BBC news 2012-01-08 加文本 讲解

BBC news 2012-01-08

BBC News with Gaenor Howells

The British government has raised its assessment of the threat level for travellers to Kenya. British counter-terrorism officials have been assisting Kenyan police, who found explosives and bomb-making equipment in a raid in Mombasa last month. Our correspondent Caroline Hawley reports.

The latest Foreign Office advice is unusually specific. It says that terrorists are believed to be in the final stages of planning attacks, and it recommends particular vigilance in public places. Kenya has been on high alert since its troops entered Somalia in October to fight militants from the Islamist group al-Shabab, who have vowed to retaliate. The Kenyan authorities say they thwarted attacks planned for the Christmas and New Year period, but it's understood that not all those suspected of involvement have been detained.

The Kenyan army says the Somali Islamist group al-Shabab is crumbling as the Kenyan offensive inside Somalia gains momentum. The army spokesman told journalists in Nairobi that divisions within the al-Shabab leadership meant the end of the group wasn't far away. Al-Shabab has ridiculed the claims. The BBC East Africa correspondent says it's hard to verify reports from inside Somalia.

A curfew has been declared in Adamawa state in the northeast of Nigeria following a wave of attacks on Christians. The army has been deployed, and the streets are almost empty. Mark Lobel reports.

Since the 24-hour curfew was ordered by the Adamawa state governor, the army has been patrolling the streets. Security is tight following deadly attacks by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram on a church, community centre and hairdressers, which left at least 29 people dead. A resident in the capital Yola says all shops and businesses are closed, and only essential services are being allowed through the deserted town. There is no indication when the curfew will be lifted although it is not as severe as the state of emergency ordered by the president for several neighbouring states.

Crowds of government supporters in Syria have attended funerals for the 26 people the government says were killed by a suicide bomber in Damascus on Friday. Jonathan Head reports from Istanbul.

State television showed large crowds chanting in support of President Assad as the flag-draped coffins were brought into the mosque in the al-Maidan district of Damascus. The attack fits the government's narrative of the conflict that it's confronting a terrorist conspiracy, not a mass uprising. President Assad's opponents say that's reason enough to suspect pro-government forces of ordering the suicide bombing - the second such attack in the capital in two weeks.

New medical tests on the Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner have shown that she is not after all suffering from cancer. A presidential spokesman said tests on her thyroid gland showed her tumour was benign, not cancerous. She's now returned to her official residence to convalesce.

World News from the BBC

Iran has described the rescue by the United States navy of 13 Iranian fishermen captured by Somali pirates as a humanitarian gesture. The Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said his country had also rescued many foreign sailors from pirates, but such acts did not affect overall relations between countries.

An American congresswoman shot and nearly killed a year ago is considering whether to run for office again. Gabrielle Giffords was hit in the head when a gunman opened fire as she was meeting constituents at a shopping centre in Arizona. Six other people were killed. After a long and slow recovery, Mrs Giffords now walks and talks with difficulty, but her husband, the astronaut Mark Kelly, says she's motivated to return to politics.

A body believed to be the remains of a missing journalist has been unearthed in Ivory Coast. Guy-Andre Kieffer, who had French and Canadian nationality, disappeared six years ago after he was abducted from a car park in the main city Abidjan. He'd been investigating corruption in Ivory Coast's cocoa sector. From Abidjan, our correspondent John James sent this report.

Ivory Coast is the world's biggest cocoa producer. But in the last 10 years, an estimated $800m of cocoa revenues are unaccounted for. In 2008, the majority of the industry's leading officials were arrested and charged with fraud. Before his disappearance, Mr Kieffer had accused officials close to the then President Laurent Gbagbo of being involved in the fraud and had received several death threats.

Prison authorities in northern Iraq are investigating how 11 prisoners managed to escape overnight on Friday from a jail by digging an 80-metre-long tunnel to reach freedom. Officials at Zirga prison in the Kurdish province of Dohuk expressed bafflement at how the convicts managed to avoid detection while they dug their escape route. A search is underway for the escapees.

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