BBC在线收听下载:瑞士人民投票通过限制高管薪水措施

BBC news 2013-03-04

BBC News, I'm John Shay

At least 45 people have been killed in Pakistan in a bomb attack in a Shiite dominated part of the country's biggest city, Karachi, 150 others were wounded in the two explosions. The attack comes a week after a bomb blast in the Pakistani city of Quetta killed almost 90 people, most of them Shiites. Mike Wooldridge reports from Islamabad.

It was, police say, a powerful blast in a congested area close to a Shiite mosque. Several buildings caught fire and some collapsed. Political and religious leaders have been quick to condemn the attack which follows a wave of sectarian violence affecting particularly Karachi, but other parts of Pakistan too. Sunni Muslim extremists have stepped up attacks against members of Pakistan's minority Shiite community. And bombings in the city of Quetta alone have killed nearly 200 people since the start of this year.

Queen Elizabeth has been admitted to hospital in London suffering from gastroenteritis - stomach infection. She was taken ill at the end of last week. Buckingham Palace says all the Queen's official engagements this week, including a trip to Rome, have now been cancelled or postponed. She is said to be in good spirits and has expected to remain in hospital for about two days. The Queen, who's 86, was last in hospital ten years ago.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who resigned last week as the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in Britain, has admitted that his sexual conduct had fallen below the standards that expected of him. John Mcmaners reports.

In a statement, Cardinal O'Brien said that when the allegations against him became public, he initially contested them because they were anonymous and were unspecific in their details. But now, Keith O'Brien has admitted that, in his own words, there have been times when his sexual conduct has fallen below the standards that expected of him as a priest, archbishop and Cardinal. The allegations against him were made by three priests and one former priest, they date back to the 1980s and relate to an inappropriate behavior.

Cardinal O'Brien's admission comes a day before the Cardinals from around the world gather in Rome to begin electing a new Pope.

The Syrian opposition has released a video which appears to show the exiled opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib visiting the rebel-held north of the country for the first time. Opposition sources say Mr al-Khatib entered Syria from Turkey. From there James Reynolds sent this report.

Moaz al-Khatib's visit to Syria only lasted a few hours. Video footage taken from a car shows Mr al-Khatib walking quietly along a busy street in main beach, passersby begin to work out who he is, and they pose for pictures with him. The opposition says that his quick visit was designed to strengthen links between the movement's political leaders in exile and the population inside Syria. But the Syrian National Coalition may feel that it is still too dangerous for Moaz al-Khatib and other leaders to move back to Syria for good.

This is the latest World News from the BBC

The US Secretary of State John Kerry has announced the release of funds for Egypt following talks with President Mohammed Morsi in Cairo. Mr Kerry said $190m of budget support will be provided immediately because of, what he called, Egypt's extreme needs.

The people of Switzerland have voted overwhelmingly to adopt measures restricting the salaries of top managers. Final results from the nationwide referendum show that almost 68% of voters backed plans given shareholders a veto on compensation and banning big payouts for mangers leaving or joining companies. Imogen Foulkes reports.

Sixty-eight percet voted in favor of the new rules on manager salaries, even Zurich，the financial capital said yes. People are angry at events since some of Switzerland best-known companies, multibillion pound losses at banking giant UBS, thousands of redundancies at a pharmaceutical company Novartis while big pay awards for bosses continued. Swiss business leaders who campaigned hard against the measures are bitterly disappointed. They fear Switzerland competitiveness would be damaged, and that the foreign companies thinking of setting up in Switzerland will be put off, but voters did not share those concerns.

The military in Nigeria says it's killed 20 fighters from the Islamist group Boko Haram in the northeastern state of Borno. An army spokesman said the fighters were killed as they attacked military barracks. A witness said one of the dead was a civilian.

An unmanned space cargo capsule carrying food, scientific equipment and spare parts has arrived at the international space station a day later than scheduled. A private US company Space X successfully launched the Dragon capsule on Friday, but later reported that its thruster rocket had developed a problem soon after reaching orbit.

And that's the latest BBC World News