>> at shell, we believe the world needs a broader mix of energies. thats why were supplying cleaner burning natural gas to generate electricity. and its also why, with our partner in brazil, shell is producing ethanol, a biofuel made from renewable sugar cane. >> a minute, mom! >> lets broaden the worlds energy mix. lets go. >> and now, bbc world news. >> a suicide bombing apparently aimed at drivers supplying a nato base has killed at least 22 people near the afghan city of kandahar. the credit ratings agency, moody's, downgrades six german banks. among them, the country's second biggest lender. russia's parliament votes through new laws to further restrict protest demonstration. welcome to "bbc world news." i'm david eades. also coming up -- tourism, set to revive greece's debt-ridden economy, so why the decline? and a rare sight as venus moves across the sun. >> hello. at least 22 people have been killed in two suicide bomb attacks in afghanistan at the same place. they hit an area in kandahar province used by drivers whose vehicles carried supplies for nato-led troops. a taliban spokesman said they carried out the killings. the bbc's quintonsomerville is in kabul providing the latest details. >> it appears what happened is the first suicide attacker on a motorcycle, we believe, although there's some debate over that, laden with explosives, attacked this convoy as it was waiting to resupply forces. this is a crowded area outside of a hotel in a busy, bizarre -- many of the dead will be the truck drivers and local shopkeepers. but shortly after that initial attack, a second suicide attacker on foot with an explosives vest detonated the explosives vest, increasing the number of attackers. this is a worrying development, secondary attacks like this very common in places like iraq are quite rare here in afghanistan. >> right, as you say, very worrying, because it could easily become a trend in that respect. given, quinton, that these drivers were assumed to be taking provisions to the nato base, how much security around them? >> well, you're still a good distance away from the base, about under a kilometer, but still a good distance. this is the last stopping point, if you like, before we get into the base. the taliban say they carried out this attack, so this war requires a huge amount of supplies, a huge amount of resources. it's the afghan people that are often supplying them. that's a 24/7 operation, so that convoy would be there pretty much all of the time. but this was a very busy time, coming a couple of hours ago, first thing in the morning. so that's why we're seeing such a large number of casualties, even for afghanistan. >> controversial changes to russia's protest laws have been passed by the upper house of parliament. the new rules sharply increase fines for protesting illegally. they also restrict where demonstrations can take place and what forms they can take. it's now up to president vladimir putin to sign the changes into law. he could theoretically veto them. the bbc's steve rosenberg joined me earlier from moscow. >> it's been clear the party of power in russia has wanted to push this legislation through as quickly as possible. it passed the lower house of parliament yesterday. it passed the upper house of parliament today. as you say, it's now up to president putin to decide whether he signs it into law or vetoes it. we saw extraordinary scenes, though, yesterday in the duma, the lower house of parliament, because opposition m.p.'s did their best to drag out the debate and delay a vote on the legislation by submitting nearly 400 amendments to the law in protest. each one of these amendments had to be discussed and voted on. the discussions ended just before midnight moscow time, a kind of scene we haven't seen for many years in russia. we're used to thinking of the duma as a rubber stamp parliament, but that wasn't the case yesterday. >> steve, what sort of difference do you think this law is likely to make? i do understand that the fines attached to unauthorized protests will rise sharply, but it's not -- i mean, what is it? something like $9,000 trying to work out. is it exorbitant? is it going to change the landscape? autopsy i think there's a lot of concern amongst the opposition that it will change the protest landscape. the fines are considerably larger than in the previous law. it is not only about fines. the new change will also bring in restrictions about where protests can take place and the kind of form that protests can take. so there's a lot of concern. one of president putin's closest allies, the former finance minister, has dismissed the law as being unconstitutional. the former soviet leader, mikhail gorbachev, criticized the law too. even the kremlin's own human rights council has come out against the new legislation. >> credit ratings agency moody's has downgraded the ratings of six german banks. among them, the country's second biggest lender, commerzbank. moody's says it took the decision in view of the increased risk of further shocks coming from the eurozone debt crisis. bbc's steve evans in berlin told me more. >> it's a sense of the crisis coming home, if you like. when a big international assessour of risk, one of the organizations which does it on behalf of the finance houses and the finance markets, says that a german institution is at risk or greater risk than it previously thought because. situation in southern europe, then people in germany will take note. it sort of brings the thing home a bit. >> does it say much, if anything, about the strength, stability or otherwise, of the german economy there? >> no. they're saying that the german economy remains one of the strongest -- perhaps the strongest in europe, and that's why these downgrades aren't the kind of downgrades which you've seen for spanish banks and greek banks. but at the same time, you can't doubt the fact that it is a worsening of the situation. it