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BBC 2008-02-16


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BBC news with Fiona McDonald.

With Kosovo expected to declare its independence from Serbia this weekend, the European Union has approved the launch of a 2000 strong force of police officers, judges and prosecutors who will start deploying to Kosovo from next week. Their mission includes preventing human rights abuses and fighting organized crime. Our European affairs correspondent Oana Lungescu reports.

The 2000 EU police and customs officers, judges and prosecutors will face a tough challenge to help prevent human rights abuses and ensure that Kosovo's fragile institutions are free from political interference. Crucially, the mission will be able to intervene in sensitive areas, such as fighting corruption and organized crime and catching indicted war criminals. While Germany and Italy are the biggest contributors, all EU members except for tiny Malta will take part as well as non-EU countries, like the United States, Turkey and Croatia.

A senior commander of the militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement was among at least seven people killed in an explosion in the Gaza Strip. The blast destroyed the house of the commander in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Palestinian medical officials said his wife and two children were also among the dead. Islamic Jihad has blamed Israel for the explosion. The Israeli army said it wasn't involved.

Zimbabwe's former Finance Minister Simba Makoni says that if he wins the forthcoming presidential election, he will not prosecute Robert Mugabe. Speaking to the BBC as he officially put himself forward as an independent candidate, Mr. Makoni said there would be space in Zimbabwe for Mr. Mugabe to continue leading a normal life.

I'm not doing this against anyone. I'm doing this for the people of Zimbabwe. President Mugabe is a citizen of Zimbabwe, at this point in time, the No.1 citizen of Zimbabwe. There is space here for him to continue his life without fear or worry.

The United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned Eritrea and threatened further action against it for obstructing UN peace-keeping operations. The UN says that Eritrean government is stopping hundreds of UN soldiers and support staff from crossing from Eritrea into Ethiopia. From UN headquarters, here is Matt Wells.

The president of the Security Council accused the Eritrean authorities of failing to honor international law and demanded that they fully cooperate with the UN mission as it tries to temporarily withdraw across the border into Ethiopia. Around 1200 troops have been trying to leave for the last few days now. And a spokesman for the Secretary General said that because the Eritreans are refusing to provide any more fuel and food, supplies will run out very soon. The Eritrean ambassador to the UN denied that supplies were being deliberately withheld. He told the BBC that they simply did not have any more to spare. But the Security Council statement makes it clear that UN staff on the ground do not share that view.

World news from the BBC.

The authorities in Mexico are investigating two explosions in the center of the capital Mexico City, which killed one person and injured two others. Mexico City's police chief says a homemade device was set off near the Security Ministry headquarters and that investigators believe it was activated remotely by a mobile phone.

Police in Panama say more than 100 people have been arrested during another day of clashes between police and construction workers. Police said more than ten officers were injured during Friday's protests which brought large parts of the capital to a standstill. The construction workers accused the police of fatally shooting a union leader during a demonstration on Tuesday.

Scientists from NASA say that the latest evidence from the surface of Mars indicates that the planet was far too salty to support life. They found that no known microbes could have survived in the highly acidic waters that once flowed there. Here is our science reporter Matt Mcgrath.

Over the past two years, observations from NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars and from two robotic rovers on the surface have convinced scientists that water once flowed on the surface of the planet. This has led to much speculation about whether life ever existed on Mars as water is a key condition for the survival of any known living thing. But new data from the Opportunity rover which has been wandering the surface of Mars for almost five years suggests that the water that once flowed into the craters and valleys of the planet was far too salty to support most forms of life. According to NASA, life on Mars would have been very challenging for even the toughest organisms any time over the past four billion years.

Residents of a southern Indian village are planning to build a shrine to three elephants that were killed by a train earlier this month. The elephants, two fully-grown males and a pregnant female, have been roaming in the locality for some weeks and the villagers have been trying to coax them back to the jungle without success. It was said they were so upset by the accident that they decided to erect a temple as a memorial to the animals.

BBC.