BBC在线收听下载:联合国要求调查叙利亚化学武器事件

BBC news 2013-08-23

BBC News with Jerry Smit.

The United Nations has formally requested the Syrian government to allow a UN team of weapons inspectors in Syria to investigate Wednesday's alleged chemical attack in the suburb of Damascus. The UN chief, Ban Ki-moon said that he'd expected a positive response without delay. From New York here Nick Bryant. "The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has called on the Syrian authorities to allow that UN weapons inspections team that arrived on Sunday to go to the site without delay. There is a problem, attack is, that indeed, is a couple of problems first, there is a safety concern that the US acknowledge it's not safe to go there at the moment. And under the conditions of the UN weapons inspections team was allowed into the country, they are only allowed to visit three sites and that doesn't include other sites of this alleged atrocity. There's possibly another complication as well, they are only allowed to stay there for 14 days, so the clock is already ticking." Turkey and France have been leading international condemnation over the attack. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has described it as a crime against humanity, saying all options are on the table in response. His French counterpart Laurent Fabius has said that the international community should react with force if the allegations are verified.

The former President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak has been released after more than two years in detention although he remains under house arrest. Mr. Mubarak still faces a retrial on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the uprising that forced him from power two years ago. Here's Bethany Bell. "The state television showed a helicopter rising up carrying Mr. Mubarak to military hospital in the Cairo district of Maadi and then he was taken on a stretcher from the helicopter into the hospital. Now what had happened was, as we understand, that the prosecution had given the green light saying that they had no more reason to be able to keep Mr. Mubarak in pre-trial detention anymore, because he'd already served the maximum time, but now he's still under house arrest."

An American soldier who's admitted killing 16 Afghan civilians in Kandahar province in 2012 has apologized, calling the killings an act of cowardice. Alastair Leithead reports. "For two days, staff sergeant Robert Bales has heard the testimony of some of those Afghans whose lives he ruined in the overnight shooting spray close to his remote US base in Kandahar last year. The prosecutor went through the graphic, minute by minute details of the men, women and children killed and injured and what they painted  as a cold blooded and premeditated attack on unarmed civilians sleeping in their homes. Taking the stand as final witness, Bales was emotional and he admitted that what he did was an act of cowardice, saying he was truly, truly sorry for those people whose families got taken away."

BBC News.

A parliamentary inquiry has found that a series of racist murders committed by a neo-Nazi cell in Germany went undetected for years because of a widespread institutional bias among the country's security services. The report found that police had assumed that the murder of ten people of Turkish background over a period of seven years had been the work of Turkish criminals.

Police in Britain have launched a criminal investigation after seizing material thought includes thousands of classified electronic documents from a Brazilian man on Sunday. David Miranda who is a partner of a journalist exposed secret information about the US surveillance was temporarily detained under terrorist legislation at Heathrow airport. Danny Shaw reports. "Lawyers for David Miranda went to the High Court as a part of what's likely to be a lengthy legal battle to secure a declaration that his detention under anti-terrorism powers was unlawful. Lawyers for the Metropolitan Police said disclosure of the information would be gravely injurious to public safety and that there's a result of what detectives had discovered, they'd begun a criminal investigation. The High Court said police could continue to examine the items, but only to find out that Mr. Miranda was involved in terrorism and for the protection of the public."

The authorities in Mexico say a number of bodies found in a ranch east of Mexico City may be those of 12 youngsters abducted in May. So far, they've recovered five bodies, but some reports say they may be up to 13. The police said the suspects left them in to two graves in a forested area near a park. The youngsters disappeared in May after visiting the Heaven bar in Mexico City.

El-Salvador's Football Federation has provisionally suspended 22 of its international players fanning an investigation into alleged match-fixing. The federation's president said they will not be allowed to play for 30 days until the allegations were resolved.

And that's the BBC News