BBC news 2010-12-23 加文本

BBC news 2010-12-23

BBC News, this is Mike Cooper.

Senators in the United States Congress have voted to ratify a treaty cutting back on American and Russian nuclear weapons. The move is seen as a key element in President Obama's attempts to rebuild his administration's relationship with Moscow. From Washington, here's Iain MacKenzie.

The New Start treaty was signed by presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in April. It ran into resistance in the US Senate, where Mr Obama's opponents tried to use stalling tactics to block its ratification. In the end, enough Republicans were persuaded to back it. The vote passed 71-26. Many were won over by a political charm offensive, which included an endorsement by senior military figures as well as every living former secretary of state, both Republican and Democrat. As well as a 30% reduction in deployed nuclear warheads, the treaty also provides for both countries to restart weapons inspections, something that was put on hold when a previous treaty expired last year.

A secret convoy transporting weapons-grade nuclear material across Europe has arrived at its final destination in Russia. The 13kg of highly enriched uranium were loaded onto lorries at an obsolete nuclear reactor in Serbia a month ago. Gordon Corera has more.

The aging research reactor in Vinca near Belgrade has not been producing radioactive material for more than 25 years, but 2.5 tonnes of it is on the site, and it's so poorly guarded that officials charged with preventing these lethal materials falling into the hands of terrorists. Identify the reactor as their No. 1 priority. On the night of 19 November amid tight security, a convoy of trucks departed carrying 13kg of highly enriched uranium, which could be used for a nuclear weapon, as well as 8,000 spent fuel rods, ideal for a radioactive, so-called dirty bomb.

A key member of Ivory Coast's provisional government has called for an international force to remove Laurent Gbagbo from the presidency. The Prime Minister-elect Guillaume Soro told a French TV station that since international sanctions had failed to remove Mr Gbagbo following last month's election, there was no other solution.

"After all the international pressure and the sanctions which did not have any effect on Mr Gbagbo, it's obvious that only one solution remains - that of force."

Mr Soro also said that West African regional grouping Ecowas had previously deployed troops to remove dictators. Meanwhile, France and Germany have warned their citizens to leave Ivory Coast.

Police in Brazil say they've dismantled a criminal gang which is accused of running an arms trafficking and extortion ring in a poor neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro. Around 200 officers raided the area, Duque de Caxias, and arrested at least 20 alleged gang members, 13 of whom are policemen. The gang was originally formed to combat drug traffickers.

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The former Argentine military dictator Jorge Videla has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in Cordoba. He was found guilty of ordering torture and extrajudicial killings during the 1970s and early 80s.

The most senior United Nations official in Lebanon has spoken of his concern surrounding the predicted publication of indictments when an international investigation into the murder of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri ends. Michael Williams said making the indictments public could result in what he called troubling social and political consequences, but he predicted they would be published.

The zebra crossing made famous on the cover of the Beatles' album Abbey Road has been given protected status. It's 40 years since the four Beatles were photographed walking over the pedestrian crossing near their Abbey Road recording studio, as David Sillito reports.

The picture on the album cover featuring the four Beatles striding across Abbey Road is Paul McCartney's idea. Traffic was stopped for around 15 minutes. The photographer was on a stepladder. Now with zebra crossings disappearing around Britain, this one will survive with its new government protection. However, for those perplexed that they can never quite recapture the original image, this is not the original crossing. It has since the 60s been moved slightly, but English Heritage says it is still for fans an iconic cultural site.

Evidence of a human relative who mixed with our species of human thousands of years ago has been uncovered by archaeologists in Russia. The researchers say DNA analysis of a tooth and finger bone found in caves in southern Siberia suggests there was once another species of human, a species they called the Denisovans. By comparing the DNA code of this species with that of modern humans, scientists found that Denisovans were widespread across Asia more than 30,000 years ago. They are thought to have interbred with the ancestors of people now living in a group of islands northeast of Australia.

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