BBC news 2011-02-01

BBC news 2011-02-01

BBC News with Jonathan Izard

The Egyptian army has said it won't use force against protesters who have taken to the streets to demand the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak. It's the first such statement by the institution widely seen as the power broker in Egypt. Official figures say nearly 100 people have been killed in a week of demonstrations. From Cairo, here's Jon Leyne.

The Egyptian army is quoted on the official news agency as saying simply that they will not use force against their own people. In the statement, the army also says it considers the demands of the protesters to be legitimate. The announcement, if it does represent the will of the senior army commanders and there's no reason to doubt that, is a devastating blow to President Mubarak. To regain control of the streets, he would need the use or at least the threat of force from his army. And the announcement comes a day before the opposition have called for a million-strong demonstration. It now seems increasingly likely that the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak is drawing to a close.

Egypt's new Vice President Omar Suleiman has announced on state television that he's been asked to start dialogue on constitutional changes. He said President Mubarak had asked him to open talks with all political powers. He also said that new elections would be held in some districts where there was evidence of irregularities in last year's parliamentary election.

Oil prices have hit their highest level in more than two years amid concerns about the political instability in Egypt. In London, Brent crude oil passed the $100 a barrel mark for the first time since 2008. Here's our economics correspondent Andrew Walker.

The price of Brent crude oil, one of the main international benchmarks, was given a push over the $100 threshold by the political situation in Egypt. Demand for oil was already strong; now the turmoil has created worries about supply. The concern is that there might be disruption to oil tankers passing through the Suez Canal or to the pipeline that runs close by, though so far the canal has continued to operate. There's also the possibility that the unrest might spread to some of the major oil producers in the Arab world.

The Sudanese government in Khartoum has confirmed that it will respect the results of the referendum for the south. The announcement was made by the Vice President Ali Osman Taha. Provisional results show 99% of southerners voted for independence. James Copnall reports from Khartoum.

The vice president's remarks confirm that the north will not contest the results of the referendum. There is an appeals process before the results are finalised, but it seems nothing now will stop southern independence in July. There have been two major north-south civil wars, in which more than two million people died. Ali Osman Taha also gave the first reaction from a major political figure to Sunday's protests. Demonstrators and a leading hu

man rights activist say one of the protesters, Mohammed Abdulrahman, was killed by security forces. Mr Taha said there was freedom in Sudan, but people needed to obey the laws.

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European Union diplomats say the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, and many of his top officials have been banned from entering the EU and will have any assets they hold there frozen. The measures follow the re-election of President Lukashenko last month widely considered flawed and the detention of opposition leaders and activists.

The police in Serbia have searched an apartment belonging to the fugitive Bosnian Serb Gen Ratko Mladic, looking for information on his whereabouts. The authorities haven't disclosed what they found, but Serbia's deputy war crimes prosecutor said the search had been very successful. Ratko Mladic has been on the run for 15 years since he was indicted on charges of genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal. Mark Lowen reports from Belgrade.

The apartment of Darko Mladic was searched for several hours on Monday morning for clues that could bring the police closer to his fugitive father. Also on Monday, police questioned Aco Tomic, a former security chief of the Yugoslav army. He's suspected of hiding the former Bosnian Serb general and organising his transfer to a military base back in 2002. The authorities in Belgrade are often accused of staging raids to satisfy The Hague tribunal's chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz, coinciding with his regular visits. He's due here next in February.

The director of a psychiatric hospital in Cuba where 26 patients died from hypothermia last year has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Twelve other staff at the hospital in the capital Havana also received sentences ranging between five and 15 years. The deaths exposed failings in Cuba's free public health system, which the communist government hails as one of its main achievements.

And football: the English Premiership club Liverpool have agreed to sell their striker Fernando Torres to Chelsea for a fee thought to be close to $80m. Torres, a World Cup winner for Spain, has been a key Liverpool player since joining the club in 2007.

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