BBC News:华盛顿美国海军总部大楼发生枪击案
Thirteen people including a suspected gunman have been killed during a shooting rampageinside a US navy complex in central Washington. Police said the suspect was a 34-year-oldTexan, and another gunman might still be at large. Staff who were arriving for work when thefirst shots were fired have described a chaotic scramble to flee the building. At a newsconference within the past hour, Washington’s mayor, Vincent Gray, said the city hadexperienced nothing like it before.
“This is a horrific tragedy, certainly one of the worst in recent memory and certainly I don’tknow we can ever remember anything quite like this here in the city. We know these kinds ofthings have happened in other places, in other cities in America, but nothing like this here in theDistrict of Columbia.”
The police said there was no reason to believe it was a terrorist attack. From Washington,here’s Katy Watson.
In President Obama’s words, America is mourning yet another mass shooting. It started ninehours ago at the Washington Navy Yard—one of the country’s most important naval-commandcentres. According to the FBI, one gunman was killed. He’s been identified as 34-year-oldAaron Alexis. The shooting led to tightened security on Capitol Hill. The Senate was closeddown while police continued the hunt. Officers say there’s no motive for the attacks, butquestions have already been raised about how in a building with heavy security something likethis could have happened.
United Nations inspectors have concluded that chemical weapons were used on a relatively largescale in an attack near the Syrian capital Damascus last month in the first official confirmationby independent experts of chemical weapons’ use in Syria. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said their report provided overwhelming evidence of a chemical attack. Here’s ourdiplomatic correspondent James Robbins.
The inspectors say in their report “the environmental chemical and medical samples we havecollected provide clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing thenerve agent sarin were used on August 21st”. The conclusion of their report is that chemicalweapons have been used in the on-going conflict on a relatively large scale. The UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon said the international community had a responsibility to hold theperpetrators accountable. When he went on to add that Syria had belatedly acknowledged itpossessed chemical weapons, the UN secretary general seemed to point the finger of blamepretty clearly.
Turkey has shot down a Syrian military helicopter. The Turkish deputy prime minister said thehelicopter had strayed two kilometres into Turkish airspace and was hit with a missile afterrepeated warnings. Syria said the helicopter had strayed only a short distance into Turkishairspace. A statement by Syria’s armed forces said Turkey’s hasty reaction showed its trueintention was to escalate the situation on the border.
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An attempt to raise the capsized cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, is continuing into the nightin Italy. Engineers have succeeded in lifting the luxury liner off the rocks 20 months after it ranaground off the island of Giglio. But the BBC’s Alan Johnston who’s watching the salvage effortsays the operation has taken longer than expected.
Late in the afternoon, a difficulty with a cable attached to the wreck led to more than an hoursuspension of the entire operation and the programme is well behind schedule now. There isoriginally talk of having the ship up on her keel by sunset, but that target was badly missed.They are talking about working all through the night and that it’ll be dawn at the earliest beforethis thing ends.
The British government is to sell off part of the stake in one of the country’s leading banks thatit required at the height of the financial crisis. It used tax payers’ money to rescue Lloyds bankin 2008 and now plans to sell 6% of its 39% shareholding. This is likely to raise more than$5bn, meaning the British government will get back more or less the price it paid for theseshares.
A mudslide in Mexico’s eastern state of Veracruz has killed at least 12 people hours afterHurricane Ingrid made landfall on the country’s gulf coast. Another 22 people have died sinceSaturday on the western Pacific coast which had been battered by Tropical Storm Manuel. Thearea around the resort of Acapulco has been one of the most-affected.
The former Malaysian communist party leader Chin Peng has died in exile in Thailand. He was88. For decades Chin Peng led a guerrilla campaign in the jungles of Malaysia. He fought theJapanese in the Second World War, then British colonial authorities and finally the Malaysiangovernment after independence. The communist party signed a peace treaty in 1989, butChin Peng was never allowed to return from exile.
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