Policing the World-16

In pictures: Gaza six months on

The UK government has come under rising pressure from MPs to start making contact with Palestinian group Hamas.

A Foreign Affairs Committee report also said it was "regrettable" UK-supplied military items were "almost certainly" used by Israel in the Gaza conflict.

The cross-party group, which monitors foreign policy, called on the EU to make relations with Israel conditional on its peace-making efforts.

Hamas was also criticised for its use of rockets on Israeli civilian targets.

'Ineffective strategy'

But committee chairman Michael Gapes said the committee saw "few signs that the current policy of non-engagement with Hamas" was effective.

He added that the government "should urgently consider engaging with moderate elements within Hamas" as it had with the political wing of Hezbollah in Lebanon earlier this year.

The wide-ranging report condemns Israel for the continuing growth of settlements and for its blockades around the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip.

It was unacceptable, said Mr Gapes, to deny unrestricted access for humanitarian assistance.

And the report also called for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to declare whether it considered war crimes had been committed during the December 2008 to January 2009 conflict in Gaza and southern Israel.

Hamas came into criticism for its rocket attacks, but MPs concluded that Israel's military action in Gaza was "disproportionate".

Who are Hamas?

Mr Gapes said: "Rocket fire from Gaza by Hamas and other Palestinian groups on civilian targets in Israel is unacceptable.

"It generates the risk of a renewed escalation in violence, and constitutes a central obstacle in the way of Israeli willingness to move forward towards a two-state settlement."

The report welcomed the endorsement by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a two-state solution to the conflict.

The committee added that the split between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was a central obstacle to creating a united and democratic Palestinian state, and called for elections that could be accepted by all parties.

Former prime minister Tony Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, was commended for "making an important contribution to Palestinian economic and institutional development".

But movement, access and administrative restrictions on the West Bank continued to represent a "major obstacle to further Palestinian economic development," it added.

Hamas takes its name from the Arabic initials for the Islamic Resistance Movement.

Designated a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and the EU, it is seen by its supporters as a legitimate fighting force defending Palestinians from a brutal military occupation. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8169105.stm>

One of the defeated moderate candidates in Iran's presidential election, Mehdi Karroubi, has accused security forces of using harsher methods than Israel.

"The behaviour of Iran's security agents is worse than those of the Zionist in occupied Palestine," a statement on his website said.

Hundreds were arrested following protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election last month.

Activists around the world demonstrated against the crackdown on Saturday.

Mr Karroubi and other moderate candidates say the 12 June election was marred by massive fraud.

Iran's top election body, the Council of Guardians, has said the poll was free and fair. Officials results gave Mr Ahmadinejad more than 62% of the vote.

'In the gutter'

Days of streets protests against the election results were violently suppressed, drawing international condemnation.

A letter to Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei posted on Mr Karroubi's website says that "women were attacked with clubs and beaten and thrown in the gutters" during the protests.

"This is more painful in comparison to crimes committed by the Zionists against the oppressed people of Palestine... The Zionist aggressors have some reservations when it comes to confronting women."

A separate statement signed by Mr Karroubi, as well as leading moderate candidate Mir Hosein Mousavi and former President Mohammad Khatami, also criticised the crackdown.

It called the government's interrogation methods "a reminder of the dark era of the Shah".

The authorities say most of those arrested in the wake of the election have been released.

Meanwhile activists have taken part in a "global day of action" on Iran.

Protests supported by leading groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International were held in 80 cities - including Sydney, Seoul, Geneva, London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and Dublin.

The demonstrators urged the Tehran authorities to free those arrested. Many held pictures of people they say remain in jail.

Some placards showed Neda Agha Soltan, the 27-year-old woman whose death was captured on a video that was posted on the Internet.

In Amsterdam, Iranian Nobel Peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi called on the international community to reject the outcome of the election.

In Bishkek, the capital of the central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, nine human rights activists marching towards the Iranian embassy were detained and fined for illegally protesting.

Two days ago Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev won a second presidential term in an election criticised by foreign monitors. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8168975.stm>

By Stephen Gibbs BBC News, Las Manos, on the Honduran-Nicaraguan border

If the exiled President Manuel Zelaya really wanted to enter Honduran territory, he could do so very easily.

The spectacular mountainous border between Nicaragua and Honduras is riddled with unguarded crossing points. They can be reached by foot or horseback.

Manuel Zelaya is an expert horseman and knows the area well.

But events at the normally uneventful Las Manos border post suggest one thing - Mr Zelaya, who was forced out of the country at gunpoint almost a month ago, is not interested in returning to his homeland by jumping over the garden fence. He wants to knock at the front door.

Publicity stunt

"It's a show, I admit it," said one of his political allies as the Stetson-hatted leader and his supporters crowded the area where trucks and tourists usually pass from one country to the other with minimal formalities.

The presidential cortege wandered from side to side. The cheers rose whenever it got close to the chain marking the frontier.

Just once, Mr Zelaya's polished black cowboy boots stepped into Honduran territory. He raised the chain high above his head. And then he stepped back.

The softly-spoken former cattle rancher was throughout using up what must have amounted to hundreds of minutes on his Nicaraguan mobile phone.

He was live on air on news channels around the world. Via Honduran radio he sent messages to his wife and family: "I'll be home soon," he said.

But will he?

Popularity slump

On the Honduran side of the border, ranks of Honduran soldiers stood with their metal riot shields.

The United States should be helping me, not criticising Manuel Zelaya

Many looked ill at ease. But they did not look ready to drop their rifles and change sides.

Mr Zelaya has some powerful institutions against him in Honduras - the army is one, the Congress another.

Even the supposedly politically neutral Roman Catholic Church has repeatedly shown itself to be on the side of the government which forced him out of office and out of the country.

He does not enjoy the massive popular support that would appear to be vital if he is to stage a non-negotiated comeback.

One Gallup poll in 2008 indicated his approval rating had slumped to 25%.

But that statistic might be misleading.

Mr Zelaya has long said he wants to represent the poorest Hondurans who have no political voice, and are presumably not telephoned by pollsters.

Repeatedly appearing at the border in the most high-profile way would appear to be, at least in part, a tactic to raise support amongst them. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8169101.stm>

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has criticised the United States for not doing enough, in his view, to condemn the government which replaced him.

Mr Zelaya was forced out of power, and into exile, last month. He is staying close to the border, in Nicaragua.

He says the US has stopped describing his removal from power as a "coup".

On Friday, he took a few symbolic steps back across the border into Honduras. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the move as "reckless".

Mr Zelaya, wearing his trademark white cowboy hat, returned to the border for the second day running on Saturday, demanding to be allowed home.

Mutual frustration

The US has opposed Mr Zelaya's dismissal and expulsion. But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticised Mr Zelaya's short excursion into Honduras, saying it was "not conducive to the broader effort to restore constitutional order".

Mr Zelaya says the US should be doing more to condemn what he describes as the "repressive" nature of the interim government in Honduras. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8169973.stm>

David Miliband has called for a change of emphasis in strategy in Afghanistan, urging the country's government to talk to moderate members of the Taliban.

In a speech to Nato, the UK foreign secretary said a political coalition, including some insurgents, must be built to secure Afghanistan's future.

Those fighting UK and US troops who were willing to renounce violence should be reintegrated into society.

The first phase of a UK-US offensive in southern Afghanistan has now ended.

'Heavy toll'

July has been the deadliest month for the UK and Nato after they launched Operation Panther's Claw - designed to take and secure land in Helmand province ahead of next month's presidential elections.

Mr Miliband said the operation had resulted in a "heavy toll" in terms of British deaths but "significant gains" had been made.

The Ministry of Defence has confirmed the first phase of the operation - which led to nine British deaths - is now over and that Nato troops would now be focusing on holding onto territory gained ahead of next month's elections.

FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME More from Today programme Afghan offensive 'a success'

Mr Miliband said the objectives of the UK's mission were clear but accepted the public "wanted to know whether and how we can succeed" in Afghanistan.

He said a viable political solution, alongside the military offensive, was essential to securing Afghanistan's future.

As part of this, Mr Miliband said current insurgents should be reintegrated into society and, in some cases, given a role in local and central government.

He made a distinction between "hard-line ideologues" and Jihaddist terrorists within the Taliban and other groups who must be fought and defeated from those who could be "drawn into a political process".

Switching sides

Those who had either been coerced or bribed into joining the insurgency could be engaged with if they disowned violence and respected the Afghan constitution, he said.

"These Afghans must have the option to choose a different course."

He added: "That means in the long term an inclusive political settlement in Afghanistan - separating those who want Islamic rule locally from those committed to violent jihad globally - and gives them a sufficient role in local politics that they leave the path of confrontation with the government."

BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall says: "I think there is a bit of concern, here at Nato headquarters, in London and in Washington and other areas where they are thinking about how the counter-insurgency is to work in a broader way, not just through the military tactics but with a broader political strategy. It is absolutely vital that there is an Afghan government that buys into the idea that you can have a political settlement. David Miliband said he thought there needed to be a government in Kabul that was prepared to work on a long-term political strategy, to bring them into government and local government. This involves all sorts of things including a Kabul presidency that is prepared to put in clear and credible governors and other regional leaders at a local level so people can be partly bought over, partly persuaded to come over from the Taliban to join the political process."

The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall said the UK was clear the responsibility was on the Afghan government to show commitment to this process.

But the Conservatives said there was nothing new in Mr Miliband's speech, saying dialogue between Kabul and parts of the Taliban had taken place for years.

