BBC News :标准普尔上调希腊主权信用评级
BBC News with Marion Marshall
The White House has said that President Obama will support the legislation to reinstate a ban on assault weapons following Friday's mass shootings at a school in the US state of Connecticut. The elementary school in Newtown where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults remains closed. From Washington, Paul Adams.
Barack Obama has already said he'll do what he can to prevent another tragedy like the killings at Newtown. Now according to his spokesman Jay Carney, he's ready to lend his support to a law being proposed by the California Senator Dianne Feinstein which would reinstate and probably modify the 1994 assault weapons ban. Mr. Carney also says the president is keen to close what some call the gun show loophole, where people are able to buy weapons without the sort of background checks that licensed dealers are obliged to run.
The credit rating agency Standard & Poor's has raised the sovereign debt rating of Greece by six levels. The agency said the move reflected the strong determination of European countries to help Greece stay in the Eurozone. Last week Greece started to receive the latest tranche of international bailout funds. From Athens, here's Mark Lowen.
Credit rating agencies are seen as a key gauge for the health of an economy. For months, Greece had only been downgraded, stuck in the realm of default. But now in a significant change it has been taken up six levels by Standard and Poor's to B-. That combined with a so-called stable outlook means the agency's fear of Greece leaving the Euro has subsided and it will substantially reassure the government here and the Eurozone as a whole severely shaken by Greece's turbulent last few months.
Five health workers involved in a Polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan have been shot dead in what police said were coordinated attacks. Four women were killed in Karachi and another in Peshāwar. Aleem Maqbool reports.
Over recent years, the Pakistani Taliban talked of health workers being spies for western agencies and also said the vaccine sterilized children. They banned the Polio programme in some areas and workers were beaten in others. And then the militants found another justification for their position when the CIA tried to use a Pakistani doctor and a fake vaccination programme to get DNA samples from the home of Osama Bin Laden. The government says it simply can't give security to all of the tens of thousands of health workers giving vaccines. So the programme has been suspended and children are left at risk of getting a crippling disease.
Social media users have responded angrily after Facebook's photo-sharing site Instagram changed its privacy policy, giving it the right to sell people's photos to advertisers. The move has triggered a backlash among the site users. Instagram has said the update will allow it to fight spam more effectively. The site users have until January 16 to delete their accounts.
BBC News
South Koreans have begun voting in their presidential election. The race, which is expected to be very close, is between Park Geun-hye of the governing party and Moon Jae-in of the opposition Democratic Union United Party. Ms. Park is the daughter of South Korea's most well-known and divisive military leader. Her rival is a liberal human rights lawyer. From Seoul, Lucy Williamson reports.
Given their different backgrounds, it's remarkable that their policies on the home front are so similar. Both have said they want to redistribute wealth, expand welfare and reform the country's big family conglomerates. Their key differences are on relations with North Korea. Both candidates say they want to end the current policy of a strictly reciprocal relationship but they differ widely on how far and how soon to restart dialogue and economic ties.
Ireland is to introduce new legislation on abortion following the death of a pregnant woman who was denied a termination. Details haven't been finalized, but the new laws are expected to make abortions legal where the mother's life is at risk including whether there is a threat of suicide.
A former Congolese rebel leader Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui has been acquitted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Judges said key witnesses were unreliable and prosecutors had failed to prove that it was Mr. Ngudjolo’s troops who massacred 200 people in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003. Witnesses had described victims in Bogoro village being burnt alive, babies smashed against walls and women raped.
Rebels in the Central African Republic have seized a key diamond mining town and began looting its shops. In recent days, the rebels from a coalition known as Serleika seized several other towns in the north and killed at least 14 government soldiers. They then took Bria, a garrison town and key hub of the country's diamond region.
BBC News
参考译文
Marion Marshall为你播报BBC新闻。
白宫表示，自周五康涅狄格州一所学校发生大规模枪击案后，总统奥巴马将支持重启禁止攻击性武器的法令。枪手杀死了纽镇一所小学的20名儿童和6名成年人，这所学校现已关闭。Paul Adams在华盛顿报道。
巴拉克·奥巴马称将尽一切努力阻止纽镇惨案再度发生，据发言人杰伊·卡尼说，奥巴马将支持加州参议员黛安·范士丹的提案，即重启并可能修改1994 攻击性武器禁令。卡尼称总统一心想堵住所谓的枪展会滥售枪支的漏洞，因为在枪展会上，人们可以不经背景调查就可购买武器，而奥巴马认为经销商必须进行背景 调查。
信用评估机构标准普尔将希腊的主权债务提高了6个等级，该机构称此举反映欧洲国家帮助希腊留在欧元区的坚定决心。上周，希腊开始收到最后一批国际援助资金。Mark Lowen在雅典报道。
信用评估机构一般被视为衡量经济健康的关键标准。几个月来，希腊的信用评分一直很低，几近违约。但标准普尔如今做出惊人的举动，将该国的评分提高了 6个等级，达到B-。同时还认为希腊“前景稳定”，这意味着该机构不再那么害怕希腊会退出欧元区，同时也在很大程度上给几个月来受希腊动荡折磨的希腊政府 和整个欧元区吃了定心丸。
在巴基斯坦进行脊髓灰质炎疫苗接种运动的5名卫生工作者遭到枪杀，警方称这是一起联合袭击，其中卡拉奇有4名妇女被杀，沙瓦一人死亡。Aleem Maqbool报道。
最近几年，巴基斯坦塔利班称卫生工作者在为西方机构刺探情报，称疫苗可以让儿童绝育。他们在几个地区禁止了接种项目，别的地区的工作者还遭到毒打。 就在中央情报局试图利用一名巴基斯坦医生和一个假的疫苗项目获取本拉登家人的DNA的事件发生后，塔利班就越发认为禁止是合理的。政府称无法确保数十万接 种的卫生工作者的安全，因此该项目已经暂停，这里的儿童面临患上残废病症的危险。
Facebook的图片共享网站Instagram改变隐私政策，将拥有出售用户照片给广告商的权利，此举引起社交媒体用户的不满。一石激起千层浪，Instagram称新政策有助于打击垃圾邮件。用户可以1月16日之前删除账户。
韩国开始进行总统选举，一般认为，执政党候选人朴槿惠和反对派民主联合党的文在寅势均力敌。朴槿惠是韩国最有名的军事领导人之女，她的对手是一位自由派人权律师。Lucy Williamson在首尔报道。
尽管两人背景有别，令人赞叹的是他们的国内政策很相似。两人都希望重新分配财富，扩大福利并改革韩国庞大的家族企业。他们最大的差异是与朝鲜的关系，两位候选人都称希望结束现存的严格互惠关系，但在重启对话和经济关系的程度和时间问题上有差异。
鉴于一名孕妇因被拒绝进行流产而亡，冰岛将引入新的流产法。具体细节尚未敲定，但新法有望允许母亲遭遇生命危险时进行流产，其中包括自杀危险。
海牙国际刑事法庭宣判前刚果叛军领袖恩古宙洛的战争罪指控不成立。法官称关键证人不可靠，检察官也无法证明恩古宙洛的部队2003年在刚果民主共和国东北部杀害了200人。目击者称博戈罗村的遇害者被活活烧死，婴儿被摔到墙上，妇女被强奸。
中非共和国的叛军夺下一个钻矿重镇，并洗劫了商店。最近几天，名为Serleika的叛军组织夺下了北部几个城镇，杀死至少14名政府士兵，然后夺下要塞城镇Bria和该国一处钻石重要产地。
