Italy's highest court has rejected a proposed referendum on electoral reform. More than a million people have signed a petition calling for a
plebiscite
on whether to scrap or change an electoral law brought in by the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi seven years ago. The law is controversial because it gives the coalition that wins most votes, bonus seats and an automatic majority in parliament.
BBC News
第二页:中英双语听力稿
A hearing at a United States military base has recommended that Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking a huge number of classified government documents, should be sent for court-martial. If convicted, he could face life in prison. Jonathan Blake reports from Washington.
美国举行的听证会建议,将被指控泄露政府大量分级档案的士兵Bradley Manning交由军事法庭。如果罪名成立,他将面临终身监禁。Jonathan Blake在华盛顿报道。
Private Bradley Manning was arrested in May 2010. The 24-year-old from Oklahoma is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the Wikileaks website while working as a US army analyst in Iraq. There are 22 separate charges against him for distributing state secrets and aiding the enemy. At a pre-trial hearing, defence lawyers said the soldier was emotionally troubled and that the government had failed him, but prosecutors described the evidence against Manning as irrefutable.