BBC news 2011-12-01 加文本

BBC news 2011-12-01

BBC News with Marion Marshall

Britain has ordered the closure of the Iranian embassy in London and said staff must leave within 48 hours. The British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced the measures a day after protesters stormed the British embassy and diplomatic compounds in Iran. An Iranian government spokesman described the British response as "hasty" and warned that Iran would take further appropriate action. James Robbins reports.

Britain's foreign secretary was blunt. He told members of parliament that the Iranian demonstrators had systematically vandalised and looted the homes of British embassy staff in Tehran. Mr Hague said they stole personal possessions and set fire to the main embassy office building. The foreign secretary was clear this was the work of a student militia controlled by elements of what he called the Iranian regime. William Hague said no difficulty in relations between the two countries could excuse Iran's failure to protect diplomatic staff under the terms of the Vienna Convention.

Other European countries have reacted to the storming of the British embassy. France and Germany have recalled their ambassadors for consultations. A French foreign ministry official said Iran had violated international law.

Stock markets around the world have rallied after the central banks of six leading economies launched coordinated action to improve the availability of credit. American stocks jumped 3% in early trading following similar rises on European markets. Our business editor Robert Peston reports.

The central banks of the world's biggest developed economies have taken pre-emptive action to prevent a domino effect of banks collapsing in the event that these banks find themselves unable to borrow the major currencies they need. Now in recent weeks, there's been evidence that big eurozone banks have found it harder and more expensive to borrow dollars. Investors do seem impressed. Share prices - especially the share prices of banks - have risen sharply in markets across the world on the perception that there's been a fall in the risk of a return to conditions of unbearable stress in banking markets.

Trade unions in Britain have staged the biggest public sector strike in decades. Up to two million workers are opposing pension reforms that may lead to later retirement and higher contributions. Tens of thousands of protesters marched in London, Manchester and Edinburgh. Here's our political correspondent Rob Watson.

Trade union leaders - among them, Mark Serwotka - accused the government of trying to balance the heavily indebted books on the backs of public sector workers.

"Yesterday the chancellor gave us more unremitting gloom where he made it clear that working people would be targeted. So today is the opportunity for millions to say no. We're not paying the price for this. We didn't cause it, and what you're doing is making the situation worse."

Although the strike closed many schools, the government claimed the disruption was not as widespread as feared. In parliament, the Prime Minister David Cameron described the strike as "something of a damp squib".

World News from the BBC

An inquiry has heavily criticised one of Britain's leading universities for accepting a donation from a charity run by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former Libyan leader. A report by a senior former judge, Lord Woolf, said the London School of Economics had made mistakes that had damaged its reputation. The $2.3m donation was made six weeks after Saif al-Islam was awarded a doctorate. The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall has been examining the report.

It talks about a chapter of failures, about the LSE being unfortunate and naive in (both) the timing of when it accepted the initial donation - just weeks after it had given Saif Gaddafi a PhD - and also saying that links with the Gaddafi regime were allowed to grow unchecked. Questions have been raised about whether the thesis that he submitted for his PhD was really his own work - there's indication in this report that he did get quite a lot of work from outside - and whether there was plagiarism and indeed ghost-writing.

Five Somali men have been jailed for taking a French couple hostage on board their yacht three years ago. A court in Paris sentenced the men to between four and eight years in prison, but dropped charges against a sixth defendant. It's the first case of Somali piracy to be heard in the French courts.

The Syrian authorities say they've freed more than 900 prisoners involved in recent anti-government protests. State media said the amnesty followed the release of more than 1,500 prisoners earlier this month. Pressure is continuing to mount on the Syrian government to end its violent suppression of the protests.

Police in Mexico have discovered a 600-metre tunnel used to smuggle drugs from the northwestern city of Tijuana to the United States. They also found three tonnes of marijuana at the tunnel's entrance, which was close to the headquarters of the federal police. The tunnel had lights, a ventilation system and rails to transport the drugs. It runs from a warehouse in Tijuana to another in San Diego.

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