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said the UK must focus on clear objectives such as building up of the Afghan army and "ensuring that the gains won by British forces on the battlefield are swiftly followed by reconstruction".

Earlier, International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander compared the move to the talks that brought an end to the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Mr Alexander, who is in Afghanistan, conceded it was a "challenging" message for politicians to suggest when British troops were being killed in action.

But he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he had "confidence in the good judgement of the British people".

"I think people recognise from the experience of places like Northern Ireland that it is necessary to put military pressure on the Taliban while at the same time holding out the prospect that there can be a political process that can follow," he said. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8169789.stm>

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sacked one of his ministers, a day after he was forced to cancel the appointment of his vice-president.

No reason was given for the sacking of Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie.

Meanwhile, the culture minister quit, saying the government was weakened.

The president is due to announce a new cabinet after he is sworn in for a second term in 10 days' time, following a disputed election victory.

Amid the turmoil, Mr Ahmadinejad's office also denied reports that three other ministers were sacked.

One of those reported dismissed, Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi, said he was resigning because of the confused reports.

"Unfortunately due to the recent events which shows the esteemed government's weakness, I will no longer consider myself the minister of culture and will not show up at the ministry as of tomorrow," he said in a letter of resignation carried by the Fars news agency.

Mr Ahmadinejad's decision to give up on the appointment of his First Vice-President, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, was prompted by the publication of a letter from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei telling him his choice was unacceptable.

On Saturday, however, Mr Ahmadinejad appointed Mr Mashaie as his chief of staff, setting up another potential confrontation with conservatives.

Mr Mashaie had angered hardliners last year by saying Iranians and Israelis were friends. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8169839.stm>

The Afghan government has agreed a truce with Taliban insurgents in the north-western province of Badghis ahead of elections next month, officials say.

The Taliban have pledged not to attack voting centres and to hand key areas to government forces, officials say. There has been no word from the militants.

The government says it hopes to replicate the deal in other provinces.

The moves comes as the UK is emphasising that more must be done to engage moderate members of the Taliban.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced the shift of emphasis in the UK's Afghanistan strategy in a speech to Nato.

He stressed the Afghan government must do more to talk to moderate members of the Taliban as part of a broader political process.

Violence in Afghanistan has escalated in recent months as UK and US forces launched a full-scale offensive against Taliban militants in the south of the country.

Taliban engagement

But Badghis has seen comparatively little violence in recent months.

The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says the province, which borders Turkmenistan, has been a launching point for attacks in the nearby provinces of Ghor and Herat.

In November 2008 about 200 militants attacked an Afghan army convoy in Badghis, killing at least 13 Afghan soldiers and policemen.

Presidential spokesman Siamak Hirawi told the BBC the agreement in Badghis also stipulated that the Taliban would allow the reconstruction of the main highway.

If the Taliban confirm they have agreed to the terms of the ceasefire and if the deal is repeated in other provinces, then it could mark a significant new stage in the conflict, correspondents say.

But it would not be the first time the Afghan government has tried to engage the Taliban.

In October 2008, President Hamid Karzai's brother confirmed a BBC report that he had met former members of the Taliban in Saudi Arabia as part of a first step towards peace talks.

There are grave concerns about security across the country ahead of presidential and provincial council elections on 20 August.

Mr Karzai faces about 40 challengers for the post of president. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8170003.stm>

GPs have difficulty spotting depression among their patients, a review of research suggests.

The overview of studies involving more than 50,000 patients found substantial numbers were missed or wrongly identified as having depression.

In fact, depression was more commonly misdiagnosed than correctly spotted following an initial consultation.

The University of Leicester study, featured in the Lancet, suggests closer patient assessment is essential.

If the diagnosis of depression cannot be agreed satisfactorily by the best minds in psychiatry, why should we expect the general practitioner to be a reliable assessor of the condition? Professor Peter Tyrer Imperial College London

The researchers, who examined a total of 41 trials, found GPs were able to recognise only about half of people who had clinical depression.

For a typical GP trying to spot depression in an urban practice and seeing 100 cases over two days, there would be 20 true cases of depression.

The GP would correctly diagnose 10 people as depressed but miss about the same number with depression.

Of the remaining 80 non-depressed patients, the GP would be likely to over-diagnose 15 people, and correctly reassure the other 65.

In a rural setting, false-positive diagnoses of depression would outnumber correct diagnoses by three to one.

The researchers calculated that in a typical practice, where 78% of patients see their GP during a 12 month period, about 12% would have clinical depression, and about half would be picked up.

Of the remaining 66% of the population who are not depressed and consult their GP, up to 12% would be at risk of being misdiagnosed as depressed if GPs relied upon a single clinical assessment. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8167941.stm>

Children who eat plenty of dairy foods such as milk and cheese can expect to live longer, a study suggests.

Some 4,374 UK children from a 1930s study were traced 65 years later by researchers in Bristol and Queensland.

They found those who had had high dairy and calcium intakes as children had been protected against stroke and other causes of death, journal Heart reports.

Despite dairy containing artery furring fat and cholesterol, high consumption did not raise the heart disease risk.

The findings appear to back the practice of giving extra milk to schoolchildren.

Protective

The study looked at family diets and found higher intakes of both calcium and dairy, predominantly from milk, cut mortality by a quarter.

A higher daily intake of calcium, of at least 400mg as found in just over half a pint of milk, cut the chance of dying from stroke by as much as 60%.

We need to take a further look to really assess the benefits of milk in reducing the chances of dying from stroke Joanne Murphy of The Stroke Association

These beneficial effects were seen at estimated intake levels similar to those currently recommended by experts.

Three servings of dairy foods - for example, a 200ml glass of milk, a pot of yogurt and a small piece of cheese - will provide all the calcium most people need each day.

Other factors may play a part - though researchers say they took into account that children with the highest dairy intakes came from wealthier families and ate better diets overall - but there is evidence that high calcium intake is good for blood pressure. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8170002.stm>

Top American and British officials have called for the inclusion of Taliban fighters who renounce extremism in Afghanistan's political life.

Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to the region, told the BBC the integration of such people had been neglected.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said including moderate Taliban members in dialogue could help stability.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai also struck a conciliatory tone towards any Taliban prepared to renounce violence.

"If they repent and regret and announce that publicly, then for the sake of peace... I'll be very much willing to talk to them," said Mr Karzai, the leading candidate ahead of the 20 August presidential election.

The olive branches were extended as officials confirmed the first phase of the UK-led offensive in the south had ended.

Britain's Ministry of Defence said that Nato troops would now focus on holding territory gained in Helmand province under Operation Panchai Palang (Panther's Claw) ahead of the polls.

The offensive - which started in June and has involved 3,000 soldiers - has led to a spike in casualties.

Two more British soldiers were killed in separate incidents in Helmand on Monday, officials said, taking the UK toll from the operation to 11.

US Marines this month launched their own offensive - Operation Khanjar (Thrust of the Sword) - to flush out militants in Helmand. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8171464.stm>

A human rights charity has begun a legal fight to force the UK government to reveal what it knew about an alleged CIA "rendition flight" in 2002.

Reprieve is to bring a case on behalf of a man who says he was tortured in Egypt after being flown there via the British territory of Diego Garcia.

Iqbal Madni, who was freed from Guantanamo Bay last year, claims he was tortured during a CIA interrogation.

The Foreign Office said the UK condemned torture "unreservedly".

Last year, Foreign Secretary David Miliband admitted Diego Garcia had been used for rendition flights, but the UK government has so far refused to reveal what else it knew about the flights.

Reprieve is taking legal action to obtain the release of UK government information relating to the flight involving Iqbal Madni, who spent six years in Guatanamo Bay detention camp.

Mr Madni, who was arrested on 11 January 2002 in Jakarta, Indonesia, believes his journey to Cairo took in a refuelling stop at a US facility in Diego Garcia.

Mr Madni, who claims he was shackled tightly and packed in a wooden box on the flight, told BBC File on 4 he was tortured in Egypt. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8170594.stm>

The US has turned off a giant electronic billboard at its diplomatic mission in the Cuban capital, Havana.

The screen, put up during the Bush administration, scrolled news and messages in 1.5m (five-foot) high letters, angering the Cuban government.

Cuban authorities had tried to block it from view with placards and flags.

The decision to turn off the ticker comes as the US seeks to improve relations with Cuba.

'Billboard battle'

The ticker, set up in 2006, streamed news and political messages to the Cuban people from the fifth floor of the US Interest Section in Havana.

It prompted what came to be known as "the battle of the billboards".

Cuba's then-leader Fidel Castro accused the US mission of becoming the "headquarters of the counter-revolution".

He also ordered a million people to march around the mission in protest.

The ticked was turned off in June, but correspondents say that because of the obstructions erected by Cuban authorities, no-one seems to have noticed.

A US state department spokesman, Ian Kelly, confirmed on Monday that the ticker was no longer operating, as it was "really not very effective as a means of delivering information to the Cuban people".

He added that President Barack Obama's decision to allow US communications companies to do business with Cuba would bolster the flow of information to the island.

Earlier in July, US and Cuban officials held their first talks since 2003 on Cuban migration to the US. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8171672.stm>

By Gabriel Gatehouse BBC News, Mosul

Nearly a month after American troops officially withdrew from urban areas in Iraq, they are quietly going back in again, patrolling the streets of towns and cities where, despite improvements in security, violence remains an everyday occurrence.

By the US military's own reckoning, Mosul and its surrounding region is the most dangerous area in Iraq.

