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BBC News with David Austin

Police in Denmark and Sweden have arrested five people suspected of planning to launch what the authorities described as a Mumbai-style attack designed to kill as many people as possible. The Danish intelligence agency says the target was to have been the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, which five years ago outraged¹ many Muslims by printing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The head of the Danish security service, Jakob Scharf, said they'd been working closely with their Swedish counterparts.

"We have been following them very closely until the arrests were made today. We believe that the situation has been under control, but we also found that it was necessary to intervene now in order to prevent a specific terrorist attack in Copenhagen."

The Danish authorities say some of the suspects crossed into Denmark from Sweden.

The head of the United Nations mission in Ivory Coast, Alain Le Roy, has accused state television there of stirring up hatred² against UN peacekeepers. He said the broadcasts by a station controlled by the incumbent³ President Laurent Gbagbo were shocking. UN forces are guarding the hotel housing Mr Gbagbo's rival Alassane Ouattara.

The Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has banned aviation officials from taking their New Year holiday after bad weather severely⁴ disrupted air traffic at major airports in Moscow. A majority of Russians go on a 10-day-long holiday over New Year. Adiba Ataeva reports.

Vladimir Putin told a government meeting that everyone in charge of the situation should stay at work until special notice. He said no one should, as he put it, whine⁵ about his decision. On Tuesday, angry passengers beat up staff at Moscow's Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo airports, where they had been stranded⁶ for several days with little food or information. The airports were closed due to power cuts caused by freezing rain, and tens of thousands of homes were left without electricity.

Pope Benedict is to issue a decree intended to make the Vatican's financial affairs more transparent⁷ and fight money laundering⁸. Three months ago, Italian prosecutors⁹ seized $30m from the Vatican Bank and placed two of its top officials under investigation¹⁰. They were accused of contravening¹¹ laws against money laundering. The Vatican insisted that was a misunderstanding and said then it would put its house in order. David Willey has this report from Rome.

The Vatican is implementing¹² a 31 December EU deadline to create a compliance¹³ authority to oversee¹⁴ all its financial operations. This is required by the EU and by other international organisations involved in the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. I understand that the new compliance authority will monitor transactions not only of the Vatican Bank but of all the other Vatican entities¹⁵ which handle money, including the Vatican museums, Vatican Radio and the administration of the Vatican City State.

David Willey

World News from the BBC

The Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness, has described the disruption to its water supplies that followed the recent extreme cold as a "grave crisis". Nearly 40,000 people have been left without supplies since temperatures started to rise with water draining away through mains that had been damaged by ice. Some homes have had no water for more than a week and face further disruption.

A judge in the American state of Florida has delayed the funeral of the former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez because of a family dispute over where he should be buried. Some family members want to bury him in Florida, but other relatives want his body returned to Venezuela. John McManus reports.

Despite leading Venezuela during the 70s and early 90s, Mr Perez relocated to the US more than 10 years ago, where he lived with his former secretary and two children. Now their attempts to bury him have been halted by his wife Blanca Perez, who still lives in Venezuela and wants to see him buried there. The dispute over his final resting place mirrors Mr Perez's turbulent political life, where he held the presidency¹⁶ twice, survived a coup¹⁷ attempt and was then later convicted for fraud.

Officials in eastern Sri Lanka say 65,000 hectares of agricultural land have been damaged by floods. On Tuesday, two people died in heavy rain that's been affecting over 200,000 people. The worst-hit has been Batticaloa district, a predominantly Tamil area where many people have been unable to return home after the military defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels last year.

The President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, has said his government will withdraw from peace negotiations¹⁸ on Darfur if no agreement is reached on Thursday. Mediators in Qatar are currently in discussion with representatives of the Sudanese government and the main Darfur rebel groups. President Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on accusations¹⁹ of war crimes and genocide in Darfur.

That's the BBC News.