BBC在线收听下载:一胎政策放宽 首都产房病床将增加

BBC news 2013-12-28

BBC News with John Jason.

The rebel leader in South Sudan has given a cautious response to government proposals to end hostilities. Riek Machar who is the former deputy president told the BBC that any ceasefire needed to be credible. From Nairobi, James Copnall reports.

Machar told the BBC that it would be impossible to stop fighting unless a proper verification mechanism was established. He also said he was waiting to see if all his detained political allies would be released. It was reported that the government would release some, but not all of the prisoners. At its Nairobi summit, IGAD also suggested that Machar's rebellion would not be recognized even if he managed to overthrow President Salva Kiir. This echoed the position taken by Barack Obama last week. This is bad news for Machar. IGAD is now insisting that direct talks between the president and his rival must begin by the end of the year. For the moment though, the fighting continues.

Two politicians who have been detained by the government shortly after a fighting began have also been released. Earlier the regional East African body IGAD said that President Salva Kiir's government was committed to ending hostilities.

A demonstration in Taksim Square in central Istanbul against the Turkish government has been broken up by police. It comes after the resignation of senior members in Prime Minister Recep Tyyip Erdogan's party over a high-level corruption scandal. One of the lawmakers who resigned accused the party of arrogance. Our world affairs correspondent Mike Wooldridge reports.

There is now a new focus of protest against Turkey's government. The breaking up of the demonstration at the heart of Istanbul today came after the resignation of 3 members of the ruling Justice and Development Party the AKP, the latest twist in what's widely seen as the worst crisis for the prime minister in his 3 terms in office. It's already led to a cabinet reshuffle and a speculation that he may call snap elections next year.

A Federal judge in the United States has ruled that the National Security Agency's controversial sweeping collection of telephone data is lawful. From Washington, Nada Tawfik.

Federal Judge William Pauley said the NSA's program represented the government's counter punch to al-Qaeda. The 911 attacks on the World Trade Center, he believes, might have been prevented if this tool was available to the US government at the time. In the ruling, Mr. Pauley acknowledged that the program, if unchecked, imperils the civil liberties of citizens, but he also said there was no evidence to suggest that the US government used the data for any reason other than investigating or disrupting a terrorist attack.

At least 3 people have been killed in fresh clashes between the security forces and supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The Interior Ministry said the deaths occurred in Cairo in the Nile Delta city of Damietta and Minya. Around 265 members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been arrested. The clashes broke out after Friday's prayers.

World News from the BBC.

More than 100 indigenous people in Brazil's Amazon region have sought refuge in a military base following riots in the town of Humaita. Town's people accused members of the Tenharim tribe of abducting 3 local contractors in an apparent retaliation for the murder of a tribal leader. They attacked government buildings and set fire to cars, demanding that the police carry out a full search in the indigenous reserve. The 3 men have been missing for over a week.

Police in India say they have now arrested 10 men for the gang-rape of a 21-year-old woman near the southern city of Pondicherry. The woman was attacked twice on Tuesday by two different groups of men. Joanna Jolly reports.

The Indian police have described the double gang-rape as a particularly bizarre and brutal sequence of events. They say the woman who was visiting friends south of Pondicherry was first abducted by 3 men, one of whom raped her. She managed to find her friends, only to be taken away a second time by a different group of men who allegedly gang-raped her. When she went to the police, an officer initially refused to register the attacks. He is now been suspended. The 10 men in custody have yet to be formally charged.

The Zimbabwean ambassador to Australia Jacqueline Zwambila has applied for asylum there, saying she will not return home when her term ends next week because she fears for her safety. Ms. Zwambila who is politically aligned to Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, said that Zimbabwe's national elections earlier this year were stolen by the current government which she described as illegitimate.

Officials in Beijing say they will increase the number of beds in the capital's maternity wards in preparation for an expected relaxation of China's one-child policy next year. Beijing's Municipal People's Congress has begun examining a draft amendment to the legislation that will allow couples to have two children if one of the parents is an only child.

BBC News.