BBC 2007-04-23 加文本

BBC 2007-04-23



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BBC World News, I'm Roy Lama.

France's next president will be either Nicolas Sarkozy of the governing centre-right UMP or the Socialist Segolene Royal. The two candidates topped Sunday's first round of the presidential election and will now contest the runoff in two weeks' time. Thirty percent of voters backed Mr. Sarkozy with twenty five percent opting for Mrs. Royal. From Paris, Mark Mardell.

The turnout is a French record breaker and pretty amazing by the standards of most democracies. It shows that the French people think that the political choices on offer could make a real difference to their lives. Both candidates went out of their way to stress that France had a very clear choice between two alternative visions. But perhaps there will be a little muddying of that clarity over the next two weeks. Those who voted for the centre candidate Francois Bayrou will find they are wooed by both camps and that may involve turning down the rhetoric.

As results start to come in from the presidential election in Nigeria on Saturday, criticism is growing of the conduct of the polls. Early results suggest the candidates of the governing People's Democratic Party, Umaru Yar'Adua, is heading for victory. But the two main opposition candidates have said that they will not accept the results. David Bamford reports from Abuja.

Foreign observer teams seem unanimous that Nigeria's election has fallen short of the Democratic minimum, but they are waiting till more results are declared before they announce their full conclusions. European Union observers say they witnessed widespread violence, intimidation, ballot-box stuffing and serious shortages of election material. The Commonwealth groups spoke diplomatically about shortcomings even the West African group Ecowas in which Nigeria has a powerful voice said the vote was neither free nor fair.

Ethiopia says eight of its nationals who were kidnapped last month alongside five Europeans in the Northern Afar region near the border with Eritrea had been set free. The Europeans were released unharmed after twelve days. Amber Henshaw reports from the capital Addis Ababa.

Details are still sketchy but it looks like all of the Ethiopian hostages have now been released after more than seven weeks in captivity. A government official confirmed the men were now on Ethiopian soil but couldn't give their specific location. It's believed they were held in Eritrea for at least some of the time during the kidnapping. The group were taken in the middle of night by armed men and marched into the Afar desert towards Eritrea. The Ethiopian government blames the Eritreans for kidnapping but officials in Asmara deny any involvement.

The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says he has ordered a halt to construction of a controversial wall which would separate mainly Sunni part of Baghdad from nearby Shiite areas. The building of the wall was announced by US military on Saturday. Leading Iraqi politicians said it would only increase sectarian tensions.

This is BBC World News.

The Chilean armed forces have recovered the bodies of three people who were swept out to sea after a powerful earthquake shook a remote fiord in Patagonia. Another seven people are still missing. The quake, which hit on Saturday, caused hillsides surrounding the fiord to collapse. This in turn triggered waves eight meters high.

The former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina has condemned the move by the military-backed interim government which has prevented her returning home. Sheikh Hasina was refused permission to board a flight from London to Dhaka because the airline had been told it wouldn't be allowed to land. Sheikh Hasina said that she was willing to go to jail while fighting the charges she faces over a riot last year. She spoke to the BBC of her determination to return to Bangladesh.

"I want to go back to my country, I'll try my best, legally, politically, I'll struggle to go back to my country because this government (have) no right to stop me going back, because my people need me and I am very much eager to go."

Two water companies have apologized to an accident in Scotland which resulted in up to a hundred million liters of raw sewage leaking into the sea near Edinburgh. The companies say there was a catastrophic pump failure at a waste treatment plant on Friday. They have brought in specialist equipment from other parts of Britain and hope to resolve the problem soon. Residents have complained that they were not informed quickly enough about the possible health risk from contamination in the Firth of Forth coast.

The political leader of Hamas Khaled Meshaal has appealed for the immediate release of the missing BBC correspondent Alan Johnston who disappeared in Gaza six weeks ago and is believed to have been abducted. Speaking in Damascus, Mr. Meshaal said the kidnappers were harming the national interest of the Palestinian people.