is a recognition that whatever the individual strength of the german economy, it isn't an economy in isolation, and if the crisis turns into a catastrophe because of, i don't know, a bank collapse in spain, let's say, what moody's is basically implying is that german banks would be more vulnerable. >> well, that's the view coming from berlin, but there are issues across the european union at the moment, and the european commission is going to be proposing new rules round about now on how government must deal with failing banks. we'll get more on that from aaron in just a moment, but though proposals are to give regulators more power to force bond holders to accept losses. at the same time, there are further concerns raised by the spanish government this time that it's simply struggling to act sems the sort of credit levels needed to support its own banking sector. the country's finance minister has been speaking out, as the bbc's tom burridge told me. >> there seems to be a change of tone, if you like, from the spanish government. the finance minister coming out and saying that spain has essentially been shut out of the international markets. now, no surprise, really. we've been saying that almost over the last few weeks, really, that the borrowing rates on spanish debt are almost prohibitively high and that, really, for a spanish government to come out and say this really sort of says something about how concerned they are about the spanish banks and the amount of credit available to shore them up. and really, if you spanish government is going to get the necessary money to keep shoring up the banks, it needs to go to the markets. >> as i said, aaron's here. i mean, none of us want to be the ones who are effectively bailing out anymore, do we? >> not anymore. we've done enough of that, and that's exactly what these proposals -- we should hear any minute -- are planned to do. to stop the european tax payer from bailing out the banks, and in essence, make the shareholders of the banks and the creditors take the cup. all of this is one of the plans to have this integrated eurozone banking union, as they're calling it. i mean, they also want to prevent, of course, a run on a particular bank in a particular country, i.e., spain or greece, from making the whole system basically fail. so that is the idea behind these plans. i will say, any new legislation is not expected to come in until 2014, so we've got a long way to go before then and a lot of banking crises. >> well, our next short-term visit will be the european central bank. no expected changes in rates, but anything likely to come out of this? >> well, eyes will be on mario draghi. yeah, they do have options to boost growth. they could cut rates even further, but unlikely. they could flood the markets with cheap money. but we know what mario draghi is already thinking. he told us last week he's fed up he's frustrated that the european central bank has pretty much done all the leg work to try to save the euro. let's remind everybody, it's pumped in or made available close to a trillion euros of cheap loans for the banking system, and he says the e.c.b. cannot fill the vacuum of all these politicians basically not doing anything. they've got to get off their behinds and actually act on this. he's fed up with that, so it's going to be interesting to see what he has to say later on today, but we'll bring that to you here. >> on this family show. >> on this lovely family show. i'll have more on the "world business report" in about 20 minutes. >> we're staying with the eurozone countries, because let's wants forget greece. they could rely at least on one time in hard times, and it would be the tourism industry. even here, business is in sharp decline, as public strikes have stopped ferries taking passengers to the fwreek islands. many fear that prolonged instability could worsen the industry's fortunes. our greece correspondent, mark lowen, is on one holiday island. >> good morning from a seemingly idyllic island. this is in the west of greece. beautiful weather. it's a pretty hard life, really. it's nice and beautiful and sunny london, but all is not calm here, because the tourism industry is falling sharply. many greeks are very worried about the future of tourism in this country, as there are pretty rough waters ahead for this country's most important industry. in the clear waters around this island lies a hidden treasure -- logger head turtles gliding through the largest nesting area in the mediterranean. they still draw the crowds, but far fewer now. the turtles are an endangered species, but its tourism here is under threat. numbers have plummeted. brits down by 20%. germans and irish almost by half. this is no longer the first choice for cash-strapped visitors wary of an unstable greece. >> everybody's scared. nobody knows what they're going to do this winter. a lot of people have already decided, even though it's june and they realized they're not going to make the money by october to pay their debt, and they're already planning to leave and go back to spain, america, england, and it's scary. i'm scared for my children as well. >> it may feel far from the protests of athens, but the images of greece's problems are rippling through the islands. social unrest, no government in place, worries over whether greece will stay in the euro, you forget it all here, but tourists are scared off. >> we've had questions coming from the internet and email asking us whether there's going to be enough food for them, or if something happens in greece, whether they're going to be able to leave the country or if the airport is going to have any problems. so this is all a big, big misunderstanding, misinformation, and needs to be stopped. >> the country still has its loyal followers, but they're down. >> what's going wrong, we don't get, but the place itself is fantastic. >> i just think people should come. i can