2010-01-23 BBC
BBC News with Marian Marshall.
Justice Department officials working on how to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center have recommended that 47 of those held there should stay in prison indefinitely without trial. Adam Brooks reports.
196 people suspected of terrorism or war crimes remain in the camps. The task forces concluded that 35 of them should be prosecuted; more than 100 should eventually be released; but 47 are too dangerous to release, but cannot be tried because the evidence against them is too flimsy or was extracted from them by coercion, so wouldn't hold up in court. These then would have to be held indefinitely without trial - an outcome that will dismay civil liberties groups who hoped the president would end the practice of detention without trial.
The British government has announced a ban on the export of a type of bomb detector to Iraq and Afghanistan after a BBC investigation found that the device doesn't work. There are concerns that the detectors have failed to stop bomb attacks in Iraq which have killed hundreds of people. The Iraqi government has spent 85 million dollars on the devices. Caroline Hawley reports.
From his company's office in the west of England, Jim McCormick has sold his so-called bomb detector around the world. The biggest customer has been Iraq where the hand-held wand is being used at checkpoints throughout Baghdad. Lives literally depend on it. Jim McCormick claims that it works through special cards slotted into the device, supposedly programmed to detect different explosives. But the BBC has had one of the cards analyzed, and it contains nothing more than a cheap tag used in high street shops to prevent theft.
British lawyers say it's doubtful that thousands of Ivorians affected by a toxic chemical spillage in Ivory Coast in 2006 would receive any compensation following a court ruling in Abidjan. The court ordered that a 45-million-dollar settlement with the oil group Trafigura, who had brought the chemical waste to the country, should be transferred to a local activist group for distribution. The activists had argued they were better placed to look after the victims' interests. John James reports from the court in Abidjan.
The money had been paid by multi-national oil trader Trafigura, who brought 500 tons of chemical waste to Abidjan in August 2006, where it was then dumped by a local contractor. Trafigura said that it expected the waste to be safely treated in Abidjan. But 30,000 Ivorians said they felt ill after the dumping and brought a class action against the firm in London. In an out-of-court settlement, each claimant agreed to drop the accusations would receive 1,500 dollars. The money was transferred to an account in Ivory Coast where as it was about to be handed out. A local activist Claude Gohourou said that his organization should be in charge of distributing the money and the bank account was frozen.
This is the latest World News from the BBC.
The Federal High Court in Nigeria has given the government 14 days to decide whether the country's President Umaru Yar'Adua is capable of performing his duties. President Yar'Adua left the country almost two months ago for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, but hasn't formally transferred powers to the Vice President Goodluck Jonathan.
The authorities in Britain have raised the threat of an international terrorist attack in the country to its second highest level - 'severe'. But Britain's Home Secretary Alan Johnson said there was no intelligence to suggest one was imminent. The BBC security correspondent says the threat from international terrorism is seen and is having increased after the failed attempt last month to bomb a plane bound for the American city of Detroit.
A two-year-old boy in Brazil, who had dozens of needles inserted into his body by his stepfather, has been released from hospital. The child received three operations at a hospital in the northeastern state of Barreiras to remove most of the needles. Doctors said the boy will require further treatment but will be able to lead a normal life. Greg Morsbach reports.
The police opened an investigation and arrested the child's stepfather. He confessed to sticking the needles into the child apparently one needle a day over the course of several weeks. The stepfather told the police it was part of a black magic ritual to get back at his ex-wife, the boy's mother. The two-year-old had three operations. Almost all of the foreign objects have been removed; some of them were life-threatening as they were lodged in the lungs. Surgeons say the fragments of several needles are still trapped under his skin.
Opera goers in Scotland are attending a performance of Prokofiev's War and Peace which for the first time has the score the composers wanted audiences to hear. The performance in Glasgow is the premiere of the original score rejected by Stalin. Material added at the request of the Soviet authorities has been removed.
BBC News.