BBC news 2011-06-29
BBC News with David Legge
One of the top hotels in the Afghan capital Kabul, the Intercontinental, has come under attack. At least 10 people have been killed. Bilal Sarwary in Kabul has the latest details.
An Afghan intelligence official in the hotel also told me that three of the attackers have managed to detonate their suicide vests, the first one in the second floor, where the rooms are. The second one has(have口误) detonated his explosive vest on the front gate, and the third one at the backside of the hotel. The Afghan intelligence official also said that the insurgents had chosen a late hour in the night when rear guards were relaxed. He also said that the electricity at the hotel had gone and that he had advised all guests not to open their room[s] to anyone.
The International Monetary Fund has appointed a new managing director. She is Christine Lagarde, who's currently the French finance minister and was chosen by consensus among the IMF board. Ms Lagarde becomes the first female head of one of the world's top financial bodies. Her appointment became almost certain earlier in the day when the United States, the IMF's biggest contributor, publicly announced its support. Her predecessor Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned after facing serious sex charges. The British Chancellor George Osborne says he's delighted at Christine Lagarde's appointment.
"Well, I think Christine Lagarde was the best person for the job. That's why Britain proposed her. I'm delighted she's won. She's smart, she's intelligent, she's tough, and she knows how to get people together to fix a problem. And at the moment, there are lots of countries with problems because they can't pay their debts, so the world is, I think, going to be well served by having Christine Lagarde at the head of the IMF."
In her first statement after being appointed, Christine Lagarde has called on the opposition in Greece to back the Greek government's tough austerity plan. A peaceful rally by tens of thousands of protesters in central Athens turned violent, and police used tear gas against small groups of youths in the streets around parliament. Our Europe editor Gavin Hewitt has been at the scene of the day's events.
The protest almost immediately turned violent. The unions had called a 48-hour general strike. For hours, there were running battles in the square outside parliament. Satellite trucks were attacked and set on fire. The police fired hundreds of volleys of stun grenades and tear gas to try and clear the area in front of parliament. One of them landed around us and in the face of a BBC camera. Away from the square, large parts of the Greek economy were brought to a halt by strikes.
Rebels in Libya have captured a major complex of underground weapons bunkers near the town of Zintan, 160km southwest of Tripoli. The area came under Nato jet attacks several days ago. A BBC correspondent who visited the site said one bunker was still burning.
World News from the BBC
A framework peace accord has been reached to end the conflict in the South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions of northern Sudan. The African Union-backed accord was signed between the Sudanese government and the SPLM North party. Tens of thousands of Nuba have been displaced in South Kordofan following aerial bombardments by the Sudanese military, which says some Nuba remain allied to former rebels in southern Sudan.
Reports (from Saudi Arabia) say Saudi Arabia will begin withdrawing most of its security forces from neighbouring Bahrain from next week because it views the situation there as calmer. About 1,000 troops were deployed there in mid-March at the height of the pro-democracy unrest which swept Bahrain, but it's unclear exactly what role they played in the security operation to quell the demonstrations.
A court in Ecuador has found six police officers guilty of crimes against security of the state during a protest last September in which the president was forcibly detained. President Rafael Correa had to be rescued by the military after being tear-gassed and held for several hours in a hospital by police angry about plans to cut their bonuses. He described the events as an attempted coup.
A piece of flying debris has narrowly missed the International Space Station, forcing six members of the crew to rush to their rescue shuttle and prepare for an emergency evacuation back to Earth. Here's Jonathan Amos.
There are thousands of pieces of debris floating around in orbit, bits of old satellite or rocket even tools dropped in the past by space-walking astronauts. The speed at which this debris moves means any sort of impact with the space station would be catastrophic. Normally, mission control can move the station out of the way, but today's alert was raised too late for such a manoeuvre. Instead, the astronauts were ordered into two Soyuz space capsules that are attached to the station as lifeboats. They came out after the debris whizzed past at the uncomfortably close distance of just 250 metres.
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