2010-07-05 BBC
BBC News with David Austin.
The candidate of Poland’s governing party, Bronislaw Komorowski, has won the country’s presidential election. Exit polls immediately after the voting gave him a small but clear lead over the opposition leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who congratulated his opponent and called him the winner. Mr Kaczynski is the twin brother of the previous president who was killed in the Smolensk plane crash three months ago. Bronislaw Komorowski said his election was a victory for democracy in Poland.
"This was an unusually difficult campaign, because it took place in the shadow of the Smolensk catastrophe and in the shadow of the drama of the floods. It was a campaign which proved that the Polish state, even in the most difficult moments, passes the test and copes as a democratic government."
The BBC’s correspondent in Poland says the result will mean a rare period of political stability for the country, with the prime minister and president from the same party.
Voting is taking place in almost half of Mexico’s states amid very tight security after a campaign marred by killings and death threats attributed to drug cartels. There’s widespread nervousness over the violence as the public vote for new mayors and governors. From Mexico City, here’s our correspondent Julian Miglierini.
In the month living up to the election, candidates in some of the Mexican regions have complained of intimidation by drug cartels, which forced them to adopt extra security measures on the campaign trail. Two local candidates in the state of Chihuahua where Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s most violent city, is located, admitted to the BBC that they kept their public agenda hidden, used decoys like announcing they were heading for a rally and then going to another, and avoided night-time political activity altogether.
Lebanon and the Islamic world have been mourning the death of one of Shia Islam’s most influential clerics, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. He died on Sunday in a Beirut hospital aged 74. From Beirut, Jim Muir.
There’s been a huge and emotional response to Ayatollah Fadlallah’s death. Thousands of mourners, many of them weeping, gathered at a mosque in Beirut's southern suburbs where he lived, to pay their condolences. His legacy includes the many works of Islamic learning that he wrote and the many charitable and educational foundations he left behind. But his death had a resonance in the West for other reasons. In the early 1980’s, his name was linked to Hezbollah and it was blamed for many bomb attacks, hijackings and kidnappings aimed at driving out the Israelis, Americans and other foreign forces.
A military court in Syria has sentenced an elderly human rights lawyer to three years in prison. The lawyer, Haitham Maleh who’s 78, was charged with weakening national morale. He was arrested in October after criticising a lack of democracy and police excesses in Syria.
World News from the BBC.
The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told Azerbaijan that the United States is ready to help it reach a deal with Armenia over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Speaking in Azerbaijan, she said the issue was a high priority for the US and that peace was possible. The enclave has been controlled by Armenian troops and ethnic Armenian forces since 1994. President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan has called the simmering tensions with Armenia "a major threat" to regional security.
Two government ministers in France have resigned over their use of more than $100,000 of taxpayers’ money. The Development Minister Alain Joyandet hired a private plane in March to go to an emergency meeting in Martinique on the Haiti earthquake, while Christian Blanc, who’s in charge of a new transport plan for Paris, spent more than $14,000 of his ministry's budget on cigars.
The Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal has won his second men singles’ title in Wimbledon in London. Nadal, who’s the world No. 1, beat Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic in straight sets. Nadal has now won eight Grand Slam titles. He said he was particularly delighted to be champion once again, after being unable to defend his title last year because of injury.
"... just more than a dream for me now, and it always was my dream play in this court and today, play the fourth final was amazing for me after the difficulty year. Last year, I can’t be here, but this year I came back and, you know, be here and have this trophy in my hands, it’s just more than a dream."
An unmanned Russian Progress space freighter has docked successfully with the International Space Station. On Friday, the planned docking failed after contact was lost for the radio signal which helps guide the two together. Over two tonnes of food, water, fuel and other equipment has now been delivered to the Russian and American crew on board the ISS. Specialists corrected the orbit for the Progress cargo ship on Saturday.
That’s the BBC News.