BBC news 2011-01-11 加文本

BBC news 2011-01-11

BBC News with Sue Montgomery

President Obama has led the United States in a moment's silence to honour the victims of Saturday's shooting in Arizona. A single bell tolled for the six people who were killed and for the Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically wounded. From Washington, Paul Adams.

The president and his wife Michelle stood heads bowed on the South Lawn of the White House. There were no words, and after a minute they returned inside. A little over a mile away, on the east steps of the Capitol building, hundreds of congressional staffers stood out in the freezing air in their own mark of respect. Speaking later before talks with the visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Mr Obama spoke of the courage displayed by some at the scene of the shooting.

The former Republican majority leader of the US House of Representatives, Tom DeLay, has received a three-year prison term for conspiracy. He was also given a five-year suspended sentence for money laundering. Mr DeLay was convicted in November of channelling corporate donations to Republican election candidates in Texas in 2002.

The Organisation of American States is reported to have recommended that the governing party candidate in Haiti's disputed presidential election should be dropped from the run-off vote. Provisional results put Jude Celestin second in the first round to the former first lady. But diplomatic sources say OAS monitors found the opposition candidate Michel Martelly won more votes. James Read reports.

The results of the first round of Haiti's presidential election in November provoked violent protests by supporters of pop star Michel Martelly, who insists he, and not Jude Celestin, came second. Amid rising tension, the OAS was asked to review the vote count. Its report has not yet been made public, but diplomatic sources say it found in favour of Mr Martelly.

The Tunisian government has announced that all schools and universities will be closed until further notice because of the wave of protests over unemployment, the biggest to hit the country in decades. At least 14 people have been killed by police. Opposition sources put the number significantly higher. Here's Chloe Arnold.

Schools and universities across Tunisia are set to close from Tuesday as the government launches an investigation into who's responsible for more than three weeks of unrest. Protesters, most of them young people, have staged rallies across the country, demanding better employment opportunities and greater freedom. The riots began almost a month ago, the greatest threat the country's seen to President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who's kept a tight rein for 23 years.

At least 30 people have been killed in clashes in the disputed central Sudanese region of Abyei as the people of the south continue to vote in a referendum on possible independence. Oil-rich Abyei is coveted by both the north and the south.

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A week after taking office, the new Democrat Governor of California, Jerry Brown, has announced deep spending cuts. Mr Brown inherited a $28bn budget deficit. The budget proposal must be agreed by the state legislature. Peter Bowes reports from Los Angeles.

Jerry Brown says he plans to slash spending by more than $12bn. The cuts will include an 8%-10% reduction in take-home pay for most state workers. The governor acknowledged that the cuts would be painful, but he said they had no choice. "For 10 years," he said, "we've had budget gimmicks and tricks that have pushed the state deep into debt." Governor Brown added that he'd planned a radical restructuring of state government. He said it was time to return California to fiscal responsibility.

The trial has begun in the United States of the veteran Cuban opposition militant and former CIA agent, Luis Posada Carriles. He is accused of lying to US immigration officials. Mr Posada Carriles is wanted in Venezuela and Cuba over several deadly bomb attacks and plots to kill the former Cuban President Fidel Castro. Cuba and Venezuela have repeatedly accused Washington of harbouring a convicted terrorist.

The Spanish government has rejected the latest ceasefire declaration made by the Basque separatist organisation Eta. The Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the offer didn't go far enough, and that only Eta's complete disbandment would be acceptable. He also dismissed Eta's new proposal that the international community should verify the ceasefire.

"The only statement from the terrorist gang Eta that we want to read is that Eta announces the end and that it does it in a definite and irreversible manner."

Eta has made five previous ceasefire declarations.

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