote in parliament with a huge majority. The government must approve a new bailout package and commit to reforms in order to secure the next instalment of an international loan.

The head of the International Monetary Fund's European department, Antonio Borges, has resigned. His job has involved overseeing the large bailouts of Greece, Portugal and Ireland. The IMF said that Mr Borges, who's been in [the] post for a year, was going for personal reasons.

The American computer chip company Intel says it's developed an accelerator chip that can make the equivalent of one trillion calculations a second. The chip, known as Knights Corner, was launched at a supercomputer conference in Seattle. It has at least 50 cores, or individual processors, on a single piece of silicon, and it's capable of running at a speed defined as one teraflop. The first computer to have one-teraflop capacity was made in 1997 and filled 72 cabinets.

World News from the BBC

A judge in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has sentenced eight men to death and 20 others to life imprisonment for a so-called honour killing that took place two decades ago. Elettra Neysmith reports.

The case dates back to 1991 when a teenage Dalit boy eloped with his girlfriend who was from a higher caste. After several days, the pair returned to their village in western Uttar Pradesh, thinking that anger would have subsided. Instead, a council of village elders ordered that they be killed along with the boy's cousin who'd helped them. All three had their genitals set alight before being hanged. But the parents of the two boys then lodged a case against the village council for ordering such a brutal killing. Convictions were largely based on the parents' testimony.

The embattled leader of the youth wing of South Africa's governing ANC, Julius Malema, has spoken out in defiance against the party's decision to suspend him. Last week, Mr Malema was suspended from the ANC for bringing the party into disrepute. Milton Nkosi reports from Johannesburg.

Reading from a statement, Julius Malema said there were always signs that the decision was to suspend the ANC Youth League leadership. He said the Youth League totally disagreed with the outcome of the disciplinary committee. He said he rejects the five-year suspension verdict, which was handed down last week. He confirmed that he would appeal the convictions. The embattled youth leader, who wants President Jacob Zuma to be removed as leader of the party, said the disciplinary hearings had been used to settle political scores.

Police in the United States have arrested a man in connection with a shooting incident close to the White House last Friday. The man, Oscar Ortega-Hernandez, was detained at a hotel in Pennsylvania. The American Secret Service said earlier that two bullets found outside the White House may be connected with the incident. One hit a bullet-proof window; the other one was found nearby. President Obama was away from the White House at the time of the shooting.

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