tell by the faces. >> but away from the sea front, businesses are suffering badly. the stream of tourism drying up. >> this beautiful hotel feels eerily empty, just three of the 38 rooms are currently occupied this. time last year, 20 were taken. this is the cost of greece's political and financial crisis, and the effects of those who depend on tourism is becoming dramatic. >> the bright lights of this paradise is starting to fade, forcing old haunts to sleep. today's greece must juggle so many problems at once, but turn around its tourism decline may be the hardest trick of all. >> one in five greeks work in the tourism industry and make up about 20% of the country's economic output. so, a fall in tourism is pretty bad news here. and remember, greece is in its worst recession since the second world war, and so the domestic market has also slumped as well as the foreign market. this country faces fresh elections in 10 days after inconclusive elections back in may, and locals here hope that that might just bring some stability back to greece, it might lessen fears that this country is heading toward the euro exit, and, of course, it might bring a little bit of shine back to greece's sunny island. >> goodness knows they need it, don't they? you're watching "bbc world news." plenty more still to come, including -- >> imagine this, condemned to death for singing and dancing at a wedding. religious justice in the tribal areas of pakistan. china says it wants to play a bigger role in afghanistan in conjunction with russia and its central asian neighbors. six members of the regional grouping, the shanghai cooperational organization, are discussing security issues in beijing, including the future of afghanistan, once most foreign troops have left in 2014. russia's continuing support for syria is also an issue on the agenda. the bbc's michael bristow is in beijing and has more. >> i think the shanghai cooperational organization is actually meeting in beijing and they're going to meet for a couple of days, discussing a range of subjects, mostly related to the members of this organization, the six members, russia, china, and four central asian countries. they discussed tourism, international crime, and the rebuilding of afghanistan. those are all going to be on the agenda, but as you indicated in your introduction, syria, something slightly outside this region, is going to be also discussed, and that's because china and russia are syria's two main diplomatic backers, and they've come under pressure perhaps recently because of their position that they don't support any kind of outside intervention in syria and don't want to see any forced regime change there. vladimir putin, when he arrived in beijing for this summit, him and president hu jintao, they both reiterated this position they've had for some time. >> that's michael bristow reporting from beijing. the israeli pament amount is to vote on a proposal to legalize a west bank settlement. the supreme court has ruled that it's built on palestinian land and should, therefore, be demolished by july. prime minister benjamin netanyahu opposes the retrospective bid to legalize the outpost. you're watching "bbc world news." i'm david eades with the headlines. at least 22 people have been killed by twin suicide bombings near kandahar, apparently aimed at drivers supplying a huge nato military base there. the credit ratings agency moody's has downgraded six german banks, including the country's second biggest lender. abu yahya al-libi was a legend, a prisoner of the united states army in bag ram who escaped. now the americans say the man they believe was second in command of al qaeda has been killed in a drone attack in pakistan's tribal region of north waziristan. the taliban deny that he's dead. they say he's been injured. pakistan's government has again protested the use of drone attacks on its soil. >> this is the face of al qaeda's elusive second in command. now the americans say he has been killed. the libyan-born abu yahya al-libi was proceed moit after the death of osama bin laden just over a year ago. he was a propagandist who drove the operations of al qaeda and appeared in trademark jihadist videos like this. he was, said one unnamed u.s. official, one of the organization's most experienced and versatile leaders. the official said he played a critical role in the group's planning against the west, providing oversight of the external operation's efforts, claims backed up on tuesday at the white house. >> he served as al qaeda's general manager, responsible for overseeing the group's day-to-day operations in the tribal areas of pakistan, and he managed outreach to al qaeda's regional affiliates. his death is part of the degradation that's been taking place to core al qaeda during the past several years. >> america has been scaring scouring the remote tribal areas since he escaped from his custody in afghanistan in 2005. his death is being hailed as the biggest single success in america's controversial drone campaign. that campaign comes at a price. many in pakistan are angry at the continued use bombardment, which they say do kill innocent victims, too. but in an election year, president obama may feel a since of vindication for tracking down and killing another al qaeda operative high on washington's hit list. >> going stay in pakistan for the moment, as the country's supreme court has sent a fact-finding mission to a remote northern area to try to establish if four local women there can be i would have. this comes after reports they'd been sentenced to death by a local tribal council, a jirga. it's reported the women, along with two men, were condemned when video footage showed them singing and dancing at a wedding. local officials told the court they've been unable to contact the women despite several attempts. from islamabad, orla guerin has this. >> the issue is a wedding video that may have amounted to a death