On average they calculate there are four attacks here every day - explosions, shootings, suicide bombings. That is down from six per day in January - progress, of sorts.

Since 30 June, Iraqi forces have been entirely responsible for maintaining security in urban areas. But the Americans want to keep a close eye. So they are maintaining a limited number of joint patrols inside cities like Mosul.

Lt Joel Brown was going into Mosul for the first time since the handover. When he and his platoon were last in the city, they came under attack - a grenade was thrown at their convoy from one of the many narrow alleyways along their route.

"The grenade thrower was right behind that red car," Lt Brown said, pointing out of the window of his armoured Humvee. "It bounced off the Humvee and blew up on the ground."

On the roof of the vehicle, a gunner swept the road from right to left, watching for similar threats. Many of the buildings on the way into town had either been reduced to rubble or were pockmarked by bullets. Six years after the US-led invasion, Mosul still looks like a city at war.

Visible presence

The convoy consisted of five heavily armed vehicles: three American and two Iraqi, one each at the front and back - our escort, required under the terms of the handover agreement.

The Iraqi security forces were maintaining a highly visible presence on the streets of Mosul: checkpoints at almost every corner, watchtowers and more armoured vehicles.

The Iraqi police have come a long way... Their proficiency, their ability to get the job done, is going to work me out of a job, which is good, which I'm looking forward to Cpt Brian Panaro, US Army

Our destination was a large area of wasteland in the south-west of the city. Officially, the reason for the US patrol was to oversee a project to clear rubbish from the area.

"What we're trying to do is to is get all these wrecked vehicles, trash, get that all moved out of here," Lt Brown said. "It'll help stimulate the economy as well as accomplish a major project here in the west side of Mosul."

There was plenty to do. An open sewer ran along the street, as goats and geese nosed around in the rubbish, discarded shoes, bottles and plastic bags. A dog with three legs barked mournfully as it sat in the blazing sun outside a house built of concrete breeze-blocks.

But Lt Brown and the roughly 130,000 other US troops still stationed in Iraq are more than just heavily armed garbage men. In Mosul, the threat of violence is never far off.

Suddenly a shot rang out from the direction of a sandbagged watchtower at the end of the street. A warning shot, Lt Brown said, fired by one of the Iraqis manning a checkpoint.

No one was injured in the shooting, but the Americans didn't stay to find what had prompted it.

The patrol was attracting increasingly unfriendly-looking attention from many of the local residents in the area, unused by now to the presence of US forces in town. So they got back in their Humvees and headed back to base.

New rules

Following the handover, patrols to monitor reconstruction projects are a good way for the Americans to get their boots, eyes and ears back on the ground inside the cities.

But there are new rules in place - they have to ask for permission and an escort from the local Iraqi security forces.

Co-operation is not always smooth, involving patient persuasion and impassioned gesticulation - plenty of head-scratching, the comparing of maps and a little bargaining.

"How many vehicles do you have?" Lt Gen Majed Abbas of the Iraqi Police Force asked Lt Brown before they set off. When he was told they had four, he told the Americans could bring only three. One would have to be left behind.

The whole process took place with the help of interpreters, and the traditional glasses of sweet black tea.

Everyone was friendly, but the Iraqis were clearly keen to emphasise that they were now in charge.

Gains

The smaller towns and villages just a few kilometres south of Mosul present a different picture from the city itself. Here US troops are freer in their movements, though they still bring an Iraqi escort when they go out on patrol.

In one such village, Cpt Brian Panaro and his men were soon surrounded by local children, asking for their watches and sunglasses. The problems people complain about here are often not matters of security, but of infrastructure - dirty water, bad roads, no jobs.

Ali Mustafa, an elderly man dressed in white, was sitting on the doorstep of his home.

"The Americans invaded our country," he said, "so they should be responsible for these things too, not just security."

But in a little over two years' time, the Americans don't want to be responsible for any of it. They want out.

"The Iraqi police have come a long way since the beginning of our deployment here," Capt Panaro said. "Their proficiency, their ability to get the job done, is going to work me out of a job, which is good, which I'm looking forward to."

Many of the soldiers stationed at Forward Operating Base Marez, the US military's main camp outside Mosul, are effectively out of a job already, confined to barracks.

Joint patrols in cities like Mosul are relatively rare compared to what they were before 30 June. If the Pentagon has its way, they will soon cease altogether.

As the Americans shift their attentions towards Afghanistan, they are hoping that the security gains they've achieved in Iraq will hold once they do finally pack up and leave. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8170562.stm>

The head of Iran's judiciary has ordered a decision within a week on the fate of prisoners arrested after disputed elections, Iranian media say.

A spokesman for the judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, also said some prisoners should be freed, the Mehr news agency reported.

The spokesman, Ali Reza Jamshidi, said about 300 people remained behind bars.

Meanwhile, an opposition leader has called for people to attend a ceremony for victims of post-election violence.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, a defeated candidate who has accused the authorities of electoral fraud, made the appeal on his website.

'Catastrophe'

Mr Mousavi and another moderate, defeated candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, said on Sunday they had applied for a permit to hold the commemoration on Thursday at Tehran's "Grand Mosala", a site of prayer that can hold tens of thousands of people.

"The pro-reform path will continue," Mr Mousavi said in his statement.

"The killings and arrests are a catastrophe, people will not forgive those behind such crimes."

Mr Mousavi said Thursday's ceremony would be used only for mourning and the recital of the Koran, saying no speech was planned.

"The establishment should respect the constitution and let us to gather to commemorate our killed loved ones," he said.

In the 12 June election, Mr Mousavi was the main challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was declared to have won a comfortable victory.

Thursday marks the 40th day after the start of post-election demonstrations in which at least 20 people were killed and hundreds arrested.

Ayatollah Shahrudi ordered that "those prisoners who have not committed serious enough crimes to keep them in jail should be freed," his spokesman said.

Mr Mousavi said he was sure the judiciary was not being informed about many arrests. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8170847.stm>

There are serious differences emerging between the US and the various power centres in Pakistan which could adversely affect the entire region.

At stake are the upcoming Afghan elections, the US offensive in Helmand province in Afghanistan, curbing the Taliban in Pakistan and a potential worsening in Islamabad's relations with both Kabul and Delhi.

The differences have emerged as the US, Britain, France and Nato stake an enormous amount of political prestige on rapidly improving the security situation in Afghanistan and receiving more co-operation from Pakistan on combating the Taliban in both countries.

When Pakistani and Indian leaders met in Egypt on 16 July, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani handed over an intelligence dossier to his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh outlining India's alleged role in destabilising Pakistan's role in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani government appears to be quietly going along with the military's view of the region   Send your views on this article

This included funding and training Baloch militants for the separatist insurgency in Balochistan province and providing support for the Pakistani Taliban, in particular its leader Baitullah Mehsud.

The Pakistani dossier was almost certainly a retaliatory move following US and Nato allegations that Pakistan's military continues to provide sanctuary to the top leadership of the Afghan Taliban including Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Adm Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on 23 July that al-Qaeda's leadership was also in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, India accuses Pakistan of continuing to harbour extremist groups in Punjab province including Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is accused of carrying out the Mumbai attacks of last year.

The dossier has worsened the long running tit-for-tat accusations between India and Pakistan and expanded their differences to now involve the US and Nato. That in turn puts at risk the entire security of the region.

The dossier is also a sign of the growing ascendancy of the military in Pakistan over the civilian government in the making of foreign and national security policy. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8170142.stm>

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said his country had no choice but to hold peace talks with Pakistan.

He said the alternative was to go to war which was not in anyone's interest.

Speaking in parliament, Mr Singh said he believed that Islamabad had made some progress in its investigation into last year's Mumbai attacks.

The leaders of the two countries met recently in Egypt and agreed to restart talks, but the move was heavily criticised in India.

'Harsh reality'

"I say with strength and conviction that dialogue is the best way forward," Mr Singh said on Wednesday.

I told him [Geelani] we had no interest in destabilising Pakistan Indian PM Manmohan Singh

"The harsh reality of the modern world power structure is that when it comes to matters of our own self interest… we have to help ourselves. Self-help is the best help."

The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says a joint statement issued after the meeting between Mr Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, in Egypt two weeks ago had led to a major political fallout in India.

It was decried by opposition leaders as a climb-down from India's demand that a resumption of talks should be linked to Pakistan acting against the planners of the Mumbai attacks.

Our correspondent says the government appeared to backtrack from the statement after it realised it would not go down well in India.

Mr Singh later said India would not restart peace talks with Pakistan until the suspects were brought to justice.

The opposition BJP said the statement had been poorly drafted and blamed Mr Singh.

In particular, a reference in the statement to the situation in the Pakistani province of Balochistan raised eyebrows, with many saying it implied that India was fomenting trouble there.

In parliament Mr Singh said he had reassured Mr Gilani that India "had no interest in destabilising Pakistan" in connection with events in Balochistan.

The prime minister said India had nothing to hide and therefore was not afraid of discussing any issue of concern between both countries.

Referring to a dossier handed over by Pakistan relating to its investigation into the Mumbai attack, Mr Singh said it was the first time any Pakistani government had accepted that a group based in its country had carried out an attack in India.

He added it was also the first time Islamabad had briefed Delhi in connection with an attack on its soil.

Mr Singh said there was no option but to engage with Pakistan. He also said that while the present Pakistani leadership might not be very strong it understood the need to defeat terrorism.

Peace talks between the two neighbours were suspended after November's Mumbai attacks, in which 170 people were killed, nine of them gunmen.

