2010-04-08 BBC
BBC News with Sue Montgomery
There’s been a day of bloodshed and turmoil in Kyrgyzstan with the opposition saying it set up an interim government. However it is still not clear who is in control or where President Kurmanbek Bakiyev is. Rayham Demytrie sent out this report from the capital, Bishkek.
As night fell, widespread looting began in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, hundreds of protesters were moving from one shop to another, setting buildings on fire and causing more chaos on the ground. Random gunshots could be heard all across Bishkek. An interim government has been set up in Kyrgyzstan. It is being led by an opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva. In a comment of a Russian TV channel she said that the situation in the country remains tense and difficult. Early on Wednesday, the country’s prime minister resigned. Some reports suggest that the Kyrgyz’s President Kurmanbek Bakiyev is in the south of the country in the city of Osh.
It’s been announced in Brazil that health workers will distribute 70,000 aid packages to the victims of floods which have/claimed over a hundred lives and caused widespread devastation in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Paulo Cabral reports from the city.
Dozens of people remained unaccounted for following the landslides and floods caused by heavy rains. Rescue teams are still working in the shanty towns that collapsed under waves of mud that cascaded down the hillsides. The rain is now intermittent and moderate but there is still a risk of new landslides because the soil is wet and unstable. The mayor of Rio de Janeiro Eduardo Paes said that up to 2000 families would be removed from high risk areas but he has not said where these people will be sent to or when this will happen.
A Chinese human rights lawyer whose disappearance last year caused international concern has resurfaced in Beijing saying he will no longer criticize the government. Gao Zhisheng had not been seen in public since last year. Damian Grammaticas reports from Beijing.
It was February last year when Chinese police took Gao Zhisheng away in the middle of the night, one of the most outspoken critics of China’s Communist Party, nothing was seen or heard from him for over a year. Now looking thinner and more haggard, the 44-year-old lawyer has given a single Television interview in Beijing. Mr Gao said he’d been through cruel experiences but/did not want to talk about the past. He said he wanted to have some control over his future and be reunited with his family.
The Russian and Polish Prime Minister have for the first time attended a joint ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Katyn Massacre in which more than 20,000 Poles were killed by Soviet secret police in 1940. Vladimir Putin said the crime could not be justified but the Russian people could not be blamed for Soviet-era allies that Nazi Germany committed the atrocity. He urged reconciliation as his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk.
BBC News.
The Roman Catholic Church has confirmed that a region bishop who resigned last year did so because he sexually abused a child 20 years ago. The Vatican said the man, Georg Mueller, the former bishop of Trondheim had received therapy and was no longer in a pastoral position. The case is said to have come to light only last year when no criminal charges could be brought because Norway’s statue to limitations.
Leaders of the anti-government protest in Thailand have called a big rally for Friday despite the authorities declaring a state of emergency in and around the capital Bangkok. The prime minster said the move was necessary as the demonstrations could no longer be considered peaceful. On Wednesday, the protesters broke into the grounds of parliament prompting deputies to flee. They say the government is illegal and they want new elections.
Leaders of Southeast Asian nations about to meet in Vietnam have been urged to put Burma at the top of their agenda, although it currently doesn’t feature there at all. Amnesty International said Burma had an appalling human rights record which was a serious breach of the Asian Charter.
Ten fat Scottish hedgehogs have been put into a diet because they’ve become too tubby to roll into a ball and escape their predators. The hedgehogs had been taken in by Wildlife Rescue Center in Scotland to save them through a harsh winter and the steady supply of food might be piled on the weight. Colin Sneddon is the manager of the center.
This is what we called legless hedgehogs who don’t tend to make their hibernation weight. So we then keep them for a bit longer and get some fat onto them. Get them out into the wild in a nice mild spell, but we haven’t had a mild spell. It’s all been cold right away through the winter for months now. So that’s held them off which means they have been sitting in cages. They've been eating. That’s all they’ve been doing, sitting eating and sleeping so they have got fat.
And after a successful slimming program, they are now fit to be released back into the wild.