BBC News:联合国人权事务高级专员称叙总统涉嫌战争罪
BBC News with Jerry Smit.
The United Nations human rights commissioner Navi Pillay has for the first time directly implicated the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Our diplomatic correspondent James Robbins has more.
This is the closest the United Nations has come to naming President Assad as a war crime suspect. Navi Pillay as human rights commissioner has still stopped just short of saying the Syrian leader is on a secret list of those who could eventually face trial at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Instead, she said the scale and viciousness of the abuses being perpetrated by both sides almost defied belief, and was being well documented by an expert panel of UN investigators.
The Syria's deputy foreign minister has requested money and equipment from the international community to help with efforts to remove chemical weapons from his country. Faisal Mekdad was speaking at a meeting of the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons in the Hague. He told the BBC Syria needed lorries and armored vehicles to move the chemicals. Ordinary vehicles will give those he described as terrorists the opportunity to attack.
The Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has called for both police and demonstrators to observe the law. At least 20,000 pro-European protesters have gathered in Independence Square in the capital Kiev, demanding the president's resignation as he decided not to sign an association agreement with the European Union. Steve Rosenberg reports.
In an interview with the Ukrainian TV channels, President Yanukovych said that people had the right to express their views, but it was vital that these actions were peaceful. A bad peace, he said, was better than the best war. The Ukrainian president argued that the authorities, the police and protesters all had to abide by the laws of the state. He called on the opposition to work together with the authorities to identify those who had provoked trouble in recent anti-government protests.
The legendary singer and song writer Bob Dylan has been placed under judicial investigation in France, allegedly for provoking ethnic hatred of Croats. It follows a legal complaint lodged by an association representing the Croatian community in France over an interview which Mr. Dylan gave to Rolling Stone magazine. Hugh Schofield reports.
In an interview last year, Bob Dylan was sharing his thought about American history and the racial divide. Speaking of black emancipation, he said that even today, if you've got Ku Klux Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that, just, he went on, as Jews can sense Nazi blood and Serbs can sense Croatian blood. This is a reference to the persecution of Serbs by the Croatian Ustashe regime in WWII. This has now led to a legal complaint by Croats living in France and following regular procedure, the singer has been placed under judicial investigation.
Hugh Schofield in Paris. World News from the BBC.
Court authorities in the northern Italian town of Prato have opened an investigation into the deaths of 7 Chinese workers in a factory fire on Monday. It's thought the fire began in a small kitchen area and spread quickly through the rest of the single-storey workshop. The BBC's Rome correspondent says there's widely held view locally that those who died were being exploited in a dangerous sweat shop.
The BBC's African footballer of the year has been named as the Ivorian Yaya Toure. Here is Alex Capstick.
Five times he has been on the short list and finally Yaya Toure has landed the coveted prize. He is only the second Ivorian after Didier Drogba to be named by the BBC as the best player from the continent. He has been an influential member of a star-studded Manchester City side. And although his country failed to make an impression at this year's Africa Cup of Nations, he was a key figure as Ivory Coast qualified for a third consecutive World Cup finals. Yaya Toure has also been at the forefront of the fight against racism in football after he was abused during a game in Moscow.
Colombia's biggest rebel group has invited one of the all-time greats of world football Diego Maradona to join their side in a match for peace against a team headed by the former captain of the Colombian national squad, Carlos Valderrama. One of the Farc's leaders, Ivan Marquez, says the group is making urgent appeals, not only to the Argentine star, but also to the Brazilian football star, Romario, to play for their side.
Animal Conservation groups have warned that Africa could lose as much as 1/5 of its elephant population in the next ten years if illegal poaching continues at its current rate. A report published today by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species or CITES said poaching levels were unacceptably high although the estimated number of illegal killings last year had fallen to 22,000.
BBC News.