India has accused the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba of being behind the attacks.

Pakistan has vowed to do all it can to bring the suspects to justice. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8173728.stm>

Seven Iranian dissidents have been killed during a raid by Iraqi security forces on their camp north of Baghdad, Iraqi police have said.

Eyewitnesses say Iraqi police have surrounded the People's Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI) camp and clashes are continuing inside.

Iran wants the camp closed. The exiles fear they will be forcibly repatriated.

The US gave the camp some protection until it handed security control back to Iraq earlier this year.

The PMOI said Iraqi riot police stormed the camp using batons and live fire on Tuesday.

Amnesty International said it was "seriously concerned" about the incident, and had seen footage which "clearly showed" Iraqi forces beating people repeatedly.

There are contradictory reports coming out of Ashraf about what sparked the violence.

Police say residents of the camp fired teargas at them but the PMOI says it was the police who fired the tear gas.

An Iraqi official told AFP news agency more than 50 Iranians had been arrested.

Iraqi officials said they were trying to establish a police post in the camp, north of Baghdad.

"It is our territory and our right to enter, to impose Iraqi law on everybody," a defence ministry spokesman told al-Arabiya television.

Presence welcomed

The PMOI set up a base in Iraq in the 1980s.

The exiles' presence was welcomed by then-President Saddam Hussein, who was fighting a war against Iran at the time.

The camp was disarmed by US soldiers following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

But since then relations between Iran and Iraq have improved and the Iraqi government has repeatedly vowed to close the camp.

Iraqi forces took over its security from the US earlier this year, and the top US general in Iraq said he had received no advance warning of the raid.

A US official said the Iraqi government had given assurances that residents of the camp would not be forcibly transferred.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq would "not force the Iranians to depart against their wishes".

"But they should co-operate with governmental procedures," he said, according to the Associated Press.

The PMOI released video of what it said were Iraqi forces using tear gas and water cannon, and pictures showing residents it said had been injured.

The group is considered a terrorist group by the US and Iran. It was removed from an EU terrorist list earlier this year after a legal battle.

'Intelligence source'

But reports suggest Washington has received intelligence from the group, and has urged Iraqi authorities not to repatriate its members or use lethal force against them.

"We have had promises from the government of Iraq that they would deal with the [PMOI] in a humane fashion," said US Gen Ray Odierno.

A PMOI spokesman said residents were terrified of being handed over to Iranian authorities.

The group says it is ready to return to Iran - but only on condition that none of its members will be prosecuted or persecuted. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8174055.stm>

The trial of a Sudanese woman charged with wearing "indecent" clothing has been adjourned, but will continue after she decided to waive her immunity.

A Khartoum judge told Lubna Ahmed Hussein she could have immunity because she works for the UN.

But Ms Hussein, who claims she was arrested for wearing trousers, said she wanted carry on with the trial because she wanted to get the law changed.

Under Sudanese law she could face 40 lashes if she is found guilty.

"I wish to resign from the UN, I wish this court case to continue," she told a packed courtroom.

The woman - a journalist who works for the UN mission in Sudan - had invited journalists and observers to the trial.

She was arrested in a restaurant in the capital with other women earlier this month for wearing "indecent" clothing.

'Unconstitutional law'

She said 10 of the women arrested with her, including non-Muslims, each received 10 lashes and a fine.

Ms Hussein and two other women asked for a lawyer, delaying their trials.

She says she has done nothing wrong under Sharia law, but could fall foul of a paragraph in Sudanese criminal law which forbids indecent clothing.

"I want to change this law, because hitting is not human, and also it does not match with Sharia law," she told the BBC.

The BBC's James Copnall in Khartoum says Ms Hussein is determined to generate as much publicity as she can.

Meanwhile another female journalist who wrote an article supporting Ms Hussein has been charged with defaming the police, which can carry a hefty fine.

Amal Habbani wrote an article for Ajrass Al-Horreya newspaper following the arrests entitled "Lubna, a case of subduing a woman's body". <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8173714.stm>

A rally by opposition supporters in Kyrgyzstan's capital, Bishkek, has been broken up by police.

About 40 people were arrested as they marched towards the centre of Bishkek, an opposition leader told the BBC.

The opposition alleges that last week's election, which saw President Kurmanbek Bakiyev re-elected with 76% of the vote, was fraudulent.

European monitors said the vote was flawed, with widespread cases of ballot box stuffing and multiple voting.

A group of about 300 protesters had left a market on the outskirts of Bishkek and had gone a short distance towards an opposition headquarters when they were intercepted by police, the leader of the opposition United People's Movement, Topchebek Turgunaliev, told the BBC.

Forty-two people were arrested and forced into waiting police buses, he said.

The main opposition candidate in the election, Almazbek Atambayev - a former prime minister, secured 8% of the vote. He declared the poll "illegitimate" and has called for mass protests against the government.

Mr Bakiyev came to power four years ago off the back of a popular uprising which became known as the Tulip Revolution. He had pledged to conduct free and fair elections.

His political opponents claim their supporters were threatened in the run-up to the election. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8173858.stm>

Iraqi Kurdistan's two-party ruling alliance has won 57% of the vote in parliamentary elections, preliminary results show.

Masood Barzani was re-elected president of the autonomous region with 69.6% of the presidential vote.

The reformist Change movement won 23% in Saturday's elections, the official results show.

Analysts say the Change coalition, led by Noshirwan Mustafa, put up stronger opposition than had been expected. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8175097.stm>

By Nick Bryant BBC News

To the already long list of improbable White House get-togethers - Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Princess Diana and John Travolta - we will be able to add the names of a black professor and a white policeman at the centre of a national uproar over race relations.

Cambridge police sergeant Jim Crowley and Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard scholar he arrested after responding to a report of a possible break-in at Mr Gates's home, will sit down with Mr Obama on Thursday for a conciliatory beer.

Admittedly, it is tempting to view the invitation as the ultimate conflation of the age of Obama and the age of Oprah.

Aside from the choice of beverage, there is something very daytime television, something very soft focus, something very soft sofa, about this attempt to defuse the controversy.

Mr Gates was held for disorderly conduct, after he allegedly criticised police behaviour during the incident at the scholar's home on 16 July. President Obama - a friend of Mr Gates - got involved in the case, saying that the police had acted "stupidily".

Yet startling and novel as Mr Obama's attempts to diffuse the controversy are, he is merely upholding a long tradition. Presidential racial politics has often been conducted with gestures, symbols and photo opportunities, and this is but the latest example of a well-worn genre.

Obvious gestures

Even since the war, when black voters - or the Negro vote, as it was then known - became a potentially election-deciding force, presidents have embraced symbolic gestures, for the simple reason that they allow them to appeal to blacks without alienating whites.

Often the gestures have been rather obvious. Sometimes they have been so subtle as to be almost subliminal.

Alert to the growing strategic importance of the black vote in key northern battleground states, Dwight D Eisenhower invited the black contralto, Marian Anderson, to perform at his 1956 inauguration. It was a gesture especially redolent with meaning, since in 1939 she had been barred from singing at Constitution Hall in Washington.

His successor, John F Kennedy, happily extended a White House invitation to the world heavyweight boxing champion, Floyd Patterson, hoping it would compensate for his stubborn refusal to offer similar hospitality to Martin Luther King.

Throughout the campaign, Mr Obama deliberately de-emphasised his race Black scholar arrest angers Obama

Not to be outdone by President Eisenhower, JFK also invited Marian Anderson to sing at his inaugural, but then went a few notable steps further by dancing with black women at the balls later on that night.

This kind of imagery has also been used in reverse, using more harmful symbolism.

Ronald Reagan delivered the first major speech of his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi - the town memorialised in the Hollywood movie, Mississippi Burning - where three civil-rights workers were brutally murdered in 1964.

The subject of his speech was "states rights", for some a euphemism for white supremacy.

In 1992, the then-Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, famously attacked the black singer Sister Souljah; and, more infamously, made sure he returned home to Little Rock mid-campaign to oversee the lethal injection of Ricky Ray Rector, a brain damaged black man who had killed a police officer. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8173096.stm>

A US judge has ordered the release of one of the youngest detainees at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay.

US District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle said Mohammed Jawad would be released by late August. If so, he is expected to return home.

But US lawyers say they have not yet decided whether to pursue a criminal case against him.

Mr Jawad has been accused of injuring two US soldiers and their interpreter by throwing a grenade at their vehicle.

He was 12 when he was arrested in Afghanistan in 2002, his lawyer says, but 17 according to the Pentagon. He has been held at the camp for the past six-and-a-half years.

Earlier, Mr Jawad's lawyer, Jonathan Hafetz, told the BBC he was "cautiously optimistic" his client would be set free.

"They've not produced any evidence so far and enough is enough. It's time for Mr Jawad to go home," he said.

However, Mr Jawad could be sent to the US to stand trial if government lawyers decide to pursue a criminal case against him, the Associated Press reports.

Speaking after her ruling, Judge Huvelle urged the US government not to do so.

"After this horrible, long, tortured history, I hope the government will succeed in getting him back home," she said.

"Enough has been imposed on this young man to date."

Mr Hafetz said it would be "another traumatising experience" for Mr Jawad and that the "nightmare will continue for no good reason".

The Afghan government has requested that he be sent home and in October 2008, a US military judge ruled confessions Mr Jawad had made were inadmissible because they were obtained under torture.

Closure pledge

In July this year, Judge Huvelle described the US government's case against Mr Jawad as "an outrage" that was "riddled with holes".

