BBC news 2011-11-24 加文本

BBC news 2011-11-24

BBC News with Jonathan Izard

The Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has signed a deal to transfer power to his vice-president, ending his rule of more than 30 years. The agreement followed nine months of protests in Yemen. Frank Gardner reports.

Three times Yemen's president has agreed to step down; three times he's gone back on his word. But today in the capital city of his powerful neighbour Saudi Arabia, President Ali Abdullah Saleh finally signed an agreement to transfer power, ending his 33-year rule. Saleh's opponents are saying he's the latest dictator to be toppled by this year's Arab uprising. But even if this time the president does stick to his word and leave office, this will not be the end of Yemen's troubles.

The latest attempt to restore calm in an area of Tahrir Square in Cairo, where there have been violent clashes between demonstrators and police, has broken down. Leaders from a local mosque had appealed for a truce, but police have again used tear gas against the protesters. Meanwhile, small fires have been lit in the square in the hope that the rising smoke will carry the tear gas with it. There's been mounting pressure on Egypt to end what the UN human rights chief has called "excessive force" against demonstrators.

The head of an independent commission of inquiry in Bahrain into the violent suppression of pro-democracy protests in February has given a detailed account of the abuse suffered by many detainees. From Bahrain, here's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.

The chief of the Independent Commission of Inquiry found the Bahraini authorities guilty of illegal arrests, forced confessions, unfair trials and the systematic use of torture. In his speech in reply, King Hamad welcomed the report. He talked of this being a day that will be remembered in the history of Bahrain. But a short distance away in a Shia neighbourhood of Bahrain, they were burning tyres and calling for the king to step down. Speaking with Professor Bassiouni after the speeches, he admitted it will very much depend now on what Bahrain's king does with the report: will he push for reform and remove hard-liners from his government, or will he use the report as window dressing to appease opinion in America and Europe.

The global fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria has decided not to fund any new programmes as a result of cuts in its resources from donor nations. The fund says it will continue to support only essential services in existing programmes after a shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. A spokesman for the fund told the BBC the cuts put the progress in combating disease at risk and threatened the lives of people in the developing world.

The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has apologised for the killing of more than 13,000 Kurds by the Turkish military in the 1930s. Mr Erdogan is the first Turkish leader to apologise for the killings, which took place when the military used aerial bombardment and poisonous gas to pacify Kurds in central Turkey. But some Kurds see Mr Erdogan's apology as an opportunistic move against the main opposition party, the CHP, which was in power at the time of the massacre.

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Germany has struggled to borrow all the money it sought from the financial markets. The government wanted to sell $8bn worth of 10-year bonds, but managed only half that. Here's Andrew Walker.

Sometimes these partial failures, if you like, of government bond sales do occur, but this one is regarded by a lot of people in the financial markets as being particularly unwelcome - partly I think a general spread of the anxiety about the whole euro area, spreading from first the smaller peripheral countries to some of the larger ones like Italy, even France. And now it does look like some investors are more reluctant than they were to hold even German government debt.

Brazil is temporarily suspending the American company Chevron from drilling for oil in its territory. The National Petroleum Agency said it would suspend Chevron Brazil's activities until it had established the cause of an oil spill off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Chevron has apologised for the leak.

A court in France has agreed to a request by Panama for the extradition of its former military ruler Manuel Noriega. He's wanted for embezzlement and the murder of two opponents during his time in power between 1983 and 1989. He's been serving a prison sentence in France for money laundering.

An American auction house is selling artefacts from the failed Apollo 13 mission to the Moon in 1970. This includes the checklist which helped the crew return to Earth after an oxygen tank exploded on board. Here's Jane Peel.

"OK, Houston, we've had a problem here."

"This is Houston. Say again, please."

"Houston, we've had a problem."

"Houston, we've had a problem" was the mother of all understatements. An explosion on board the spacecraft two days into Nasa's third mission to the Moon left the three astronauts in grave danger. Commander Jim Lovell had just 15 minutes to make a series of critical mathematical calculations before a loss of power threatened to strand them in space. It is Commander Lovell's checklist that's being auctioned in Dallas next week.

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