BBC News:敘利亞政府否認(rèn)使用化學(xué)武器

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The United Nations Security Council is meeting inemergency session to discuss allegations that Syriangovernment forces used chemical weapons whenthey shelled an area outside the capital Damascus onWednesday. The main opposition National Coalition described it as a massacre. The Syriangovernment has denied that it used chemical weapons. Nick Bryant reports from New York.

The focus of diplomatic efforts from Britain, America and France has been on getting the UNweapon’s inspection’s team immediate to an unrestricted access to the site of the allegedattack. That’s more complicated than it sounds. The 20 strong team is staying just 15minutes away from Damascus suburb where hundreds were killed. But under the terms agreedbeforehand with the Syrian government it’s only been allowed access to three sites of previousalleged attacks. In Damascus, the head of the UN weapon’s team, the Swedish scientist AkeSellstrom is in talks with the Syrian government.

People who say they’ve been treating those killed and wounded in Syria have told the BBC andother international media that victims started arriving at treatment centers in the early hours ofthe morning. With more, here is Frank Gardner.

Video footage uploaded to the internet shows body after body brought into a makeshiftmorgue allegedly victims of a massive chemical attack. Some of the survivors have twitchingwith convulsions. The dead have frozen, paralyzed faces. None bear any visible wounds. A localdoctor Haswan Budanni said there is evidence of the use of poison gas but Syria’s informationminister Omran al-Zoubi said the rebel’s claims would time to coincide with the visit by UNinspectors.

Egyptian’s state television has reported that the former president Hosni Mubarak will be putunder house arrest following his release on corruption charges. The order was issued by amilitary official. Early in the day a court had ordered his release after judges dealt with the lastcorruption charges against him. Prosecutors are not appealing against the decision and hislawyers say he could be released from prison on Thursday. The 85-year-old still faces chargesof complicity in the killing of protesters during the uprising that forced him from power in 2011.

The lawyer of the American soldier Bradley Manning has asked President Obama to pardon hisclient who’s been sentenced to 35 years in prison after leaking hundreds of thousands of secretdocuments to the whistleblowing website Wikileaks. His lawyer David Coombs sayswhistleblowers should be protected.

“The time for our president to focus on protecting whistleblowers instead of punishing them isnow. Early next week I will file on behalf of my client Pte Manning a request that will be roundedthrough the secretary of the army for the president, a request that the president pardon PteManning or at very least commute his sentence to time served.”

World News from the BBC.

A Swedish politician has been injured in an ambush in the Somali capital Mogadishu. Witnessessay Ann Margarethe Livh was been driven back to her hotel after delivering a university lectureon good governance when gunmen shot at her car killing her driver and translator. No one hassaid they carried out the attack.

The United States Federal Reserve has published a minutes of a key policy-making meeting withsuggests the central bank is likely to reduce its efforts to stimulate the country’s economy.Share prices fell moderately. Andrew Walker reports.

It is increasingly likely that the Federal Reserve will start to cut back on the 85 billion dollars amonth it's pumping into the financial markets later this year. The minutes of the July policy-making meeting do reinforce the expectation that it will happen but they don’t provide muchmore clarity which the markets would have liked on exactly when or how quickly the Federal goabout it. The prospective reduce Fed action has already hit stock markets and also thecurrencies of many emerging economies.

Also in the United States the final installment of the tapes recorded in the White House byformer president Richard Nixon have been released by the National Archives. They wererecorded over three months in 1973 and covered the culmination of the Watergate’s scandalthat led to Nixon’s resignation. David Willis reports.

The tapes cover an intense period of time that included the resignation of Nixon’s two closeaides and two other senior administration officials in one day, the same day that Nixon madea public statement accepting blame for the Watergate scandal. But they also showed thepresident actively engaged in global diplomacy discussing a summit meeting with theRussians and taking a close interest in the soaring relations with China which the presidentdescribed as the key to world peace. At one point Nixon can be heard describing the Chinese asthe ablest people in the world.

BBC News.