MOHAMMED JAWAD Charged in Afghanistan in December 2002 for allegedly attacking a US military jeep Claims his confession was obtained using torture US government's case against him described by a judge as "riddled with holes"

Observers say that if Mr Jawad is returned to Afghanistan it could mean that other Guantanamo detainees will also be released.

Shortly after entering the White House, US President Barack Obama pledged to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Since making the pledge, administration officials have been reviewing the case files of Guantanamo detainees in an attempt to determine which prisoners should face criminal trials, which should face military commissions, which should be released and which can neither be tried nor released.

Mr Obama has said he wants the camp to be closed by January 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8176770.stm>

Matt Walker Editor, Earth News

Chimpanzees are biologically programmed to appreciate pleasant music.

The discovery comes from experiments showing that an infant chimpanzee prefers to listen to consonant music over dissonant music.

That suggests the apes are born with an innate appreciation of pleasant sounds, say scientists in the journal Primates.

Until now, this was thought to be a universal human trait, but the new finding suggests it evolved in the ancestors of humans and modern apes.

Tasuku Sugimoto and Kazuhide Hashiya of Kyushu University in Hakozaki and colleagues in Japan tested how a young captive chimpanzee named Sakura responded to music as she aged from 17 weeks to 23 weeks old.

Sakura had been been abandoned by her mother, forcing members of the staff at Itozu-no-mori Park in Fukuoka where she lived to care for her.

One of the major factors that constitute musical appreciation might not be unique to humans Japanese researchers outline their discovery in the journal Primates

Crucially, she had never been exposed to any form of music before she took part in the trials.

During the experiments, Sakura lay on a bed while a woollen string was attached to her right hand, allowing the infant chimp to pull on the cord at will.

A music player and speakers was then set up around her, playing melodies lasting between 38 and 63 seconds long. Every time Sakura pulled on the cord, the music would be repeated.

During six trials, conducted one a week for six weeks with each lasting around 20 minutes, the researchers played Sakura a range of tunes.

One was a 38 second minuet from Duette Englischer Meister in F major. Another, a 38 second minuet from a handwritten sheet of German music composed in 1720.

These consonant tunes were also adjusted using orchestration software to make them dissonant. For example, all the Gs in the 38 second Duette Englischer Meister music were altered to G-flat and all the Cs to C-flat, creating 32 dissonant intervals.

In three of the six trials, the researchers first played Sakura the more pleasant consonant music and in the others, they started with the less pleasant sounding dissonant music. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8174000/8174534.stm>

In pictures: Kyrgyzstan's sacred mountain

Human-rights activists have voiced concern over the death of the leader of an Islamic sect in Nigerian police custody, calling it "unlawful" killing.

Nigerian government officials said Mohammed Yusuf, 39, was shot while trying to escape. His capture by police had been announced just hours earlier.

His group is blamed for days of unrest that has left hundreds of people dead.

The Boko Haram group wants to overthrow the Nigerian government and impose a strict version of Islamic law.

Mr Yusuf was held and later shot in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri.

A BBC reporter in the city was among journalists shown two films, one apparently showing Mr Yusuf making a confession; the other showing what appeared to be his body, riddled with bullets.

"Mohammed Yusuf was killed by security forces in a shootout while trying to escape," the regional police assistant inspector-general, Moses Anegbode, told Nigerian television.

A spokesman for the state governor was also quoted as saying that Mr Yusuf had been trying to escape.

Troops had stormed Boko Haram's stronghold on Wednesday night, killing many of the militants and forcing others to flee.

Mr Yusuf was arrested earlier on Thursday, after reportedly being found hiding in a goat pen at his parents-in-law's house. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8177681.stm>

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has criticised the trial of people accused of violence after June's disputed presidential election.

Mr Khatami's website said the "show trial" would damage confidence in Iran's Islamic establishment.

More than 100 people went on trial on Saturday, including several leading reformists, on charges including rioting, vandalism, and conspiracy.

The poll was won by incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

'Against constitution'

On Mr Khatami's website he expressed hope that Saturday's trial would not "lead to ignorance of the real crimes", the Associated Press reports.

KEY DEFENDANTS Mohammad Ali Abtahi (left): former vice-president, member of the Assembly of Combatant Clerics Mohsen Mirdamadi (centre): leader of the biggest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front Behzad Nabavi (right): member of the central council of the Organisation of the Mujahideen of the Islamic Revolution, former industry minister and former vice speaker of parliament Mohsen Aminzadeh: former deputy foreign minister, served under reformist president Mohammad Khatami, member of Islamic Iran Participation Front

The reformist Mr Khatami was president from 1997 to 2005.

The BBC's Kasra Naji says the timing and scale of the trial came as a surprise and suggests Iran's leadership wants to send a message to stop any more protests.

The AFP news agency quotes Mr Khatami as making more outspoken criticism of the trial.

"What was done yesterday is against the constitution, regular laws and rights of the citizens," his office quoted him as saying.

"The most important problem with the trial procedure is that it was not held in an open session. The lawyers and the defendants were not informed of the contents of the cases ahead of the trial."

Some of the defendants told the court their earlier claims of fraud during the 12 June poll were baseless, official media said.

But Iran's largest reformist party, Mosharekat, dismissed the court appearance as a "show trial" and said the confessions had been forced. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8180180.stm>

Eight Christians have been killed in religious unrest in Pakistan's central Punjab, after days of tension sparked by the rumoured desecration of a Koran.

The four women, a man and a child died as Muslim militants set fire to Christian houses in the town of Gojra. Two men died later of gunshot wounds.

TV footage showed burning houses and streets strewn with debris as people fired at each other from rooftops.

Officials said the rumours which led to the unrest were false.

Minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying that a Christian neighbourhood had been attacked by a mob "misled by Muslim extremists".

Mr Bhatti accused police of negligence, saying he had himself visited Gojra on Friday and asked for protection for the Christians.

Pakistan's small Christian minority has periodically been targeted since Pakistan became a US ally in the so-called War on Terror.

In May 2007, Christians in the north-west of the country sought government protection following threats of bomb attacks if they did not become Muslims. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8179823.stm>

Pakistan is to prosecute a radical Islamic cleric who helped negotiate a failed truce between the government and the Taliban in the Swat valley.

Sufi Muhammad brokered a peace deal in February that saw Sharia law imposed in the valley in return for an end to Taliban attacks in the area.

But it collapsed in April, leading to the army's offensive on the Taliban which displaced two million people.

Sufi Muhammad is charged with sedition, aiding terrorism and conspiracy.

The charges carry a minimum penalty of life imprisonment and could result in the death penalty.

They relate to a speech given by Sufi Muhammad - who is the father-in-law of the Swat Taliban's leader Maulana Fazullah - in April.

In it he allegedly condemned both democracy and elections, claiming Pakistan's constitution was un-Islamic.

'Instigated the masses'

The Associated Press quoted Swat police chief Sajid Mohmand saying: "It is tantamount to threatening the sovereignty of Pakistan.

"We have recordings of all of his speeches where he had instigated masses against the government of Pakistan and its institutions."

Although skirmishes are still continuing in the Swat valley, Pakistan claims to have defeated the Taliban with its offensive.

But while Pakistan claims to have wounded Maulana Fazullah, none of the Taliban's regional commanders has been proved to have been captured or killed. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8180607.stm>

A second man has died of pneumonic plague in a remote part of north-western China where thousands of people have been quarantined.

The victim was identified by Chinese state media as a neighbour of the first victim, a herdsman aged 32 in Ziketan, near Xinghai in Qinghai Province.

The sparsely populated area is mostly inhabited by Tibetans.

Pneumonic plague, which attacks the lungs, can spread from person to person, or from animals to people.

This area is quite remote and the population is very small so this should make it easier to contain Vivian Tan a WHO spokeswoman in China

Initial symptoms include fever, headache and shortness of breath.

Local officials in north-western China have told the BBC that the situation is under control, and that schools and offices are open as usual.

But the authorities have sealed off Ziketan, which has some 10,000 residents.

No-one is being allowed leave the area, according to one official, and authorities are trying to track down people who had contact with the men who died.

The local health bureau has also warned anyone with a cough or fever who has visited the town since mid-July to seek medical treatment. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8180816.stm>

Premature labour, the major cause of death and disability among babies, may be prevented by blocking a key protein, a study suggests.

Infection is now a recognised trigger of preterm birth, but some women seem to go into labour early even when the infection is trivial.

Researchers at Imperial College London say they can isolate the protein which seems to spark this reaction.

Premature births have been estimated to cost the UK nearly £1bn every year.

Very premature babies often die within the first few days of life, while many others can spend months in intensive care.

Those who do survive are at risk of developing serious disabilities such as cerebral palsy, blindness and deafness, as well as learning difficulties. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8179043.stm>

Gorillas have been found, for the first time, to be a source of HIV.

Previous research had shown the HIV-1 strain, the main source of human infections, with 33m cases worldwide, originated from a virus in chimpanzees.

But researchers have now discovered an HIV infection in a Cameroonian woman which is clearly linked to a gorilla strain, Nature Medicine reports.

A researcher told the BBC that though it is a new type of HIV, current drugs may still help combat its effects.

HIV originated from a similar virus in chimpanzees called Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV).

There's no reason to believe this virus will present any new problems, as it were, that we don't already face Dr David Robertson researcher

Although HIV/Aids was first recognised by scientists in the 1980s, it is thought it first entered the human population early in the 20th Century in the region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The virus probably originally jumped into humans after people came into contact with infected bush meat.

