2010-07-02 BBC
BBC News with Zoe Diamond.
Police in Pakistan say suicide bombers have killed at least 35 people at a shrine in the city of Lahore. More than 170 others are thought to have been wounded. It’s not clear who carried out the attack. Aleem Maqbool reports.
Data Darbar, the shrine of a Sufi saint, is one of Lahore's most famous landmarks. On Thursday night, it's always packed with devotees. It was when, according to police, three suicide bombers blew themselves up, one at the shrine’s entrance, another within the compound, and the third in the basement of the building. Police say the explosive belts have been filled with ball-bearings to cause a maximum number of casualties. Earlier, security chiefs had been congratulating themselves - June had been the first month in two years in which there have been no suicide bombings in Pakistan. They said it was proof that the militant networks had been disrupted.
President Obama has called for a complete overhaul of immigration policy in the United States. The current system, he said, was “broken”. Making his first major speech on the subject as president, Mr Obama said neither a blanket amnesty nor mass deportation was the right way to deal with the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US. The president said only by overcoming political divisions could a system be created that worked.
“The fact is without bipartisan support we cannot solve this problem. Reform that brings accountability to our immigration system cannot pass without Republican votes. That is the political and mathematical reality. The only way to reduce the risk that this effort will again falter because of politics is if members of both parties are willing to take responsibility for solving this problem once and for all.”
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that he’s willing to release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in return for the release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, but he made clear the deal wouldn’t be agreed at any price - the most dangerous prisoners would not be allowed to return to their homes.
"The State of Israel is ready to pay a steep price for Gilad Shalit’s release, but it can’t say at any cost. It’s a truth and I’m saying it here. We will continue to make every effort, near and far, in full light and in the dark, to bring Gilad, dear to us all, back home. But we will do it while firmly safeguarding Israeli citizens' security."
The International Red Cross has urged the warring factions in Somalia to respect International humanitarian law and spare its medical facilities. It’s said three days of shelling near a hospital in Mogadishu had killed at least one patient and wounded another. The call came on the day the country marked 50 years of independence. Earlier, President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed accompanied AU peacekeepers and government troops as they battled Islamist insurgents.
This is the World News from the BBC.
Officials in Washington have expressed disappointment that Cyprus allowed a suspected member of a Russian spy ring to go free on bail and then disappear. Christopher Robert Metsos, who’s accused of handling funds for the group of 11, was reported missing on Wednesday after failing to attend a police meeting on the Island.
Stock markets around the world have fallen because of concerns about the strength of the economic recovery. The main indices in Tokyo and most European markets fell more than 2% in response to poor figures on manufacturing in China and worse-than-expected jobs data from the US. The Dow in New York was also lower.
Pope Benedict has told a former German bishop who resigned after admitting beating children that he should undergo medical treatment if he wants to return to work. Walter Mixa acknowledged during a private audience with the Pope of Vatican that he had made mistakes, but he asked that the good he'd done shouldn’t be forgotten. The BBC correspondent in Rome says the ex-bishop appears to have received much more lenient treatment from the Pope than had been proposed by Church authorities in other countries.
The United Nations war crimes court for Sierra Leone has ordered the supermodel Naomi Campbell to testify in a case against the former Liberian President Charles Taylor. It concerns blood diamonds, the use of gems for financing civil conflicts. Ms Campbell is alleged to have received a rough-cut diamond from Mr Taylor as a gift after a dinner hosted by Nelson Mandela in South Africa 13 years ago. Geraldine Coughlin in The Hague has more.
Prosecutors accused Charles Taylor of taking diamonds to South Africa to buy weapons, and asked the court last month to call Naomi Campbell who has so far refused to testify. The prosecution claims she can provide material evidence to rebut Charles Taylor’s claims that he never possessed rough diamonds.
World News from the BBC.