BBC news 2012-10-29 加文本

BBC news 2012-10-29

BBC News with David Auston.

Up to 16 million people living on the east coast of the United States are bracing themselves for the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, the most powerful storm to threaten the eastern seaboard in recent years. The mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg has ordered the evacuation of 375,000 people from low-lying areas of the city. More than 70 public shelters have been set up. New York Harbor will close, and all ferry services have been suspended, bus and subway services will stop on Sunday evening, and schools will be shut on Monday. Michael Bloomberg has been holding news conferences to alert residents. Biggest fear is that People don't leave and in retrospect they should have, they call on emergency and some of emergency workers lose their lives trying to save others needlessly. Vallery Galla lives in New York and she spoke to the BBC. People know it's coming now. A lot of times these storms, at the last minute, you know, every eight hours they can turn and move and going in different directions. And where the problem is with any weather prediction is they know there is a huge massive, you know, absolutely monster storm out there. Will it hit Manhattan? Will it hit New York city? People don't know. We do know there is going to be an awful lot of rain.

The Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has condemned a suicide attack on a Roman Catholic church in the northern city of Kaduna which killed at least eight people and injured many others. In a statement, Mr Jonathan vowed to strengthen the fight against acts of terror, the authorities have called for calm. Our reporter Will Ross has been to the scene of the attack.

Well many people have headed here to St. Rita’s Catholic church to see for themselves what's happened. The corner is completely destroyed by the car bomb, the roof also blown open. You can see sheets of corrugated iron flapping. What we understand is that the car tried to get in through the main gate for the church which is just along the way there. It was refused entry, the driver then went into reverse and then drove it at full throttle through the wall smashing the wall. Will Ross reporting.

Police in Kenya say they've shot dead two suspected Islamic militants in the coastal city of Mombasa. A police spokesman said the men were killed in a shootout during a raid on a house. He said a pistol, grenades and ammunition were found in the property. There have been several clashes between police and Muslims in Mombasa in recent months.

A senior Somali military commander has been killed in an ambush by the Islamist group al-Shabab. The governor of the Lower Shabelle region in southern Somalia said General Ibrahim Mohamad Farah Gordon and three other soldiers were killed near the port town of Marko. Al-Shabab, which controls much of southern and central Somalia, has recently withdrawn from the all major urban centers including Marko. The group continues to stage ambushes.

World News from the BBC

A journalist has been arrested in Greece for breach of privacy after publishing a list of people suspected avoiding tax. Mark Lowen reports from Athens.

It's been called the Lagarde's list, a file containing the names over 2,000 Greeks said to hold accounts of HSBC bank in Geneva. It was given by France's former Finance Minister Christine Lagarde to the Greek government two years ago. Many of the names are suspected of tax evasion through their Swiss accounts. But two Greek finance ministers have been accused of covering up the list, prompting intense media's speculation that the government has failed to investigate a potentially serious case of corruption. Now a well-known journalist, Kostas Vaxevanis has been arrested after publishing, what he says, is the list in question. He's due in court on Monday charged with a breach of privacy.

Counting is underway after Ukraine's parliamentary elections with the ruling Party of Regions led by President Viktor Yanukovych seeking to maintain its majority in the assembly. In the run-up to the poll, the Fatherland party of the jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko accused her rival of trying to establish a dictatorship. The opposition also includes a new anti-corruption party led by the boxing champion Vitali Klitschko.

An elite French police unit has captured a woman described by local media as the head of the military wing of the outlawed Basque separatist organization, ETA. After seven years on the run, Izaskun Lesaka was arrested with a male ETA suspect.

Panama's National Assembly has repealed a controversial law that allowed the sale of land in Latin America's biggest duty-free Zone. The assembly's president said an error had been corrected. The approval of the law earlier this month sparked violent riots in which three people died. The legislation allowed the sell-off of state-owned lands in the Colon Free Zone, an area where companies do not pay taxes.

That's the BBC News