SIV viruses have been reported in other primates, including gorillas. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8175379.stm>

Scientists have identified a genetic flaw which can increase the risk of ovarian cancer.

The international team of researchers, led by UK scientists, looked at the DNA of 17,000 women for their study.

In Nature Genetics, they said carrying two copies of the flaw increased the chance of cancer by 40% - around 15% of UK women have both copies.

Cancer experts said it was an important discovery which could help manage women who were at increased risk.

There is now a genuine hope that as we find more genetic variants, we can start to identify the women at greatest risk Dr Simon Gayther, researcher

Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer in women in the UK with around 6,800 new cases diagnosed each year in the UK.

This leads to around 4,300 deaths each year.

The BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which cause breast cancer are already known to significantly increase the risk of ovarian cancer - but faults in these genes are rare and probably cause fewer than 5% of cases so scientists have been looking for other genetic faults which could help explain inherited risk. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8176612.stm>

Senior Iranian political figures appear to have snubbed the formal endorsement of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was among those not at Monday's ceremony, state TV said.

Another former president, Mohammad Khatami, was also absent, as were defeated election candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

Mr Ahmadinejad won a June election but allegations of fraud sparked protests.

Thousands of Iranians took to the streets in the largest mass demonstrations in Iran since the 1979 revolution, which brought about the current Islamic system of government.

INAUGURAL WEEK Monday: endorsed by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Wednesday: sworn in by parliament Profile: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Who's who in Iran

Public protests have ebbed since in the face of a strong police and militia presence on the streets, but the country's political elite has been been in open disagreement about how to move forward.

Mr Ahmadinejad will be inaugurated for a second term in office on Wednesday, and will have two weeks to form a government which can be approved by parliament. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8180811.stm>

By Gary Younge

Benjamin Jealous is the new leader of America's oldest and largest civil rights organisation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The 36-year-old joins an organisation that begins its 100th year with a funding crisis, an image crisis and dwindling membership.

A few weeks ago, a private swimming club in suburban Philadelphia was accused of racism after it cancelled a contract with a group of mostly black and Latino children to swim there once a week. It was a hot afternoon towards the end of June, and as the children from the Creative Steps Day Camp dived in, some of the white parents pulled their kids out.

One child said he overheard a woman ask: "What are those black kids doing here?"

When asked why the group's contract had been cancelled, the club's president, John Duesler, initially said: "There is a lot of concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion… the atmosphere of the club."

He has also said the decision was made out of safety considerations, not racial concerns.

'Beers and reconciliation'

A few weeks later, a renowned Harvard professor arrived home in Cambridge Massachusetts to find he could not get into his house.

The nature of the battles we are fighting has shifted Benjamin Jealous, new leader of the NAACP

Henry Louis Gates Jr asked the cab driver if he would help jimmy the door. A passer-by saw them and called the police.

The ensuing fracas between the policeman and the professor ended in the arrest of Mr Gates for disorderly conduct, and a fraught national conversation about racial profiling.

The matter became an affair of state after President Barack Obama chastised the police for acting "stupidly".

It ended with Mr Obama inviting the two men to the White House for highly publicised beers and reconciliation.

In between those two incidents came the centennial conference of the nation's oldest civil right's organisation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which recently elected its youngest leader, 36-year-old Benjamin Jealous.

It was a curious hiatus: a week sandwiched between two familiar bouts of interracial fury, during which commentators asked whether both the NAACP and the struggle for racial equality remained necessary and relevant. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8181127.stm>

Matt Walker Editor, Earth News Eastern bluebirds can lose their brilliance Brightly coloured birds can become infected with bacteria that eat their feathers. That in turn can affect the health of the birds and dull their plumage. The discovery comes from a study that found that 99% of all Eastern bluebirds surveyed in Virginia, US were infected with feather-degrading bacteria. Such bacteria were first discovered a decade ago, but the latest research is the best evidence yet that the bugs affect the colour and health of birds. "Feather-degrading bacteria are relatively new to ornithologists," says Alex Gunderson of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, US. "The first report of their occurrence on wild birds was published only ten years ago." Since then, scientists have found that most species of wild bird probably harbour some feather-degrading bacteria in their plumage, sometimes of more than one species. Feather-degrading bacteria could be an important force influencing the ecology and evolution of birds Biologist Alex Gunderson Feather-degrading bacteria work by hydrolysing the protein beta-keratin, which constitutes over 90% of a feather's mass. But these bugs are usually found in a minority of birds sampled, and it has not been clear what impact they have on their hosts. So Gunderson and colleagues Mark Forsyth and John Swaddle of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, US surveyed a population of Eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis) living in Virginia. They found that 99% of all the birds surveyed carried feather-eating bugs, they report in the Journal of Avian Biology. What's more, they found a correlation between the bacteria and the brightness of female birds' feathers, with more bacteria causing duller feathers. Sex difference "This is some of the best evidence that bacteria are active on the feathers of live birds," says Gunderson. "The evidence is correlational, so there is a great deal more work that needs to be done to verify it." "But it does suggest that feather-degrading bacteria could be an important force influencing the ecology and evolution of birds." However, the bacteria didn't seem to have a significant impact on the feather colour of male birds, a rare example of a parasite appearing to harm one sex while not the other. "I was surprised that the relationship with feather-degrading bacteria was different for males and females," explains Gunderson. Alex Gunderson swaps an Eastern bluebird for feather-eating bugs "It is possible that, because males and females differ somewhat in where they spend their time, they could acquire different species of bacteria that have different effects. It is also possible that physiological differences between males and females result in different effects of bacteria." "This is complete speculation and at present we do not know the answer to this question." Another important result was that the bacterial load also correlated with the birds' body condition, which is directly related to the bird's health, and also their reproductive success. Overall, the results suggest that feather-degrading bacteria may have a significant impact on the birds' ecology. Birds use feather colours to advertise their health, attract mates and for camouflage, so that means the bacteria could also affect the evolution of bird colour. "If bacteria detrimentally influence feather colouration, they may place selective pressure on birds to evolve defences against them," says Gunderson. "There is evidence that certain avian traits are defences against feather-degrading bacteria. For instance, we know that feathers coloured by melanin pigments are resistant to bacterial degradation, and that the preen oil that birds apply to their plumage inhibits the growth of some feather-degrading bacteria." "In general, an understanding of the influence of feather-degrading bacteria on birds could, to some degree, help explain the evolution of these and other avian traits," he says. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8178000/8178785.stm>

By Peter Jackson BBC News

Stealing from a rabbit warren or impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner may not sound like crimes of the century, but in Victorian England they could land you with a hangman's noose around your neck.

Trial records newly released by the National Archives and put online have lifted the lid on a brutal penal system and showcased some of the most infamous criminal cases.

In a world without a police force and a rapidly growing population, early Victorian England was not a place to get caught on the wrong side of the law.

By 1815 - two decades before the Peelers started patrolling the streets - there were more than 200 offences which carried the death penalty.

Hapless highwayman

The infamous system in England and Wales, which relied on its strong deterrent qualities, was dubbed the "Bloody Code" for good reason.

Executions were public spectacles, with the wealthy hiring balconies to get better views, and it did not take much to book yourself a spot at the gallows.

Being in the company of gypsies for a month, damaging Westminster Bridge, cutting down trees, stealing livestock - or anything worth more than five shillings (£30 today) for that matter - would do it.

These registers... highlight the often colourful nature of crime, and in particular how creative criminals could be, even in less sophisticated times Olivier Van Calster, Ancestry

The death sentence also applied to pickpockets, the destruction of turnpike roads, general poaching, stealing from a shipwreck and being out at night with a blackened face, which made people assume you were a burglar.

The documents of trials and sentences from 1791-1892 were taken from 279 papers previously held at the National Archives in Kew. They have been put online by family history website Ancestry.

Among the high-profile documents which can now be viewed online are those relating to the attempted assassination of Queen Victoria with a pistol at Windsor Castle in 1882.

Roderick McLean was charged with treason but found not guilty on grounds of insanity, although he spent his remaining days in Broadmoor Asylum.

The 1812 assassination of prime minister Spencer Perceval in the lobby of the House of Commons led to bankrupt businessman John Bellingham's Old Bailey trial and hanging. He remains the only person to murder a British prime minister.

Elsewhere, there are details of the man considered to be the inspiration for the Charles Dickens' character Fagin from Oliver Twist - the leader of a gang of young pickpockets.

Isaac "Ikey" Solomon escaped arrest, was recaptured and eventually tried at the Old Bailey in 1830 where he was sentenced to 14 years transportation.

And the trial of one of the main Jack the Ripper suspects, Dr Thomas Neill Cream, is included in the files. He was sentenced to death in 1892 for mass poisoning. His final words were said to be "I am Jack".

Or there is the case of inept highwayman George Lyon, who on one occasion failed to rob a coach in the rain because he allowed the gun powder for his pistol to get wet. He was tried in Lancaster and sentenced to death in 1815.

The documents from 1.4 million criminal trials include 900,000 sentences of imprisonment, 97,000 transportations and 10,300 executions, including a boy aged 14. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8181192.stm>

China's prostitutes are better-trusted than its politicians and scientists, according to an online survey published by Insight China magazine.

The survey found that 7.9% of respondents considered sex workers to be trustworthy, placing them third behind farmers and religious workers.

"A list like this is at the same time surprising and embarrassing," said an editorial in the state-run China Daily.

Politicians were far down the list, closer to scientists and teachers.

Insight China polled 3,376 Chinese citizens in June and July this year.

