BBC在线收听下载:马里政变领导人承诺举行选举

BBC news 2012-03-24

BBC News with Sue Montgomery

The European naval force operating off the Horn of Africa is being given a new attack policy allowing it to fight Somali pirates on land as well as at sea. The European Union will permit its warships to attack pirate boats and fuel dumps on Somali beaches. Frank Gardner reports.

Boats, ladders, fuel dumps and four-by-four vehicles belonging to Somali pirates will all be considered legitimate targets on land under the EU's new dramatically scaled-up scope of operations. European Union officials have agreed to extend their counter-piracy mission of Somalia to at least the end of 2014. They've also agreed in principle to take the fight with maritime piracy to bases along the coast for the first time although naval officers denied this would mean putting troops on the ground.

The leader of the coup in Mali says he doesn't intend to cling to power. Captain Amadou Sanogo said he would stand down after making sure the army was able to secure the country. Here's Thomas Fessy.

Captain Amadou Sanogo told the BBC that he had no intention to hold on to power and promised a presidential election when security is fully re-established in Mali. He explained that troops were poorly equipped and trained to face the Tuareg-led rebellion in the north. Captain Sanogo also vowed to transfer former officials who are now under arrest to the judicial system. Two days after the coup began, the whereabouts of President Amadou Toumani Toure are still unknown although he's believed to be safe and protected by the elite presidential guards.

Formal charges of murder and attempted murder have been laid against an American soldier, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who's accused of killing civilians in Afghanistan. Jonathan Blake reports.

Staff Sergeant Robert Bales is accused of leaving his base in the early hours of the morning and shooting people as they slept. A US army spokesman says Sergeant Bales has now been formally charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, six counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault. Sergeant Bales' lawyer says there is no forensic evidence against his client and that he has made no confession. The 38-year-old father of two is being held at a maximum security prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. If convicted of the crimes, Sergeant Bales could face the death penalty.

The United States is resuming its military aid to Egypt despite concern about its progress towards democracy. The Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informed Congress that aid worth $1.3bn would be released to Egypt. She said this was to serve US national security interests.

President Obama has nominated a Korean-born American academic, Jim Yong Kim, for head of the World Bank. He said Mr Kim had the experience to help the bank improve conditions around the world. The post has always been held by an American, but South Africa, Nigeria and Angola are challenging that.

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British police say they are investigating the attempted murder of a former Russian banker in London this week. The banker, German Gorbuntsov, is now under armed guard in hospital. He's said to be in a critical but stable condition. Police say a suspected gunman was spotted running from the scene of the shooting. Gordon Corera reports.

Mr Gorbuntsov is thought to have owned a number of banks in Russia and Moldova, but he's now said to be wanted in Moldova on several charges. Russia's Kommersant newspaper is reporting a link between the shooting and an investigation in Moscow into the attempted killing of another banker. Three Chechen men were convicted of that attack, but police never established who might have hired them. Although at this stage the motive for this attack remains unclear, the concern will be that the type of violence long associated with business and organised crime in Russia might have arrived on the streets of London.

Pope Benedict has set off on a trip to Mexico and Cuba, where the Catholic Church is struggling to retain its influence. Speaking on the plane, the Pope denounced the drug culture, which he said was driven by the lust for money and was destroying Mexico's younger generation.

President Obama has said the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white security guard in Florida is a tragedy that should be a cause of national "soul searching". He said that if he had a son he would look like the slain youth Trayvon Martin, and the killing should be fully investigated. The man who shot him was not arrested because Florida law allows citizens to use lethal force in self-defence.

The African Union is setting up a 5,000-strong regional force to hunt down the fugitive Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. An online campaign for the capture of the leader of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army was launched earlier this month. The AU official in charge of counter-terrorism cooperation says Joseph Kony has three choices: to surrender, be captured or as he put it, to be neutralised.

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