http://192.168.2.6/english/20070305BBC.mp3

East Timor has stormed a town, south of the capital Dili, in an operation to end the rebellion by a former army major and heavily-armed supporters. Backed by helicopters and armored vehicles, the peacekeepers entered the town under cover of darkness and exchanged fire with the rebels. From Jakarta, Lucy Williamson reports.

The raid early on Sunday morning left 4 armed men dead, but their leader, Mr. Reinado is still a free man. The spokesman for the international forces in East Timor said they had taken control of the town of Same, where the rebel leader and his supporters had been hiding, and that the operation to capture him was still going on. He said they had seized some of Mr. Reinado's equipment and he was now believed to be traveling on foot. Mr. Reinado has been in hiding since August and he's believed to be heavily-armed.


China has announced it's to increase military spending this year by more than 17%, after increasing it last year by nearly 15%. The announcement, by a senior official in Beijing, comes one day ahead of a new session of the Chinese Parliament, and follows a substantial rise last year of nearly 15%. The United States has expressed concern of the level of Chinese military spending. Daniel Griffith reports from Beijing.

China may be a nuclear power with the world's largest army, but much of its military hardware is outdated. Beijing has been spending heavily to replace it, and that's why the country's defense budget has been growing rapidly for more than a decade. Double-digit increases are now common. Many analysts believe that China's actual spending is much higher than announced, although it's still only a fraction of the US budget.

People are voting in parliamentary elections in the Black Sea region of Abkhazia which has been trying to break away from Georgia since a war in the early 1990s. Russia has expressed support for the separatists' ambitions and Abkhaz independence which is not internationally recognized. It's said to be a key factor in the long-running political conflict between Georgia and Russia. Matthew Collin reports from Abkhazia.

None of the candidates in this election is proposing that Abkhazia should ever unite with Georgia again. More than a decade after the war here, most people believe, independence is their destiny. The separatist Abkhaz authorities hoped the vote will demonstrate the region has the potential to become an independent, democratic state, but the Georgian government insists, Abkhazia is part of Georgia and these elections are not legitimate.

Voters are also going to the polls in Estonia today in the first parliamentary elections anywhere in the world in which people were able to vote online. Some 30, 000 people, out of 900, 000 eligible voters, use their computer-readable identity card to do so. They aren't allowed to vote online on the polling day itself.

World News from the BBC.

Members of the Cherokee, the second largest American-Indian tribe have voted that descendants of black slaves formerly held by tribe members, should not be counted as full members of the Cherokee nation. The vote overturns a ruling by a Cherokee tribunal last year that several thousand such descendants were entitled to receive the same medical, housing and educational benefits as those of full Cherokee blood. Richard Canny reports.

The election aimed to establish who was Cherokee. At issue was a group barely known outside their territory in Oklahoma, called the freedmen. These include descendants of black slaves owned by Cherokees, free black people who are married to Cherokees and the children of mixed race families. They became full citizens of the Cherokee nation after emancipation in 1866. Now over three quarters of Cherokee nation members have voted to limit membership to blood descendants. Opponents of the vote argued it was motivated by racism but a senior tribal leader said only Cherokee people had the right to determine who should be citizens of their nation.

Danish police say about 600 people have been detained in the capital Copenhagen since Thursday night, when violent protests began over the eviction of squatters from the Youth Center. Police thwarted attempts of further violence by some protestors on Saturday night. The police said several of those arrested were foreigners, mainly from other Scandinavian countries and Germany. The Youth Center had been occupied by left-wing groups for nearly 20 years.

There's been a new development in the case of the "phantom minister" in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a story which has dominated headlines there. The party leader who proposed Andre Kasongo Ilunga for the post of trade minister has now lost his own job. His party accused Honorius Kisimba Ngoy of irresponsible behavior in recommending an imaginary person for a cabinet post.

BBC World News.