"The sex workers' unexpected prominence on this list of honour... is indeed unusual," said the China Daily editorial.

"At least [the scientists and officials] have not slid into the least credible category which consists of real estate developers, secretaries, agents, entertainers and directors," the editorial said.

Soldiers came in fourth place. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8183502.stm>

By Andrew Walker BBC News

Mohammed Yusuf, leader of the Islamic sect whose members staged attacks across north Nigeria leaving 700 people dead last week, was facing charges that he had received money from an al-Qaeda linked organisation, defence analysts have revealed.

For years diplomats have feared a Nigerian al-Qaeda sleeper cell might launch attacks on the country's oil infrastructure, which is increasingly important to the US.

Nigeria, with its large number of impoverished, disenfranchised and devoutly Muslim young men, easy access to weapons and endemic corruption may seem to be the ideal breeding ground for anti-western radicals.

The rhetoric of Osama bin Laden may chime with some radical young Muslims in Nigeria, but that doesn't mean there is a financial relationship Adam Higazi Oxford Unity researcher

The presence of an al-Qaeda branch operating across the Sahara Desert in Mauritania, Morocco, Mali and Niger and Nigeria's porous borders have sharpened such fears.

But so far there has been no evidence of Osama Bin Laden's group in Nigeria, despite several arrests by the government and two warnings from the US about potential attacks on its interests in the country in as many years.

And analysts remain sceptical about any link between Nigerian radical Muslims and global jihadists. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8182289.stm>

Police in India are guilty of widespread human rights violations, including beatings, torture and illegal killings, a new report alleges.

The US-based group Human Rights Watch says India's policing system facilitates and even encourages abuses.

It says there has been little change in attitudes, training or equipment since the police was formed in colonial times with the aim to control the population.

It says the government must take major steps to overhaul a failing system.

There was no immediate response from the Indian authorities. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8183158.stm>

Bill Clinton on N Korea mission

Former US President Bill Clinton has arrived in North Korea on a surprise visit, apparently to discuss the fate of two jailed US reporters.

He is the highest-profile American to visit since his own secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went there in 2000.

No official reason for his trip has been given, but analysts say he will try to free Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were recently jailed for 12 years.

He may also try to ease the deadlock over the North's nuclear ambitions.

The last visit to North Korea by a former American president - Jimmy Carter in 1994 - led to an important step forward in nuclear negotiations during an otherwise tense period.

Tensions are also high now. In addition to the reporters' detention, North Korea has recently conducted a string of nuclear and missile tests in defiance of repeated calls from the UN Security Council. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8182716.stm>

Former US President Bill Clinton has left North Korea with two US reporters whose release he has helped to secure.

His spokesman said they were flying to Los Angeles where the journalists would be reunited with their families.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il issued a special pardon to the journalists after meeting Mr Clinton on Tuesday.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee had been found guilty of entering illegally in March. Mr Clinton offered no apology for the reporters' conduct, a US official said.

The senior US administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said the two reporters were in "very good health" and that the North Korean government had agreed in advance that Mr Clinton's mission would not touch on the question of its nuclear programme.

In pictures: Clinton's mission

Pyongyang dropped out of six-party talks after the UN censured a long-range missile test in April. The parties include Russia, China, Japan, the US and both Koreas.

An underground nuclear test and further missile tests followed, provoking new UN Security Council sanctions.

Mr Clinton's unannounced visit to Pyongyang was described as a private mission.

He was the highest-profile American to visit the reclusive Communist state since ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8184698.stm>

By Gordon Corera BBC Security Correspondent

The world of espionage lies at the heart of the mythology of the Cold War.

Along with nuclear weapons, spies were the emblems of the conflict.

But while the tales of adventure, betrayal and mole hunts have proved a source of rich inspiration for thriller writers, did they actually make a difference to the outcome?

Did intelligence make the Cold War hotter or colder?

It is difficult to know the answer.

"There were secrets that were important to keep secret and there was intelligence which it would be very helpful to have known," argues former British Foreign Secretary David Owen.

"But my own instinct is that we didn't really - with a few exceptions and a few important exceptions - really know exactly what was going on."

One reason it is hard to make a judgement is that much of the intelligence collected was military or tactical in nature, and would only have proven useful if the Cold War had gone hot.

Much effort was expended in stealing secrets like the Soviet order of battle or the design of new Soviet tanks which would have been invaluable in case of war.

Intelligence during the Cold War had a very big impact on the shape and size of the British defence programme Sir David Omand Former UK Intelligence and Security Coordinator

This type of intelligence was collected by electronic means and satellite reconnaissance, as well as by human spies. It was used to work out how to best equip and prepare the military.

Sir David Omand, the former UK Intelligence and Security Coordinator, says: "Intelligence during the Cold War had a very big impact on the shape and size of the British defence programme, on the kinds of equipment we bought and very specifically the actual capabilities that were built into that equipment to be able to encounter whatever intelligence showed was the capability of Warsaw Pact forces."

During times of "hot war", intelligence plays an important but ultimately secondary role in supporting military operations.

But, during periods of tension short of full-scale military action like the Cold War, intelligence takes on a more central position.

In the absence of traditional warfare, intelligence becomes itself the primary battleground as each side tries to understand the enemy's capabilities and intentions, as it seeks to undermine their position using covert action, psychological operations and forms of subversion.

Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) had a troubled beginning to the Cold War, not least because it was penetrated by its Soviet counterpart, with men like Kim Philby and George Blake handing over secrets.

But slowly it became more professional, recruiting and running agents who could provide information on the activities of the Soviet bloc. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8184338.stm>

Three children and a man have been killed in an overnight air strike by international forces, angry villagers in southern Afghanistan say.

The bodies were taken to the city of Kandahar to be displayed in front of officials. US and Nato-led forces said they were investigating the reports.

The issue of civilian casualties at the hands of foreign troops has caused deep resentment among Afghan people.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly spoken out against such incidents.

Gen Stanley McChrystal ordered troops to limit the use of airstrikes to prevent civilian casualties soon after assuming command of Nato and US forces last month.

The US military said it had killed four insurgents on motorcycles in the area of the alleged airstrikes, but could not confirm any civilian fatalities.

A reporter for the Associated Press news agency witnessed residents of Kowuk bring the bodies of three boys and a man to the guesthouse of the Kandahar governor from their village, 20km (12 miles) north of the provincial capital, Kandahar city.

The villagers shouted "Death to America! Death to infidels!" as they displayed the corpses in the back of a pickup truck.

The father of the dead boys, Abdur Rahim, told AP that he heard a pair of helicopters circling over his compound early on Wednesday before they fired two missiles that hit his home.

His brother and another son were wounded, he said.

"What was the fault of my innocent children? They were not Taliban," Mr Rahim said.

"Did they come here to build our country or kill our innocent children?"

A US military spokeswoman confirmed that a helicopter had fired on four insurgents who were carrying jugs on motorcycles through a field away from a populated area of the local district, Arghandab.

"The helicopter engaged the militants with guns and rockets, however the explosions heard by locals were caused by the jugs exploding," Capt Elizabeth Mathias told AP. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8185222.stm>

A Chinese teenager sent to an internet addiction rehabilitation camp has allegedly been beaten to death by its counsellors, according to reports.

A number of employees of the Qihang Salvation Training Camp in Nanning have been arrested over the death, his father Deng Fei told the Global Times.

The camp had promised to put Deng Senshan, 15, under 24-hour supervision.

China is increasingly taking action against what it sees as a pandemic of web addiction.

Some estimates suggest up to 10% of the country's 100 million teenage web users could be addicted, and a growing number of rehabilitation services exist.

However, there is little consensus on how to treat the addiction. In July, China's Ministry of Health formally banned the use of electroshock therapy as a treatment option.

According to the China Daily newspaper, an agreement the teenagers' parents signed with the camp said: "The centre can take necessary approaches including punishment to educate the teenager, as long as the approaches will not abuse the child or impair his health."

Camp staff are alleged to have put the teenager in solitary confinement on Saturday and then beaten him that evening. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8185412.stm>

Problems processing visual information may stop those with autism interpreting body language, harming their ability to gauge others' emotions, a study says.

Researchers say people with autism have problems recognising physical displays of emotion, but also general difficulty perceiving certain sorts of motion.

They suggest in Neuropsychologia this may contribute to problems with social interaction, characteristic of autism.

The National Autistic Society said the UK study was an interesting one.

A team from the University of Durham studied 13 adults with autism and found the patients had difficulty identifying emotions such as anger or happiness when shown short animated video clips.

Silent movies

The characters had no faces, nor did they speak, so the participants were asked to judge the emotion based on the body language of the figure alone.

Along with 16 adults with no autism diagnosis, they were also shown a number of dots on a computer screen and asked which way they were moving. A proportion of dots moved noticeably to the left or right, while the others moved randomly.

The way people move their bodies tells us a lot about their feelings or intentions, and we use this information on a daily basis to communicate with each other Anthony Atkinson Lead author

The performance of the autism group was significantly below that of the others in both tests, leading researchers to speculate that there may be serious differences between the ability to process visual information.

They point to an area of the brain needed for the perception of motion called the superior temporal sulcus, and cite previous research which has found that this area responds differently in people with autism.

"The way people move their bodies tells us a lot about their feelings or intentions, and we use this information on a daily basis to communicate with each other.

"We use others' body movements and postures, as well as people's faces and voices, to gauge their feelings," said Anthony Atkinson, who led the research.

"People with autism are less able to use these cues to make accurate judgements about how others are feeling.

