BBC 2007-04-16 加文本

BBC 2007-04-16



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BBC world news with Ian Perdon.

Exit polls from the constitutional referendum in Ecuador suggest that President Rafael Correa has overwhelming support for his proposals radically to change the way the country is run. Mr. Correa wants to create a constituent assembly, which would reform the congress, judiciary and other political institutions, and improve the lives of the Ecuador's poorest. Dannial Shrandler reports from the Ecuadorian capital Quito.

Supporters of President Rafael Correa's plans to radically reform Ecuador's political system were out on the street just minutes after polling stations closed. He will show on national television celebrating at a hotel in the country's largest city Guayaquil. The full official results are not likely to be released for some time. But it seems clear that the president's proposals have received the overwhelming backing he was seeking. The result means that Ecuador will now hold third elections to choose a constituent assembly that will radically rewrite the country's constitution.

The key committee of the World Bank meeting in Washington has expressed serious concern about the personal scandal surrounding the bank's president Paul Wolfowitz. The controversy is over the decision by Mr. Wolfowitz to promote and give a big pay-rise to his girl friend who was employed by the bank before he took over. Andrew Walker reports.

Mr. Wolfowitz is still in his job, but he remains under a cloud. The bank's board will continue looking into the controversy and he has said he'll accept whatever remedies the board proposes. The ministers who met in the committee which guides World Bank and IMF policy, and which does not usually consider personnel matters, describe the situation as of great concern. The communique also said that it's important that the bank should maintain its credibility and reputation as well as the motivation of its staff. Critics of Mr. Wolfowitz say that all roles have been undermined by the controversy.

The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Palestinian President Mahmud Abas have held talks in Jerusalem. They met for lunch at the Prime Minister's residence. The spokeswoman for Mr. Olmert said the two men had positive talks mainly about security and humanitarian issues. A Hamas-led Palestinian government spokesman Haz Hamad said that the establishment of a government of national unity in February had improved the prospects for cooperation. It's not the first meeting between the President Abass and Olmert, but I think now maybe the situation has changed because we're supposed here we are unified in one government.

The Supreme Court in Iran is reported to have acquitted a group of men charged with murdering people they considered to be involved in un-Islamic activities in the southeastern city of Kerman in the year 2002. The killers who were all members of an Islamic paramilitary force told the court they believed Islam allow them to kill anyone engaged in what they called illicit activities if they'd ignored two warnings to stop.

World news from the BBC.

More than sixty people have been killed and at least a hundred injured in a spate of bomb attacks and sectarian murders through the day in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Two car bombs went off close together near a busy street market in a mainly Shiite neighborhood followed by a series of other explosions elsewhere. Police also reported finding thirty bodies dumped in the street apparently victims of sectarian killings.

Opposition supporters in Nigeria have set up roadblocks barricaded election offices and burned buildings as they protest against Saturday's state election results. The protesters are complaining that the poll was neither free, nor fair, and police say more than twenty people were killed during the vote, our correspondent David Bamford is in Abuja.

It is exactly what international observers here didn't want to happen. This is stokes-up animosity across the country, particularly in cities like Dowts in the north and in the delta region, and with the presidential and parliamentary elections just a few days away, there will be a build-up to that as well. And I think the tension will build rather than lessen.

Riot police in Russia have clashed with anti-government protesters at a rally in the country's second city St. Petersburg. A day after police broke up a similar protest in Moscow. The violence in St. Petersburg took place at the end of the rally when police wielding batons chased small groups of protesters, beating them to the ground and hauling them into police buses. Several organizers of the rally were arrested.

A previously unknown Palestinian group calling itself Al Tawhid Al Jihad has issued a statement saying it has killed the missing BBC correspondent in Gaza Alan Johnston. The BBC said it was aware of the report and was very concerned about it, but stressed that there was no verification whatsoever. The Palestinian authority said it, too, had no information confirming the fate of Alan Johnston. He disappeared more than a month ago on his way home from work in Gaza.