BBC在线收听下载:美国科学家发现哺乳动物新物种

BBC news 2013-08-16

BBC News with Julie Candler.

The United Nations is preparing to hold an emergency meeting within the next hour to discuss the intervention by Egyptian security forces on Muslim Brotherhood protest camps in the capital Cairo. Officials say more than 600 people were killed. The meeting to take place behind close doors was called by Britain, France and Australia. In Washington, President Obama has strongly condemned violence in Egypt that has left more than 500 people dead. Mr. Obama cancelled a joint military exercise that was due to take place in September. "While we wanna sustain our relationship with Egypt, our traditional cooperation cannot continue as usual when civilians have been killed in the streets. As a result, this morning we notified the Egyptian government that we are canceling our biannual joint military exercise, which was scheduled for next month. Going forward, I've asked my national security team to assess the implications of the actions taken by the interim government."

An overnight curfew has come into force for a second night in Cairo and a number of other Egyptian cities. During the day, supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood clashed with security forces in Alexandria and set fire to a government building in Giza in Cairo's western suburbs. They've also buried some of their dead. Our correspondent Chan Mklile says it’s a distressing picture in Cairo. "One of the scenes, that I've seen just tonight coming back from a makeshift morgue, is one of the mosques since seen all those dead bodies just lying around. Some of them, actually, you know, rotting, and you know, you couldn’t see the rotting bodies, but you could smell them. And all those families in the sense of chaos, and the sense of disbelieving that this is happening to their loved ones. I think it's beyond worrying now, you just think where this is going to end?"

A bomb has exploded in the Southern Suburbs of Beirut in a stronghold of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Local media said at least 14 people have been killed and about 200 injured. Jim Muir reports from Beirut."Several hours after the blast, fire engines were still struggling to put out the blazes which were sending columns of smoke pouring out of two apartment blocks, one on each side of the busy street where the bomb went off. Ambulances queued up to ferry a stream of casualties to hospital. A video posted on the internet said it was carried out by a hitherto unknown group calling itself the Battalions of Ayesha. It's a name with Sunni connotations, reinforcing the assumption here that the attack was in reprisal for Hezbollah's opening involvement in the war in Syria against the mainly Sunni rebels."

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he's deeply troubled by Israel's continued settlement building. Speaking at a news conference with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, Mr. Ban said the expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem and West Bank would ultimately prevent a Palestinian state from being established. His visit to the region coincides with the new peace talks.

World News from the BBC.

The Iranian parliament has voted to reject three of the 18 proposed cabinet ministers of the new President Hassan Rouhani. Two of the rejected ministers were criticized by parliamentarians as being ally to reformist opposition leaders who disputed the outcome of the 2009 presidential election, a dispute that led to a huge street protest across Iran.

A judge in Los Angeles has sentenced a man who pretended to be a member of the Rockefeller family to 27 years to life in prison for murder. German born Christian Gerhartsreiter was found guilty of murdering the son of his landlady in 1985. Peter Bowes reports from Los Angeles. "He disappeared and in the following years masqueraded across the United States under a series of identities, including as an heir to the Rockefeller oil fortune. He changed his name to Clark Rockefeller, got married and even fooled his wife for 12 years. He also pretended to be a Hollywood producer and an English aristocrat during the years awaiting the arrest."

One of the biggest stars of the world athletics championships in Moscow has spoken out in support of her country's clampdown on gay rights. Russian pole-vaulter, Yelena Isinbayeva who drew the loudest cheers from the crowd when she won her third world title, said nude demonstrations of support for gay people by foreign athletes were disrespectful. She told a news conference Russians were different from European people. Legislation passed in June, she said, meant they were a punishable offence and everyone had to respect that.

Scientists in the United States have discovered a new species of mammal, Raccoon-sized creature with a teddy bear face called the Olinguito. The animal lives in the mountainous forests of Ecuador and Colombia, and for more than a century it was mistaken for its large close cousin, the Olingo. Researchers at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C examine teeth, skull and skin specimens.

BBC News.