BBC news 2011-01-26 加文本

BBC news 2011-01-26

BBC News with David Legge

Riot police in the Egyptian capital Cairo have fired tear gas and water cannon to try to break up large anti-government demonstrations. Our correspondent Jon Leyne was there.

It was as if something had been unleashed. Thousands of people took to the streets of Cairo, the biggest challenge to the government in years. For a while, the police stood aside. Then I watched as they moved in with water cannon and tear gas.

"Police are just moving in to break up the protesters. The protesters are throwing back rocks and anything they can get their hands on, and now the police are just sending in the water cannon."

"We don't afraid from anyone any more. That's our final war. We don't afraid from anybody here in Egypt."

As the crowd fought back, the police simply could not regain control of the streets. This demonstration will be a huge shock to President Mubarak, in power now for 30 years. And the protesters might just begin to believe that after Tunisia, anything is possible.

The first former detainee of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to be tried in a civilian court has been jailed for life by a judge in New York. Ahmed Ghailani, from Tanzania, was charged in connection with attacks in East Africa in 1998. Jonny Dymond reports.

More than 200 people were killed and thousands injured in the attacks on US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Ahmed Ghailani was accused of purchasing trucks to carry the bombs, explosives and petrol tanks to destroy the buildings. Sentencing him, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan described the crime as horrible, the cold-blooded killing and maiming of innocent people on an enormous scale. The charge, conspiracy to destroy government buildings, carries a minimum sentence of 20 years. Mr Ghailani asked for leniency, but he received a life sentence without parole.

An American-educated billionaire, Najib Mikati, has been appointed prime minister of Lebanon amid an outcry by supporters of his pro-Western predecessor Saad Hariri. Mr Mikati is the preferred choice of the militant Hezbollah group and secured the job following a vote by members of parliament. He said he wants his government to serve all of Lebanon.

"I look forward to seeing the new government act as one that faces with the sense of collective national responsibility, all the challenges awaiting us and one that lives up to the aspirations and hopes of the Lebanese people."

The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said a government dominated by Hezbollah would influence Lebanon's relations with the US.

The Russian authorities have begun a criminal investigation into security at a Moscow airport where a bomb killed 35 people on Monday. President Dmitry Medvedev called for security officials to be punished. No group has said it carried out the attack.

World News from the BBC

The human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, has called for a fresh investigation into allegations that Kosovo Liberation Army rebels were involved in organised crime and the trafficking of human organs. The council adopted a report carried out by its investigator which says organs were taken from prisoners of war killed by the KLA after the Kosovo conflict with Serbian forces in 1999.

The BBC World Service has announced it's to close five of its language services. The BBC's Global News Director Peter Horrocks said the closures were due to a 16% cut in British government funding. Torin Douglas has the details.

It's been known since the government's spending review last October that many World Service posts and some services would be cut. Tonight the BBC has confirmed that it will close the Albanian, Macedonian and Serbian language services as well as Portuguese for Africa and the English for Caribbean service. Further cuts and changes will be announced to staff tomorrow. It's expected that around 650 jobs will be lost from a current total of 2,400, most of them in the first year.

The authorities in Arizona in the United States say they've smashed a gun-running network that was trying to smuggle hundreds of weapons to Mexican drugs gangs. At least 17 people have been arrested in and around the city of Phoenix. They are accused of conspiring to buy firearms for Mexico's powerful Sinaloa cartel.

American scientists working in the Arctic have recorded what they believe is the longest-ever swim by a polar bear. They fitted a female bear with a radio collar and then tracked her as she swam non-stop for nine days. She covered nearly 700km northwards from Alaska in icy waters and then travelled a further 1,600km, sometimes walking on the ice. The scientists say that as more sea ice melts, polar bears have to swim greater distances in search of food.

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