sentence for those involved. the video showed four women singing and clapping. it also contained footage of two men dancing, but it's unclear if they were in the same place at the same time. pakistan's supreme court today has been trying to establish if those women and a fifth woman said to accomplice or dead or alive. reports are a jirga passed death sentences on all those involved, accusing them of fornication, of staining the honor of their families. since then, there have been media reports claiming the women have been shot or their throat had been cut. local officials appeared before the court today. a senior police officer said he sent three teams to the area. he had also gone himself, but he had been unable to see the women and couldn't reach a conclusion either way. this is a particularly remote place. it's said to be two days and two nights' walk from the nearest highway. so that's complicating efforts to get at the troops. pakistan's chief justice made it very clear today that he wants answers and he wants them quickly. he told officials to go back to the area. he said they would be given a chopper, they would be given troops if necessary. he said go back and find these, and if you aren't willing to do it, we, the judges, are willing to do it. so a fact-finding mission is being dispatched. we spoke to one human rights activist who will be joining us. as she told us, she feared it was already too late and that these women had already been killed. >> orla guerin. police in canada say packages containing human remains have been sent to two schools in vancouver, either by post or courier. as yet, it's not known if the find is related to that of a canadian man arrested on suspicion of killing a man who thought he passed. he then allegedly posted two political parties. luka rocco magnotta was arrested at an internet cafe in berlin on monday. the nigerian army says it has killed at least 16 islamist militants in the north of the country. it says the militants from a group had tried to attack the city. the reported deaths follow a series of explosions and an hour-long gun battle. syria's president has appointed a new prime minister following last month's parliamentary elections. it's riad hajib who takes over, a member of the ruling baath party and previously the agriculture minister. president bashar al-assad touted the elections as an example of the reforms he's bringing to the country. an international meeting of conservation experts is underway in cambodia to discuss how to preserve the temple. almost three million tourists visited those temples last year, and it raised concerns the largest temple complex in the world is at risk of overdevelopment and, of course, environmental damage. our correspondent is there, and i asked him how conservation experts were planning to protect the site. >> you know, they really need a master plan, because the numbers of tourists aren't going to go down any time soon in cambodia. if you take the first three months of this year, the official figures from local authority here was that almost 700,000 foreign tourists, not including local people, 7 holdup,000 foreign tourists visited the angkor temple, but 45% from the previous year. it's because cambodia is very close to countries which are now engaging in mass tourism for the first time, china being one, south korea being another, massive numbers of tourists from those countries are coming in here, and they have to get a grip on it very quickly. among other topics, they'll be talking about that over the next few days. >> and in terms of actual damage of all this foot fall, if we can call it, do we see signs of it? is it evident? >> you know, the archaeologists, the experts, are terrifically concerned about this, and over the years, you've seen how things have changed, where there used to be exposed stones, there are now wooden cases covering it. there's one temple where you're no longer allowed up if there's a certain number of people are up there. the temples are very strong. they've lasted 1,000 years, but they weren't built for three million tourists a year. >> amateur astronomers have been watching a pretty rare event. the planet venus is in perfect alignment with the earth and the sun. our science correspondent has been doing his best to peer through clouds in the u.k., trying to follow what the scientists call the transit of venus. >> a site seen across the world, the black dot is the planet venus. it's the size of the earth, yet it looks tiny as it crosses the surface of the sun. the transit began late last night, visible first in north america, also in east asia. and here were scenes from australia. >> those occur four times every 232 years. if you look at it and look at it very objectively, it is just a little black spot on the sun. some would say that a brand-newer lamborghini is far more beautiful to look at, but they're common compared to this. >> in the u.k., amateur astronomers had to get up early for sunrise to catch the tail end of the transit. we're now five hours into transit, and we ought to be seeing the last few moments of this spectacular event as it exits the sun's surface. but instead, we're seeing this, cloudy skies. >> a bit disappointing from where we were, i have to say. now, how about this for an idea, a different idea for going out for dinner? suspended up there, would you? i wouldn't. you're watching "bbc world news." >> funding was made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu. >> at shell, we believe the newman's own foundation, union bank, and shell. >> at shell, we believe the world needs a broader mix of energies. thats why were supplying cleaner burning natural gas to generate electricity. and its also why, with our partner in brazil, shell is producing ethanol, a biofuel made from renewable sugar cane. >> a minute, mom! >> lets broaden the worlds energy mix. lets go. >> bbc world news was presented by kcet los angeles.