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BBC world news, I'm Sue Montgomery.

President Bush has responsed to severe setback in mid-term elections by replacing Donald Rumsfeld as defence secretary after some 6 years in the job. Mr.Bush said Mr.Rumsfeld had agreed it was time for fresh perspective. A former director of CIA Robert Gates has been nominated to take over the Pentagon. Paying tribute to Mr Rumsfeld ,President Bush said he'd undertaken the most sweeping changes in defence strategy in the country's history. The BBC's Nick Chard looks back now at Donald Rumsfeld's record.

Donald Rumsfeld headed the Pentagon twice for 2 Republican presidents more than a quarter of a century apart. He will go down in history as both the youngest and oldest US defense secretary and probably the most controversial, his legacy forever blighted by Iraq. Right now ,his time at the Pentagon looks like a costly failure. From the moment he took over there under Gorge Bush, he locked horns with the military, under the adminstration of hawk,he was given the job of reasserting civilian control of the armed forces and revamping what was seen as an institutional resistant to change. Briefly he became something of national hero in the aftermath of 9/11 attack of 2001 and the war in Afghanistan. Privately he could mix charm with a sharp wit, but his public abrasiveness was also in mesh by confrontational, many say bullying management style.

The new nominee to head the defence department Robert Gates,is considered the republican party insider,who served as the CIA director under the 1st President Bush in 1990s. He 1st joined the CIA as an intelligence officer in the 1960s and was investigated though prosecuted in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. Mr.Gates expressed surprise at he new post but accepted the duty.

I had not anticipated returing to goverment services and I have never enjoyed any position more than being president of Texas A&M University. However, the United States is at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. we are fighting against terrorism worldwide and we face other serious challenges to peace in our security.

You are listening to the world news from the BBC.

The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has expressed regret after 18 Palestinians were killed when Isreali tank fire hit a town in the northern Gaza Strip. Mr.Olmert also offered help for the many wounded in the town of Beit Hanoun. The palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said a massacre had been committed and a senior figure in the governing Palestinian Hamas movement threatened to retaliation. Here is our Middle East editor Jim.B.

Israel says that protecting of its own people is the reason why it has mounted almost continuous military operation in Gaza since Palestinians captured one of its soilders in June. Since then around 465 home-made rockets had been fired into Isreal from Gaza. Israel's military operations have not stopped the rockets, but they've mounted brutal collective punishment of a people not a government. According to the UN special reporter on human rights in the occupied territories J.D. So far this year, Palenstanian rockets have killed 2 pople in Israel, both of whom are Arabs. Since June, Isreal has killed around 300 palenstanians in Gaza,more than 60 of them were children.

Deputies in the central Asian Republic of Kyrgyzstan have passed a new draft constitution that will cut President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's powers drastically and give more authority to parilment. Demonstrators who have been protesting for a week in the capital Bishkek celebrated when they heard that the change had been accepted by the president. Details of the new constitution have yet to emerge, it has to be signed by the president but that's expected to be formality.

Scientists in Britain said they have restored sight in blind mice by transplanting light-collecting cells into their eyes. Writing in the Journal Nature the researchers said they took cells known as rocks from mouse embryos and then planted them in the retinas of the blind mice. The transplants worked and the animals were able to see, it could be at least ten years before clinical trials in humans can begin. But Robert McClellan whose team carried out the study insist the results are a big step forward.

what we discovered is it appears that it is possible to transplant visual receptors and to do that successfully in such a way that they can restore vision into degenerating or damage retina,and for us,it is very exciting because we do deal with a lot of patients who has retinal diseases and retinal problems, and we can see the future potiential possiblity as clinical treatment many years ahead.

The BBC has learnt that up to 5 members of the British cabinet have been invited for interview by police investigating the alleged exchange of public honours for party political funding.

BBC world news.