BBC在线收听下载:联合国秘书长对达尔富地区形势表示担忧

BBC news 2015-01-30

BBC News with Julie Candler

States television in Egypt says that at least 20 people have been killed and more than 30 wounded in a series of simultaneous attacks at the northern Sinai, where the security forces are battling against Islamic extremists. Our Arab affairs editor Sebastian Usher reports.

The brunt of the attacks was against military and police targets in the provincial capital el-Arish, but other towns were hit as well. A car bomb was set off outside a military base in el-Arish while mortar rounds were fired at other targets including a police club and several check points. Northern Sinai has long been a violent and unstable region. The army has launched major operations to try to stop the violence, but they so far failed. A jihadist group calling itself Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has become the biggest threat there, staging many attacks on security targets, especially since the ousting of the Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

In Mexico City rescuers are sifting through the rubble of a maternity hospital that partially collapsed when a truck carrying liquid gas exploded. The federal district mayor Miguel Angel Mancera Espinosa now says a woman and a baby have died. Officials had reported seven deaths. The city's civil defence director said more people probably still in the rubble. Juan Carlos Paris is BBC Mundo correspondent in Mexico City.

Fifty percent of the building was destroyed by this blast. It happened at 7am in the morning here while the lorry was giving some gas, liquid gas, to the hospital. It was given to the kitchen. But the kitchen was very close to the area where the children were in their cribs. I have to say that the driver and two of the helpers have been arrested, and they are now being interrogated by the police about what happened there.

At an extraordinary meeting in Brussels European Union foreign ministers have agreed to extend the existing economic sanctions against Russia until September. It did not agree on imposing new economic sanctions. The EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini outlined their decisions.

"We decided today, so before they expire on 15 March, the extension of the existing restrictive measures. And let me also underline three different things: extension in the time of the existing sanctions when it comes to the list, preparation for decision in 10 days next week, proposal and decision in next 10 days of new names to add to the list, which is additional; and third, to start the preparation of any further measure."

The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, who's a long-standing ally of Moscow, has said that Russia is partly to blame for the conflict in Ukraine. He made the comments on the eve of hosting Ukrainian peace talks in Belarus. Mr Lukashenko also warned that Belarus was not part of what Moscow calls the Russian world and was able to protect itself militarily.

World News from the BBC

The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, has said the new Greek government will seek common ground with its European partners as it attempts to renegotiate the terms of its financial bailout. He was speaking after talks with the Greek Prime Minister Alexi Tsipras, whose anti-austerity Syriza party was elected on Sunday.

The spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General says Ban Ki-moon is deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in Darfur. The UN says at least 36,000 civilians have been displaced by recent clashes between Sudanese government troops and rebels. The Sudanese government is struggling to quell rebellions in the Darfur, south Kordofan and Blue Nile regions.

American and Afghan military officials say three United States Defence Department contractors have been killed in a shooting at Kabul airport. An Afghan soldier was reported to have carried out the attack. Earlier Afghan authorities said 16 people were killed in attacks by militants in the eastern province of Laghman.

The government in Portugal has approved rules allowing descendants of Jews who were expelled from the country centuries ago to claim Portuguese citizenship. Applicants will have to prove a strong link to Portugal as Alison Roberts explains.

This might, the government said, be a combination of surname, language used in the family or proof of direct descent. Many of the thousands of Jews expelled in 1497, five years after Spain's own order of expulsion or who fled later to avoid forced conversion to Christianity, continued to use a form of Portuguese in their new communities in Amsterdam, Istanbul, New York and across Brazil. As the government notes Jews settled in this part of Iberia long before the kingdom of Portugal was founded in the 12th century. At present only a few thousands live here, but according to officials numerous Sephardic Jews from around the globe are now showing an interest in applying for nationality.

In neighbouring Spain a similar law is still being debated.

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