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BBC news 2012-08-29

BBC News with Jerry Smit

The US National Guard has been deployed in New Orleans as the city, which has a population of 360,000, waits for the arrival of Hurricane Isaac. The massive new flood gates designed to protect the city from a storm surge have been closed. Isaac is expected to make landfall exactly seven years after another hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,800 people in New Orleans. From there, Alastair Leithead reports.
Hurricane Katrina was huge – it broke the levees and flooded the city. Isaac is not as big, but it's strengthening, and it's heading directly for New Orleans. I'm standing on Canal Street in the French Quarter at the moment, and the first scores of the storm are starting to strike; and the tidal swell thrown up by Isaac is starting to be felt along the gulf coast. Many people have decided to sit out the storm in their homes, confident in the work done and the billions spent on the levees and new flood barriers to prevent the city from being flooded this time around.

The Republican Party convention has opened in Florida a day later than planned because of the threat posed by Hurricane Isaac. At the convention, Mitt Romney will be formally nominated as the party's candidate for the presidential election in November. The BBC's Jonny Dymond is there.
Delegates are all ready in full flow here in Tampa, warming up for three days of speeches designed to both rally the party faithful and critically, show the rest of the country what Mitt Romney is made of. Opinion polls show him neck and neck with President Obama nationally, but voters don't particularly warm to the former Massachusetts' governor. So, later on Tuesday, his wife Ann will speak about her husband; on Wednesday, his running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan will address the crowd, and Mitt Romney will close the convention on Thursday.

French prosecutors have opened a murder investigation into the death of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Mr Arafat's widow filed a legal complaint in France last month after a television documentary alleged that traces of poison were found on his personal belongings. Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.
The Swiss laboratory that found the traces has said it's now ready to carry out tests on Mr Arafat's actual remains, and the Palestinian authorities are also apparently willing now to cooperate in authorizing the body to be briefly disinterred from its mausoleum in Ramallah. No autopsy was ever carried out following Mr Arafat's death in 2004, an oversight which has certainly helped to sustain the conspiracy theories ever since.
Hugh Schofield.

The United Nations has warned that as many as 200,000 refugees could flee to Turkey to escape fighting in Syria – almost double the number Turkey says it can take. The UN refugee agency says 5,000 Syrians are now arriving at the border every day, compared with 500 earlier this month.

World News from the BBC

One of Spain's largest regions, Catalonia, has asked for a bailout of more than $6bn from the central government in Madrid. The move heightens speculation that Spain as a whole will need additional financial help from the rest of the eurozone.

Belgium's highest court has granted a conditional early release to the former wife and accomplice of the convicted pedophile and child killer Marc Dutroux. The court released Michelle Martin into a convent after she served half of the 30-year sentence for her part in the kidnappings, rapes and murders. From Brussels, here's Matthew Price.
It was a case that appalled the world and shamed Belgium. Marc Dutroux abducted and raped six young and teenage girls in the Mid 1990s. Four of them died. Dutroux was jailed for life in 2004. His former wife Michelle Martin was given a 30-year sentence for helping Dutroux keep his victims imprisoned. Relatives of some of the victims campaigned fiercely against her release, to no avail. Michelle Martin has decided to live now in a convent to the south of Brussels.

The torch for the Paralympic Games has been lit at a ceremony at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in southern England. Flames from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were united at the hospital, which was the first in the world to stage recognized sports events for people with disabilities. The flame will be carried through the night to London where the games begin on Wednesday.

Nasa has released the first color images taken by the Mars rover Curiosity. The spectacular pictures show amount of layered rock on the lowest slope of Mount Sharp – the area where scientists plan to focus their search for conditions to support life on Mars. Curiosity has also broadcast a recorded message of congratulations from the Nasa chief Charles Bolden – the first human voice on the red planet.

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