2010-03-22 BBC
BBC News with Roy Larmour
In a rare Sunday session, the US House of Representatives is debating the health care reform bill at the centre of President Obama's domestic agenda. A final vote could follow in the coming hours and is expected to be very close. The Republicans say the measure is too expensive and have tried to persuade undecided Democrats to vote against it. Paul Adams reports from Washington.
This make-call break session of the House of Representatives has been going on for several hours, but the president's chances of succeeding have improved dramatically with the announcement of a deal between the White House and a group of Democrats who want to be sure that federal money will not be used to fund abortion. This guarantees that seven more Democrats will support the bill. In the words of the group's leader Michigan's Bart Stupak, the Democrats are now well past the 216 votes needed to pass the bill. The Republicans can probably scent defeat, but they are still fighting hard.
Early projections in the second round of regional elections in France suggest President Sarkozy's centre-right party has suffered a heavy defeat. Exit polls indicate his party won 36% of the votes. This was the last nationwide ballot before the presidential elections in 2012. Emma Jane Kirby reports from Paris.
President Sarkozy has always insisted these were only regional elections with no national consequences. But the huge defeat his right-wing party has suffered is a clear indication that France is angry with its government. Unemployment is at its highest level in decades. And the election promises to make ordinary people richer have failed to come good. The opposition Socialists, who teamed up with other leftist parties and the Greens, have greatly profited from the government's unpopularity. Nearly all of France is in their control.
The electoral commission in Iraq has rejected calls by President Talabani and the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a manual recount of the vote in recent parliamentary elections. Mr Maliki's party has alleged that the computer system used in the counting process was faulty. But a spokesman for the commission Qassim al-Aboudi said no strong evidence had been provided.
"There have to be very significant and strong reasons to grant the recount demand. There has to be conclusive evidence that there was organized poll-rigging in vast areas, in accordance with the international standards of course. This hasn't happened, and no international or local reports have referred to this so far."
Missiles from an unmanned American aircraft have killed at least five people in Northwest Pakistan. Pakistani officials said the air attack hit a militant hideout near the Afghan border. They said the identities of those killed were not known, but the region was dominated by a Taliban group blamed for launching attacks against western forces in Afghanistan.
This is World News from the BBC in London.
The mayor of the Somali capital Mogadishu has ordered hundreds of families living near the city's main airport to demolish their houses and move elsewhere. The mayor said the houses posed a security threat because they had been built with money from insurgents. Residents denied that.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out any concession on the building of Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, despite international pressure on him to change course. Mr Netanyahu said he had written to the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to remove any doubt about the issue. He's expected to meet President Obama on Tuesday.
Conservationists have warned that the Internet is emerging as a major threat to endangered species. The International Fund for Animal Welfare says the Internet is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell endangered animals on online auction sites and in chat rooms. The findings coincide with a meeting on endangered species in Doha, from where Stephanie Hancock reports.
Thousands of endangered species are regularly traded online as buyers and sellers take advantage of the anonymity and vast global market the worldwide web can offer. Those trying to police illegal sales say the size of the problem is almost impossible to estimate. They say everything from live baby lions to wine made from tiger bone have been traded online. Currently the United States is the biggest market, but experts say Europe, China, Russia and Australia also play a large part.
A man has been arrested in Cyprus on suspicion of vandalizing the tombs of three archbishops in Nicosia. Police say he had admitted removing marble slabs covering the graves of the archbishops who lived in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At first it was thought their remains had been stolen, but it appears that at least one body was in fact reburied some time ago.
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