2010-07-20 BBC
BBC News with Jim Lee.
Researchers say a medicinal gel being tested in South Africa has almost halved the risk of women being infected with HIV when routinely use before sex. The World Health Organization and the UN AIDS agency called the results groundbreaking. Here's Bethany Bell.
Researchers in South Africa say that a gel they've tested among 900 women cut the risk of HIV infection by 39%. Those who used the gel regularly had their risk of infection lowered by 44%. But the gel's effectiveness appear to decline after 18 months. The gel which contains an AIDS drug is still at an experimental stage.
An investigation by the Washington Post Newspaper says the intelligence and surveillance system created in the United States after the September the 11th attacks in 2001 has become so big that its effectiveness can no longer be determined. Here's Kevin Connolly.
More than 250 government bodies have been created or reconstructed since 9.11, producing a system so complex and extensive that no one can be quite sure how much it costs or how effectively it works. In all 2,000 private companies and nearly 1,300 government agencies were involved in counter-terrorism at 10,000 sites scattered across the United States.
The Obama administration has expressed fears that the article might help America's enemies locate its intelligence installations, but it hasn't answered the core charge of costly and uncontrollable inefficiency.
United Nations Security General Ban Ki-moon has urged Cuba to build on its decision to release up to 52 political prisoners, first of whom were freed last week. Mr. Ban said the UN expected Cuba to do more to establish the rule of law and respect human rights, and it urged it to take further reconciliatory measures.
The British Prime Minister David Cameron has again said the Scotland's decision to release the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi , last year was wrong. Mr. Cameron told the BBC that he personally saw no case for freeing him. Mr. al-Megrahi / was sent to Libya， because he had terminal cancer, cancer that he is still alive. Here's Rob Watson.
David Cameron strongly criticized the decision to free al-Megrahi at the time / he was released from prison last August. That he's done so again ahead of his visit to Washington and New York may well help Mr. Cameron in a country where feelings are running high so close to the one-year anniversary of the Libyan's release. Lockerbie and BP's alleged role in lobbying for al-Megrahi's release are likely to feature in Mr. Cameron's talks in the US.
We've just heard that the US official responsible for the clean-up of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Thad Allen, has said the seepage near to the fractured well is not related to the testing of the cap by BP. As a result, he is allowing the testing of the cap on the well to be continued for another 24 hours.
World News from the BBC.
A state-run Turkish news agency says a court in Istanbul has indicted 196 people for planning to overthrow the government, which is run by a party with its roots in Islam. The suspects who were arrested earlier this year, and include serving and former military officers, some of them generals and admirals. They are said to have seen the government as a threat to secularism and plot the coup in 2003.
Greek police say a far-left militant group is likely to have been behind the killing of an investigator of journalist, Socratis Guiolias, who was shot dead outside his home in Athens. The police say bullet casings recovered from the scene match weapons used by the group, the Sect of Revolutionaries, which killed a policeman last year. The suggestion 's being viewed with skepticism by some politicians.
Parliament in the small South American country of Suriname has elected the former military leader, Desi Bouterse as its new president. Mr. Bouterse won the necessary 36 votes out of 50, after weeks of negotiations with political factions following his party's narrow general election victory in May. James Reed has the details.
Desi Bouterse's supporters cheered and waved flags outside the parliament in Paramaribo in celebration of what is, by any standards, an extraordinary political comeback. Mr. Bouterse is still waiting trial over the killing of political opponents during his time as military ruler in the 1980s. And internationally, he is a wanted drug trafficker, convicted in his absence in the Netherlands to 11 years in jail for cocaine smuggling. But nine years after he finally relinquished power to a civilian government, the former coup leader is now the legitimate president of Suriname.
Israel says it has successfully completed testing of an anti-missile system to protect the country against rockets fired by Palestinian and Hezbollah militants. Israeli Defense Ministry said the system, namely Iron Dome Interceptor, passed its final test on Monday, will be ready for deployment by November.
BBC News.