BBC在线收听下载:特朗普圣诞后突访驻伊美军

Hello, I'm Neil Nunes with the BBC News.

President Trump has used a surprise Christmas visit to US troops in Iraq to defend his decision to pull American forces out of Syria. Mr. Trump said the withdrawal would be gradual.
There will be a strong, deliberate and orderly withdrawal of US forces from Syria, very deliberate, very orderly, while maintaining the US presence in Iraq to prevent an ISIS resurgence and to protect US interests, and also to always watch very closely over any potential reformation of ISIS and also to watch over Iran.

During his visit to an airbase west of Baghdad, President Trump spoke to the Iraqi Prime Minister over the telephone and invited him to Washington.

Shares in Tokyo have closed nearly four percent higher following earlier gains in New York. US shares bounced back after steep falls before Christmas. Kim Gittleson reports.

After suffering their worst weekly performance in a decade, US shares made a roaring recovery, which once more had a knock-on effect on markets around the world. Investors seemed to shake off their pre-holiday jitters after positive US retail sales data soothe concerns about a slowdown in US economic activity. That push shares in companies like Amazon higher even amid thin trading volumes during the post Christmas week. The question of course, is whether this is a one-off rally or something that will be sustained into the New Year. The Dow-Jones Industrial Average would need to rise over eighteen hundred points over the next two days in order to end 2018 in the black.

Police in the Democratic Republic of Congo have fired tear gas at crowds protesting against the decision to further delay the presidential election. A BBC correspondent in the city of Goma said demonstrators are being dispersed. The vote which was due to take place on Sunday has now been postponed until March in three areas of the country.

Japan has executed two inmates on death row. The Justice Minister said they were hanged at a detention center in the city of Osaka. The two men were convicted for the strangling of an investment firm executive and an employee thirty years ago. The hangings bring the total number of executions in Japan this year to fifteen. Japan has about one hundred death row convicts.

The US pop star Miley Cyrus has confirmed that she has married the Australian actor Liam Hemsworth, sharing images of their wedding on social media. The couple met nearly a decade ago on the set of the film, The Last Song.

BBC world news.