The director of the American Central Intelligence Agency David Petraeus has resigned, reportedly over an extra-marital affair. President Obama accepted his (resignation) and thanked General Petraeus for decades of service to the United States. Kim Ghattas reports from Washington.

 

General David Petraeus issued a statement to announce that he'd handed in his resignation to President Barack Obama on Thursday afternoon. He said that after 37 years of married life, he'd shown poor judgement by having an extra-marital / affair. Mr Petraeus said his behaviour was unacceptable as a husband and as a leader of an (organization) like the CIA. In a statement, President Obama said General Petraeus had served with dedication and patriotism for decades and was an outstanding General officer. Mr Obama also said he wished the General and his wife the very best at this difficult time.

 

President Obama has said rich Americans would have to pay more (tax) under any deal to avert a looming budget crisis. Setting the tone for talks with congressional leaders, Mr Obama said he was open to cooperation and compromise with Republicans. 

 

I am not wedded to every detail of my plan. I am open to (compromise), I am open to new ideas, I am committed to solving our fiscal challenge. But I refuse to accept any approach that isn't balanced, I am not gonna ask students, and seniors and middle-class families to pay down the entire deficit, while people like me making over $250,000 aren't asked to pay a dime more in taxes. 

 

The Republican Party, which has the majority in Congress, is strongly (opposed) to tax rises, but Mr Obama said his re-election on Tuesday showed that the majority of Americans agreed with his approach.

 

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that extreme weather caused by climate change has become what he called the new normal. Mr Ban was speaking ten days after a huge storm devastated parts of New York, where the UN is based.

 

The main Syrian opposition group meeting in exile has chosen a Christian former communist as its leader. He’s George Sabra, a former teacher. He said that his election as president of the Syrian National Council showed that the group was not (sectarian). He also said the opposition needed more weapons. A BBC correspondent in Doha, in Qatar, where the election took place, says the Council will now come under pressure to join with other opposition forces, but Mr Sabra declined to give an immediate answer to that.

 

Italian police have arrested nine heart doctors accused of performing unauthorized experimental treatments on patients. A police spokesman said the investigation began more than a year ago after a (consumer) group raised the alarm of medical practices and reported deaths at a hospital in the northern city of Modena. 

 

World News from the BBC

 

Fourteen Mexican police officers have been charged with attempted murder over the shooting of two US government officials and a Mexican (navy) officer. The vehicle, which was armoured  was riddled by more than 150 bullets. From Mexico City, Will Grant reports.

 

In August, gunmen opened fired on an armoured car with diplomatic license plates. There were two CIA agents inside and a member of Mexican marines. Since the investigation unfolded under pressure from Washington, it became clear that the gunmen were in fact federal police officers. The government suggested that the officers were in league with the country’s violent drug cartels and that the attack was in some way related to the cooperation between the United States and Mexico in a fight against drug trafficking. 

 

Fifteen people have died in overnight violence in Brazil's biggest city Sao Paulo. There has been a surge of killings in Sao Paulo’s poor neighborhoods over the past weeks as police battered a gang called itself the First Command of the Capital. 

 

At least 13 prisoners have been killed in armed clashes with guards at Sri Lanka’s biggest jail after the worst (riot) there in decades. The violence began when police searched the Welidaka prison. From the capital Colombo, Charles Haviland reports. 

 

Telvision showed wounded people being evacuated on stretchers and tanks deployed on the road outside. Later at night, army (snipers) were said to be operating in place of the police special task force, whose search of the prison appears to have triggered carnage. The director of the national hospital said some of the inmates who died or killed as they tried to escape the jail. It’s not known how many more may have died inside.

 

Gunmen in the Somali capital Mogadishu have killed a member of the influential group of clan elders, Isaac Kuusou was shot shortly before evening prayers. No one has admitted carrying out the attack, but the militant Islamist group al Shabaab had threatened to kill the elders.

 

BBC News