BBC news with David Austin
Several liberal and secular parties in Egypt have pulled out represses to elect a panel
to draft a new constitution. Under the key issues to be addressed is how much the
constitution should be guided by Islamic law. John Leyne reports from Cairo:
Parliament is dominant by Islamist parties including the Muslim Brotherhood. The liberal
and secular parties are concerned that the Islamists are using this to dominate the
Constitution Assembly as well. So now around 50 members of the more secular and liberal
parties have pulled out the process to select the members of the Constitutional Assembly.
It is a key issue for Egypt’s future. The constitution is likely to set the course for
the country for what could be decades to come.
Clashes resumed in the Egyptian city of Port Said after the funeral of a teenager who died
in football related violence. The first trouble began on Friday after the Port Said football
club, Al-Masry, was suspended for two years over a post match riot last month, in which more
than 70 people were killed.
The leader of the military coup in Mali has told the BBC he’s in complete control of the
country. Captain Amadou Sanogo said he had no fear over counter coup. But a BBC correspondent
in the region says it’s not clear how much support the captain has among high-ranking commanders.
Tuarek rebels have taken advantage of the uncertainty to seize positions in the north.
Captain Sanogo said he wanted peace talks with them. “To Tuarek people in the north, I love
people. I love our brothers. I want all of them to come on the same table. My door is open. We
can talk about and would come to the peace process.” The Malian capital, Bamako, was reported
to be quieter on Saturday after earlier looting.
Thousands of extra police are on the streets of Nigerian capital, Abuja, where members of the
governing party are meeting to choose a new executive. Roads leading to the conference venue
have been blocked. Security has been tightened following a series of deadly attacks by the Islamist
militant group, Boko Haram.
The Turkish government says 15 Kurdish militants, all of them women, have been killed in fighting
with the security forces. The clashes took place in the southeast province of Bitlis, which is
the center of the banned PKK militants. Jonathan Head is in Istanbul:
As many as one third of the PKK’s fighting force are women, ~the group’s one time marks its
ideology which prioritizes the raising of women’s status in Kurdish society. So women casualties
are not unusual. But for 15 women to be killed in a single clash certainly is. The Turkish Interior
Ministry is giving few details of the incident. It occurred in Bitlis, a province known for strong
PKK support during a large scale military operation against the organization in the mountains
bordering Iraq.
Jonathan Head reporting.
World news from the BBC.
French police say the older brother of the Islamist gunman, Mohamed Merra, who killed Jewish
children, a rabbi and soldiers in separated attacks in southwestern France has expressed pride
at his actions. Abdul Carder Merra is being questioned by anti-terrorist police in Paris. But
they say he’s claimed not to have known in advance that Mohamed Merra would carry out the killings.
The man’s mother was also questioned by police and released without charge. Her lawyer, Rang
Igunore, said she was devastated by what happened. “Her world has tumbled down. Everything has
crashed. I can say at no point that she thinks that her son was the killer. She wanted to talk
to her neighbors to tell them to protect her children, to be careful, to take care of them.”
The authorities in Beijing say it will be at least two decades before they get the Chinese
capital’s air pollution under control. Beijing came close to the bottom of the recent list
of the world’s most polluted cities. Charles Scantland reports:
The city authorities in Beijing have been stung by a wave of criticism of the accuracy of
their pollution figures. They are now trying to convince the skeptical public that they have
a credible plan to tackle the problem. The vice mayor, Hong Fang, said the best the city could
hope for was to have air pollution under control within the next 20 years. He said that would
include one of the biggest threats to health, the tiny particles in the air that until a recent
controversy were not even measured by the Beijing authorities.
Charles Scantland reporting.
A Japanese fishing boat swept away by last year’s earthquake and tsunami has been spotted adrift
off the west coast of Canada. No one is believed to be on board the ship which is still intact
but badly rusted. However the Canadian Transport Ministry is monitoring it for pollution. The
vessel was registered in Hokaido in Japan.
Those are the latest news from the BBC news.