BBC news 2010-12-20 加文本

BBC news 2010-12-20

BBC News with Sue Montgomery

Opposition protesters in the Belarusian capital Minsk have attacked the main government buildings, smashing windows and kicking doors. They are accusing the authorities of widespread vote-rigging in Sunday's presidential election. Police have been attempting to disperse the tens of thousands of demonstrators, and an opposition presidential candidate, Vladimir Neklyaev, was beaten up shortly before the polls closed. Exit polls suggest that President Alexander Lukashenko will win a fourth term by a wide margin. David Stern is in Minsk.

The protests are continuing. They started on one square, October Square, and then they were broken up and they moved down to go on at the other end of the main street, and they are now at Independence Square, and there's a fear that the riot police may move in and break that one up. They are trying to get rid of Mr Lukashenko. Their main claim is that the elections were rigged well before the actual voting, but now they've moved on and are demanding his impeachment or immediate removal.

The President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, has said the north of the country will reinforce its Islamic laws if South Sudan votes for independence in a referendum next month. Mr Bashir said if the country split, the Sudanese constitution would be changed. Arabic would be the only language, Islam the only religion and Sharia the only law. The BBC correspondent in Khartoum James Copnall says many non-Muslim southerners in northern Sudan will be worried.

I think the tone was the thing that would surprise some. Just a couple of days earlier, President Bashir put him in a considerate mode, and he'd certainly made comments reassuring southerners living in the north that they would be fine if the south became independent. This was totally the opposite. He said that there would be no space effectively for cultural or ethnic diversity in the new constitution that would come in if the south did separate.

The United Nations says it's deeply concerned about the growing evidence of massive human rights violations in Ivory Coast. The human rights commissioner Navi Pillay said that since Thursday's clashes in Abidjan, more than 50 people have been killed. Laurent Gbagbo, who's refusing to step down as president, has called for UN peacekeeping troops to leave the country. But a UN spokesman in Abidjan, Hamadoun Toure, insists UN forces will stay.

"We will continue implementing our mandate, carrying out our usual tasks, mainly supporting Ivorian population to find a peaceful solution to the current political impasse."

Police in Austria have charged more than 100 men suspected of downloading child pornography. Five are school teachers. One of those under investigation is alleged to have collected more than 20,000 images depicting child sex acts.

World News from the BBC

Officials in Mexico say at least 22 people have been killed in a big explosion at an oil pipeline near Puebla, in the centre of the country. The secretary of state for Puebla says the explosion was triggered by thieves trying to siphon off oil from the pipeline. He said there were rivers of fire in the streets and that more than 100 houses had been damaged by the blast.

The extreme tension on the Korean peninsula is being discussed in an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. The meeting was organised at the request of Russia. South Korea insists that whether permitting, it will go ahead with a military exercise this week on an island near the disputed maritime border with North Korea. The North has spoken of potential disaster if the artillery drill takes place. Our Washington correspondent is Jane O'Brien.

All sides are publicly calling for a strongly-worded resolution, calling on restraint on both sides with a view to them being able to resolve this peacefully and diplomatically. However, there are divisions within the camp. Russia and China are also saying that the South should cancel its exercise, while the United States and South Korea say no, they should go ahead because every country has a right to carry out military exercises to improve its self-defence.

Scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, near London, have unveiled their top 10 discoveries of the year, including a tree standing 40m tall in the rainforests of Cameroon in West Africa. Other finds include a wild aubergine from Kenya and tropical mistletoe in Mozambique.

The football manager Alex Ferguson has become the longest-serving boss of Manchester United, surpassing the record set after the Second World War by the legendary Matt Busby. Sir Alex has now been at the helm at Old Trafford for just over 24 years, winning 26 major trophies, including the English Premier League 11 times.

BBC News