detainees

. From Bahrain, here's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.

The chief of the Independent Commission of Inquiry found the Bahraini authorities guilty of illegal arrests, forced confessions, unfair trials and the systematic use of torture. In his speech in reply, King Hamad welcomed the report. He talked of this being a day that will be remembered in the history of Bahrain. But a short distance away in a Shia neighbourhood of Bahrain, they were burning tyres and calling for the king to step down. Speaking with Professor Bassiouni after the speeches, he admitted it will very much depend now on what Bahrain's king does with the report: will he

push for

reform and remove

hard-liners

from his government, or will he use the report as window dressing to

appease

opinion in America and Europe.

The global fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria has decided not to fund any new programmes as a result of cuts in its resources from donor nations.

The fund says it will continue to support only essential services in existing programmes after a shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. A spokesman for the fund told the BBC the cuts put the progress in combating disease

at risk

and threatened the lives of people in the developing world.

The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has apologised for the killing of more than 13,000 Kurds by the Turkish military in the 1930s. Mr Erdogan is the first Turkish leader to apologise for the killings, which took place when the military used aerial bombardment and poisonous gas to pacify Kurds in central Turkey. But some Kurds see Mr Erdogan's apology as an