BBC在线收听下载:涉包庇波士顿爆炸案嫌犯 三青年遭警方起诉

BBC news 2013-05-02

BBC News with Iain Purdon

Prosecutors in the American city of Boston have charged and detained three 19-year-old men for allegedly covering the tracks of one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. Three people were killed in the bombing last month. With the details, here’s Paul Adams.

According to a justice department statement, two of the three students, Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, both 19-year-olds of Kazak origin, have been charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice. They are accused of disposing of a laptop computer and a backpack of fireworks, both of which belong to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of the two Boston bombing suspects. The third man, identified as Robel Phillipos and thought to be a US citizen, has been charged with making false statements to investigators.

The Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick said the arrests didn’t mean that further attacks were expected.

"This should not raise any concerns in anyone’s mind about a continuing threat to the public. This is about getting all the way to the bottom of the story of what happened at the marathon.”

"Is it your understanding that they did or did not have a role in the bombing incident?”

"It’s my understanding that they did not, but as I said at the beginning, the investigation continues and there are lots and lots of questions that you and I and everybody else has and the FBI is going to run every one of those to ground.”

The United States has rejected allegations that it was meddling in domestic Bolivian affairs and trying to undermine the left-wing government of President Evo Morales. Mr Morales had earlier said he was expelling the US government development agency USAID from the country. From Washington, Kim Ghattas.

President Evo Morales made the announcement during a fiery speech to workers on May Day. Mr Morales, a leftist who has repeatedly accused the US of trying to undermine his government, said the US aid agency was there for political not social reasons. The state department has denied the allegations. Approximately 30 people work for USAID in Bolivia, South America’s poorest country. It’s still unclear if all or only some are being kicked out. The formal diplomatic notification of their expulsion will arrive at the state department on Thursday.

Pope Francis has condemned as “slave labour” the working conditions of hundreds of Bangladeshis who were killed when their factory building collapsed in the capital Dhaka last week. He said it went against God to concentrate on balance sheets and profits rather than paying a fair wage.

Authorities in Bangladesh have begun burying the unidentified victims of the building collapse. More than 400 people are known to have died when it came down.

A US jury has awarded damages of $240m to a group of disabled former workers for the years of physical and mental abuse at a turkey processing company which employed and housed them. Jurors heard that the 32 men were subjected to kicking and verbal abuse, denied proper toilet breaks and forced to work when ill.

World News from the BBC

A series of bombings in Iraq has killed at least 25 people. In Fallujah, west of the capital, two separate attacks killed 14 members of an anti-al-Qaeda militia unit, three soldiers and a senior police officer. The attacks add to a surge of violence that killed more than 200 people across the country in the last week of April, raising fears of a return to sectarian conflict.

Greece has agreed its first major privatisation in a programme of “selling state assets” in order to cut the country’s debts. An investment fund is to buy a 1/3 stake in Greece’s most profitable company, the gambling monopoly Opap. Under the terms of its bailout, Greece must sell state assets worth more than $12bn. But the privatisation programme has been beset by delays.

The World Health Organisation says the new strain of bird flu that’s emerged in China poses a serious threat to human health. The H7N9 virus has infected at least 126 people since it was first detected last month. Twenty-four of them have died and many more are seriously ill in hospital. Scientists say they are concerned about the pace and severity of the outbreak.

Scientists have discovered proof that the first English settlers in America resorted to cannibalism to survive. The remains of a 14-year-old girl discovered at the Jamestown colony in the US state of Virginia show cuts to her face and efforts to extract her brain. Here’s Jane O'Brien.

The girl’s bones date to a period known to historians as The Starving Time. Scientists at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History say somebody tried to pry open her skull to remove the brain. Other cuts reveal her facial tissue and tongue were also extracted. Forensic anthropologist Dr Doug Owsley says the discovery is compelling evidence that the early settlers resorted to cannibalism during the winter of 1609.

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