BBC news 2010-07-30
BBC News with Zoe Diamond.
The American Defence Secretary Robert Gates has called in the FBI to help in the investigation on who recently leaked 90,000 classified military documents on the war in Afghanistan. The leaks were posted online earlier this week. From Washington, Iain MacKenzie reports.
Robert Gates claimed the leaking of 90,000 classified military files had potentially severe and dangerous consequences for troops on the ground. He said the documents relating to battlefield incidents and intelligence gathering could also pose a threat to those Afghan nationals assisting the coalition. However, the most stark warning came from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs appearing alongside him - Admiral Mike Mullen said Wikileaks may already have blood on its hands.
At least 80 people have been killed in a river boat accident in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The boat was carrying about 200 people. Many are still unaccounted for. The accident happened on Wednesday, but details are only now emerging. Jonny Hogg reports.
The Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende Omalanga said the boat was on a stretch of the Congo River in the Kwilu district of Bandundu, with around 200 passengers onboard. He said it seemed the vessel was overcrowded. This, combined with low water levels, caused it to hit an obstruction, possibly a sandbank or rock, and capsized. The Congolese Red Cross has been searching for survivors, and a government rescue operation will be run by the Ministries of Transport and Internal Affairs. Rivers are often used as transport routes in the Congo as there’re so few roads, but poor maintenance and overcrowding mean ferry accidents are common.
A Senate subcommittee in the United States has estimated that more than 6,500 graves at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia may be mislabeled. At a Senate hearing, the former Superintendent responsible for running the cemetery, where the US has buried American veterans and war deaths since 1776, accepted “full responsibility”. John Metzler said he didn’t have the resources he needed and expressed his “sincere regrets to the families”.
A French woman has confessed to suffocating eight of her babies shortly after they were born in an effort to hide the fact that she’d become pregnant, even from her husband. She smothered the first of the babies in 1989, the last in 2006. The woman from a village in northern France was detained earlier this week when the bodies were found stuffed into plastic bags. The woman is expected to be charged with murder. Her husband has been released by police. The prosecutor Eric Vailliant explains why.
“Mr Cottrez has indicated to investigators that he never knew his wife was pregnant, or that she got rid of the children just after giving birth. Mrs Cottrez confirms this. She said she didn’t want any more children and that she didn’t want to see a doctor for contraception.”
This is the World News from the BBC.
A week of heavy monsoon rain in Pakistan has led to the deaths of at least 100 people in floods. Worst affected was the north of the country where dozens of people drowned while others were electrocuted or buried under rubble when the walls of their houses collapsed. Several rivers burst their banks, washing away cattle, roads as well as bridges.
A prominent Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas, who has recently ended his four-month hunger strike, has been released from hospital. The journalist and psychologist began his protest to demand the release of imprisoned opposition activists in poor health. Vanessa Buschschluter reports.
Doctors said Guillermo Farinas had been near death when he broke off his hunger strike after more than 130 days. He had started his protest in February after another dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo died following an 85-day hunger strike. Mr Farinas’s demand was simple - release all the jailed opposition activists who are ill. After the Cuban government agreed to free 52 dissidents under a deal with the Catholic Church and Spain, he ended his hunger strike. That was three weeks ago. Now with his health slowly improving, he has returned home.
Temperatures in Moscow have reached 39 degrees Celsius, the hottest day ever recorded there. The record-breaking heat wave has sparked fires across the country, and the Russian capital now lies under a thick layer of smog. Health experts are warning people to stay indoors or to wear masks because pollution levels in some parts of the city have risen ten times above normal safety limits.
The United Nations says thousands of children in Gaza appear to have broken their own world record for the number of kites being flown simultaneously. More than 7,000 children taking part in a three-week summer camp organized by the UN Relief and Works Agency gathered on a beach to fly a colorful kite each.
That’s the latest World News from the BBC.