BBC在线收听下载:美防长称赞伊拉克政府军重夺拉马迪

BBC news 2015-12-31

BBC news. Hello, I'm John Shea.

The American defense secretary Ash Carter has hailed the recapture of the Iraq city of Ramadi by government troops as a significant step forward in the campaign to defeat IS. Earlier the BBC was shown the extent of destruction rolled by the battles to control the city. Thomas Fessy is there.

Iraqi forces have cleared the main street but no one dares to step into the rubble or enter the shattered buildings. Booby traps are everywhere.

Operations are still under way in the city center and in the northern quarters where Iraqi troops supported by coalition war planes are hunting retreating IS militants. But in the neighborhoods that we visited, there was no sign of life except for the soldiers standing guard. Iraqi troops are close to victory in Ramadi but this is a city that has been sacrificed in battle.

The US secretary of state John Kerry says Iran has taken a significant step towards fulfilling its nuclear commitments by removing a large quantity of uranium from the country. Mr Kerry was speaking after Iran dispatched a shipment of more than 11 tons of low enriched uranium to Russia. R reports.

Six international powers spent nearly two years negotiating with Tehran over its nuclear program in return for an end to most financial sanctions. The Obama administration took a gamble by pushing the deal in the face of a Republic-dominated congress. Kerry was keen to stress that the shipment to Russia represented an important progress.

Saudi Arabia says it will cut fuel and utility subsidies in the country as part of measures to deal with a record budget deficit. The Saudi press agency reported that the price of petrol will rise by at least 50 percent. Electricity, water and current subsidies will also be cut after the government registered a budget deficit of 98 billion dollars for 2015. Saudi officials say the shortfall was due to a sharp drop in global oil prices.

A wave of attacks by female suicide bombers in Northeastern Nigeria has killed more than 50 people. This report from Abdullahi Kaura Abubakar.

The latest attack targeted a busy market in town of Madagali in Adamawa state. At least 25 people were killed at the market near a bus station. Earlier, female bombers carried out multiple attacks that killed at least 31 people and injured over 100 in Maiduguri Borno State. It appears the Jihadist wanted to approve they are still able to inflict as much destruction as they want.

The Somali parliament has passed a new media law which imposes fines of up to 10,000 dollars for what it calls breaches of journalist ethics. It also requires all media houses to be registered and pay an annual license fee to the government. The National Union of Somalia Journalists says the bill will seriously damage independent media and freedom of expression.

This is the latest world news from the BBC.

A grand jury in the US state of Ohio has cleared two white police officers in the fatal shooting of a twelve-year-old black boy who was armed with a toy gun in November last year. The county prosecutor said the shooting of Tamir Rice in Cleveland was a human error and that the evidence did not indicate criminal action by the police. Cleveland's mayor Frank Jackson said the city would begin a review process.

Now that the criminal side is over with, and there's been a determination in terms of the criminal side, we're now going to proceed with this administrative review of what happened.

The government of Burundi has rejected a date set for peace talks aimed at ending months of political violence. Following a preliminary meeting in the Ugandan town of Entebbe, The Burundian government delegation also said it did not recognize one of the opposition coalition groups there. Burundi has descended into violence since president Pierre Nkurunziza announced in April that he was running for a third term.

Some of the relatives of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian boy whose body was photographed washed up on a Turkish beach have arrived in Canada. The three year old died with his mother and brothers trying to reach Greece in September. Alan's father who lives in Iraq said after the death that he would not move to Canada.

The US basketball player known as the Clown Prince of Harlem Globetrotters Meadowlark Lemon has died. He was 83. Lemon played for the side during his heyday from the mid 1950s to the late 1970s. He delighted fans around the world with his trick shots and good-natured gaks. In an interview in 2001, he said the Harlem Globetrotters were never driven by money. We were having fun. We enjoyed what we did. And I've found that the young kids today, they go to college to learn to play basketball so that they can make a lot money. This wasn't with us.

And that's the latest BBC world news.