英国新闻听力 81（在线收听）

BBC news with Michael Poles.

Israeli fighter planes and helicopters have continued to attack targets in Gaza, despite a United Nations Security Council resolution which called for an immediate and durable ceasefire. From Jerusalem, here's Bethany Bell.

Gaza is being hit from the air, the ground and the sea with the Israeli jets, helicopters and battle tanks launching fresh strikes on the territory. Hamas militants have continued firing rockets into Israel. The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says the military campaign will carry on. He said the UN resolution on the ceasefire was unworkable. He said it wouldn't be respected by what he called "murderous Palestinian groups". Hamas has also dismissed the resolution, saying it had not been consulted.

The UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Navi Pillay has said accusation of an incident involving Israeli soldiers in Gaza bear all the elements of a war crime. Ms. Pillay has called for an independent investigation of reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross, that the Israeli soldiers prevented help reach/ Israeli soldiers prevented help reaching some wounded children. A spokesman for the Israeli government said it would investigate the allegations thoroughly.

The House of Representatives in the US state of Illinois has voted to impeach the State Governor Rod Blagojevich. He's been accused of abuse of office, including trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. The vote paves the way for a trial in the State Senate on whether to remove him from office. Mr. Blagojevich called a news conference to deny he'd been involved in any criminal activity. He accused the House of trying to remove him because it opposed his social welfare programs. He said he had expected the move.

"What the House did today, they've been talking about doing for the last couple of years. so this is not something that's came as a complete surprise to me, it happened kind of fast, but again, I kind of expected, and part of the process that has essentially been the dynamic in Illinois since I was re-elected governor in November of 2006."

Somali pirates who hijacked a huge Saudi-owned oil tanker off the coast of east Africa two months ago had been paid a ransom for its release. The super-tanker--Sirius Star was hijacked with 25 crew on board, carrying a cargo of 100 million dollars of crude oil. Gordon Corera has more.

Maritime Groups based in the area said the last group of gunmen had departed the Sirius Star and its crew had sailed out to safe waters. According to coalition naval forces in Bahrain, a ransom payment in the container appears to have been parachuted from a plane to the pirates on board the vessel. And although the total ransom paid is unknown, there are reports that 3 million dollars was delivered to a group on shore. The pirates supposedly then began arguing amongst themselves over how to distribute the cash. Somali pirates are still holding 16 other vessels and more than 300 crew members.

World news from the BBC.

A wildlife campaigner in Zimbabwe says members of the army are being given elephant meat for their rations because of a shortage in beef. A spokesman for the Zimbabwe Conservation Taskforce said soldiers have complained to him that elephant was the only meat they were receiving. He said army contract to supply beef had been cancelled because it was easier and cheaper to provide elephant.

Turkish police investigating an alleged plot to overthrow the government of uncovered weapons and explosives buried in a forest. Documents seized from an arrested former senior police official led the authorities to a forest on the outskirt of the Turkish capital of Ankara, where they unearthed hand grenades, missile launches and bullets. Sarah Rainsford reports from Istanbul.

86 people are already on trial. This time, 3 with higher generals were detained as well as serving members of the military. That let some to speculate that this investigation may now be reaching the real masterminds of the plot. Others, though, are increasingly critical, accusing the religious conservative government of hijacking the case to take revenge on its opponents. That's after a failed attempt to close the party down last year. Many of those people arrested are staunch secularists and local critics of the governing AK party.

New figures show that the United States lost more jobs in 2008 than in any years since 1945. The US economy shed just over 2.5 million jobs, a reflection of deepening recession of the world's largest economy. The President-elect Barack Obama said the figures showed the urgent need to confront what he called "a devastating economic crisis that was getting harder to contain."

The American airplane manufacturer Boeing has announced it's to cut 4500 jobs from next month because of the global economic downturn. Staff in Washington State are expected to be the worst affected. Boeing Commercial Airplanes currently employs around 68,000 people in the United States.

And with that story, we come to the end of this bulletin of BBC news.