BBC news 2011-12-24 加文本

BBC news 2011-12-24

BBC News with David Austin

The Syrian opposition has blamed the government for the suicide attacks that killed 40 people in the heart of the capital Damascus. The state media has suggested that they've been carried out by al-Qaeda. The attacks took place as peace plan observers from the Arab League were beginning their work in Syria. Ghiyath al-Shami of the opposition Syrian Revolution Command Council said that the government had staged the bombings to show it was under attack.

"The two blasts were staged by the regime. This is our belief. The regime wanted to give the Arab League observers the impression that there are indeed terrorist gangs led by al-Qaeda. This is the pretext used by any Arab regime prior to its fall. Al-Qaeda was created by the regime and is now being used by it for its own agenda."

One of the greatest Czech statesmen of the past century, Vaclav Havel, has been laid to rest in the capital Prague. At noon, sirens and church bells sounded throughout the country to mark the start of the funeral Mass in St Vitus Cathedral. Thousands watched in the freezing cold as world leaders paid homage to the playwright who led his country from communism to democracy. Among those there was the Czech-born former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who gave her own tribute.

"We will miss him terribly, but we will never ever forget him."

Turkey has accused the French President Nicolas Sarkozy of fanning hatred against Turks and Muslims for electoral game. The Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said France had committed genocide during its colonial rule in Algeria. His comments come a day after the lower house of the French parliament approved a bill that makes it a criminal offence to deny that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians during the First World War.

The Congolese opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi has conducted an unofficial inauguration ceremony at his home in the capital Kinshasa. President Joseph Kabila was official inaugurated on Tuesday, but international observers said the election was badly flawed. Here's Thomas Hubert.

Etienne Tshisekedi took his oath in front of officials from his UDPS party. Supporters gathered outside his home behind a police cordon after security forces stopped the ceremony taking place at the city's main stadium. Hundreds of riot police and soldiers armed with water cannons, tanks, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades patrolled the streets between the Martyrs' Stadium and Mr Tshisekedi's house. Groups of opposition supporters had tried to get to the stadium in the morning, but were immediately dispersed by police firing stun grenades.

Buckingham Palace says the Duke of Edinburgh has been taken to hospital after suffering chest pains. It said the 90-year-old duke, the Queen's husband, was undergoing precautionary checks.

World News from the BBC

The United States Congress has approved a two-month extension of a cut in payroll taxes, breaking a lengthy deadlock between President Obama and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. President Obama said more work needed to be done on the tax issue, which he described as a "make or break moment" for the US middle classes. From Washington, Marcus George reports.

It was a slim victory in real terms, but the drama is a significant political win in the president's fraught struggle with conservative Republicans. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives finally voted for the measure after a face-saving provision for small businesses was added. The dispute showed up deep divisions within the party. Many Republicans supported the measure, but staunch conservatives had refused to fall into line.

The Dutch-based oil trading company Trafigura has lost an appeal against a fine of more than $1m imposed after hundreds of tonnes of chemical waste were dumped in Ivory Coast. The Dutch appeal court said there was clear proof that Trafigura had exported the waste in 2006. A United Nations report said at least 15 people had died in Ivory Coast's biggest city Abidjan. The company has denied any wrongdoing.

The German car-maker Volkswagen has agreed to deactivate emails on its workers' Blackberry mobile phones in Germany after office hours to give their staff a break. Rory Cellan-Jones has the details.

Modern technology means the boundaries between work and leisure time are becoming increasingly blurred. Now Volkswagen has decided there's something [that] needs to be done. After discussions with its works council, VW agreed that company blackberries would stop receiving emails 30 minutes after employees clocked off and would only be reactivated half an hour before their next shift. The Blackberry restrictions only apply to VW's German employees on trade union-negotiated contracts and won't affect senior managers.

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