BBC news 2011-12-05 加文本

BBC news 2011-12-05

BBC News with Marion Marshall

The Iranian armed forces say they've shot down an unmanned American spy plane over eastern Iran and will retaliate if there are any further violations of their airspace. They said the stealth plane suffered minor damage and was now in their possession. They identified it as an RQ-170 Sentinel - a radar-evading drone whose secret development and use was only acknowledged by the United States two years ago. Peter Biles reports.

There's been no word from the Pentagon and Washington, but Iran has warned that its response will not be limited to the country's borders. Earlier this year, Iran said its forces had brought down two US drones that had entered Iran but had produced no evidence. Iran remains in dispute with the West over its nuclear programme although Tehran insists the programme is for peaceful purposes.

Exit polls in Russia suggest the party of Vladimir Putin has emerged the winner in parliamentary elections, but secured less than half of the votes cast. The United Russia party is said to have won 48.5% of the vote, compared with 64% in 2007. The current President Dmitry Medvedev said the outcome reflected the true mood in the country. Steve Rosenberg reports from Moscow.

According to exit polls, United Russia has won this election, but for Vladimir Putin's party, the good news ends right there. If the exit polls are accurate, the party will have around 100 fewer seats in the new parliament. That would leave United Russia with less than half the total number of Duma MPs. What's more, critics of the ruling party believe it actually polled even lower. Opposition parties claim that at this election, there was widespread election fraud in favour of United Russia, including the stuffing of ballot boxes and voters being offered money.

The Italian cabinet has approved a range of austerity measures in a bid to ease the crisis threatening the eurozone. The Prime Minister Mario Monti is expected to outline the plan to parliament on Monday. Alan Johnston, in Rome, has the details.

The new Prime Minister Mario Monti said at a press conference that it had been necessary to adopt a series of measures, as he put it, to save Italy. There's to be more tax on the assets of the wealthy and a major drive to tackle tax evasion. There will also be moves to cut back on the cost of government and bureaucracy. Potentially more controversially there's also to be extensive pension reform. Unions have signalled that they are deeply unhappy about this.

President Obama has told the Pakistani leader Asif Ali Zardari that the Nato air raid which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last month wasn't a deliberate attack. The White House said Mr Obama telephoned President Zardari to offer his condolences and underline Washington's commitment to a full investigation of the incident. Pakistan has called the air strike an attack on its independence.

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Pakistan says its decision to boycott an international conference on Afghanistan's future doesn't mean it's unwilling to support the political process there. The German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, whose country will host the conference, said he'd received a personal assurance to that effect from his Pakistani counterpart. The conference opens in the city of Bonn on Monday.

Bomb disposal experts successfully defused two wartime bombs - a massive British blockbuster and a smaller US one - in the German city of Koblenz. The operation sparked off one of the largest evacuations in Germany since 1945. Half the population of Koblenz has been affected with streets closed off and seven nursing homes, two hospitals and a prison also evacuated. The two-tonne British bomb was discovered in the River Rhine when water levels fell during a prolonged dry spell.

Iraq's former national security adviser has told the BBC that economic sanctions against Syria will hurt the people not the government. Doctor Mowaffak al-Rubaie's comments come as the Arab League awaits Syria's response to its latest deadline for Damascus to allow in observers to monitor the unrest.

Two giant pandas have arrived in Scotland after a nine-hour plane journey from China. They are being loaned by the Chinese authorities to Edinburgh Zoo, where they'll be kept in an old gorilla enclosure which has been transformed into a forest habitat. Colin Blane reports.

The two pandas, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, were flown to Edinburgh on a nonstop nine-hour flight from Chengdu, in southwestern China. It's hoped the bears, both eight years old, will find their new surroundings conducive to breeding. For Edinburgh Zoo, bringing the pandas to Scotland represents a considerable investment. The loan itself costs $1m a year; preparing two new enclosures, one for each animal, costs more than $0.5m; and the annual bill for bamboo will be $100,000.

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