"We now need to look further to see how exactly this happens and how this may combine with potential difficulties in attention."

It is thought as many as half a million people in the UK have a form of autism, a lifelong developmental disability which can severely affect how a person makes sense of the world around them.

Gina Gomez De La Cuesta, of the National Autistic Society, said the study was an interesting one.

"It certainly takes us on. We know of these problems with emotion recognition but to start to unpick the reasons why is helpful. There appear to be difficulties at the very basic processing level.

"But we really need to see this repeated in more people and then we can start thinking about how we act on it." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8183447.stm>

By Kim Ghattas BBC News, Washington

It was a riveting combination of characters for a high-drama mercy mission, with all the trappings of a spy novel.

A charismatic former president flying across the Pacific to rescue two damsels in distress.

A meeting with a reclusive, enigmatic leader in a country mostly cut off from the rest of the world.

A high-profile American jetting off to solve one crisis, while his wife - the country's chief diplomat - embarked on her own mission abroad.

The Clinton mission to North Korea to secure the release of two captured US journalists - Laura Ling and Euna Lee - also provided a rare glimpse into the world of backchannel diplomacy, the making of a deal and a reminder of the role that former American presidents often play.

In a city where leaks to the media are the rule, everybody involved kept quiet about the trip, sometimes even after Bill Clinton landed, from the White House and State Department officials who helped negotiate and plan it, to the team of former administration officials and aides that eventually made the journey with Mr Clinton.

'Pensioner going shopping'

Hillary Clinton herself also kept mum - in fact, while the decision about her husband's departure was being finalised, around 25 July, she was involved in a war of words with the North Koreans.

Having described them as ''unruly children'' who cried for attention, she was described by Pyongyang as an ''unintelligent lady'' and a ''pensioner'' going shopping.

Although the White House insisted that Mr Clinton's trip was a private, humanitarian mission, the administration kept tight control of the negotiations.

US media reported that officials involved included National Security Advisor Gen James L Jones and the National Security Council's top expert on the region, Jeff Bader.

A US official also said that the North Koreans had given assurances before Mr Clinton left for Pyongyang that the two women would be released.

I suspect that President Clinton will have some interesting observations from his trip Barack Obama

The US and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations but often communicate through channels at the UN and various intermediaries.

There are still conflicting versions of the course of events but it appears that the choice of Bill Clinton as an envoy was imposed by the North Koreans themselves.

They apparently told the two women journalists that this would help secure their release.

Ms Ling and Ms Lee relayed this to their families, who in turn notified the state department, through former Vice-President Al Gore.

A US official said President Barack Obama then asked Mr Clinton to undertake the mission.

Nearly an apology

After landing in Burbank, California, Ms Ling recounted how she and Ms Lee were told by their jailers they were going to a meeting and then walked into a room only to find their former president standing in front of them.

The two journalists had last month apologised, through a statement to their families, for crossing illegally into North Korea from China.

The next day Hillary Clinton repeated their message in a televised address - not quite an apology by Washington, but close enough to set in motion the process that eventually led to the release.

The Obama administration also denied reports by North Korean state media that Mr Clinton had apologised on behalf of the women. Officials also said no concessions were made to the North Koreans.

But for the reclusive regime and the ailing leader, always craving attention and recognition by Washington, the visit by a former American president who is also married to the current secretary of state, was in itself a kind of concession.

After all, they had rejected other suggestions for envoys and requested to deal with Mr Clinton.

The picture of Kim Jong-il, grinning as he sits next to a sombre-looking Mr Clinton, will also help the North Korean leader boost his image at home, amid reports he is ailing and preparing a power transition to his third son.

But an assessment was probably made that it was a concession Washington could afford since the Obama administration was not expending any of its own political capital, keeping a safe distance from the mission by despatching a former leader rather than a current official.

It is a decision that has drawn - perhaps expected - criticism from conservative circles.

John Bolton, ambassador to the UN during the Bush administration, said the Obama administration was rewarding North Korea for bad behaviour.

"Despite decades of bipartisan US rhetoric about not negotiating with terrorists for the release of hostages, it seems that the Obama administration not only chose to negotiate, but to send a former president to do so," he wrote in an opinion piece.

But the North Koreans were able to save face by releasing the journalists without appearing to be caving in to outside pressure.

Using ex-presidents

While no-one expects a sudden breakthrough, officials are hoping Pyongyang will now also walk back on some of its recent announcements, such as its withdrawal from the "six-party talks" - the process by which the international community is attempting to persuade North Korea to drop its nuclear programme.

"Perhaps they will now be willing to start talking to us - within the context of the six-party talks - about the international desire to see them denuclearise," said Mrs Clinton on NBC.

President Obama also reiterated that North Korea had to give up its nuclear weapons if it wanted better ties with the outside world.

It is still unclear what Mr Kim and Mr Clinton discussed.

But the two men talked for three hours and it is likely that the nuclear file, which Mr Clinton knows well, came up.

This partly explains why Mr Clinton would have been keen to take on the challenge.

His administration oversaw a long thaw in ties with North Korea under the ''sunshine policy''.

The relationship between a president and his predecessors is one that will continue Michael Duffy Presidential historian

In 1994, during the Clinton administration, Jimmy Carter went on a mission to Pyongyang, which resulted in breakthrough nuclear talks and in 2000, then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Pyongyang.

President Clinton was hoping to visit as well before the end of his term but became embroiled in last-ditch peace efforts in the Middle East.

So if anything, Mr Clinton, the first high-level US official to meet Kim Jong-il for nine years, will have returned with a valuable assessment of the state of mind and state of health of Mr Kim, and perhaps some insight into the North Koreans' willingness to sit down for talks.

In an interview with MSNBC, President Obama said: "I suspect that President Clinton will have some interesting observations from his trip."

The US president also thanked Mr Clinton for his extraordinary humanitarian effort.

The mission has raised questions about what role the former president could play under the Obama administration.

State department spokesperson Robert Wood did not want to be drawn into speculation, pointing out only that Mr Clinton's involvement in this case was the result of specific circumstances.

But Michael Duffy, managing editor of Time magazine, who is currently writing a book, The Presidents Club, about the role of former presidents, said the ''relationship between a president and his predecessors is one that existed before and one that will continue".

Just as Mr Clinton himself had called on Mr Carter for certain missions, Mr Duffy expected that President Obama would call on Mr Clinton in the future as well, even if (or perhaps because) he is the husband of the Secretary of State.

Mr Clinton's wife was a factor that "complicated and simplified" things at the same time, Mr Duffy added. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8186752.stm>

The mayor of the Latvian capital of Riga says British stag parties will no longer be welcomed with open arms.

Nils Usakovs told Latvian magazine Rigas Laiks the city had run out of patience with unruly British tourists who misbehaved.

Mr Usakovs said: "The only problem is that we have a large share of those British tourists."

Riga is one of a handful of low-cost central and eastern European cities popular with stag parties.

Mr Usakovs said some British visitors were guilty of misbehaving: "Let's not be politically correct - unfortunately, this is their speciality."

He also said if the city had more regular tourists the badly behaving British visitors "would not be as noticeable".

The British first started to make bachelor parties and the most popular thing was using our monument of liberty as a toilet Latvian spokeswoman

According to the Foreign Office, there were 93,200 visitors from the UK to Latvia in 2008.

The biggest complaint is about tourists who urinate on central Riga's Freedom Monument, which honours soldiers killed while fighting for independence between 1918-20, Mr Usakovs said.

Many visitors have been arrested and fined for relieving themselves on the 138ft-high monument, or climbing on it naked to pose for pictures. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8185159.stm>

New Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said he is determined to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan to an absolute minimum.

On his first visit to Kabul in the job, Mr Rasmussen told Afghan President Hamid Karzai Nato's aim was to hand over security gradually to the Afghans.

The Nato chief is now in Kandahar, and has been briefed by senior commanders on fighting in Helmand province.

Mr Rasmussen said forthcoming elections must be as inclusive as possible.

A BBC correspondent says this has been the most violent year since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001.

The BBC's Adam Mynott, who is travelling with Mr Rasmussen, says casting a vote in the presidential election on 20 August will amount to defying the Taliban, who have called for a boycott. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8186779.stm>

There are growing indications that Pakistan's most wanted man, Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, has been killed by a US missile.

He is said to have died when a drone targeted the home of a relative.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Quresh said there were intelligence reports of the death but the government was seeking "ground verification".

Taliban leaders have gathered in South Waziristan to choose a successor, local sources have told the BBC.

ANALYSIS Orla Guerin, BBC News, Islamabad Mehsud's death would be seen in Pakistan as a huge step forward. He has been the country's most wanted man, blamed for a string of suicide attacks and also accused of being behind the assassination of the former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. He has also been on America's wanted list, with a price of $5m on his head. He is seen there as an al-Qaeda facilitator. In the past month or so, both the Pakistanis and Americans have been working hard to tighten the net around him, with US drone strikes but also with air strikes by the Pakistani authorities. If reports of his death are confirmed, this will be seen here as the elimination of a key enemy of this country and of a man who has caused the killing of hundreds of civilians.

Three names are under consideration and it is possible the Taliban are waiting to choose their new leader before announcing Baitullah Mehsud's death, says Abdul Hai Kakar, a BBC reporter based in Peshawar.

Hakimullah Mehsud, Maulana Azmatullah and Wali-ur-Rehman have been mentioned as possible successors.

People living close to the scene of the missile attack in South Waziristan told the BBC Baitullah Mehsud had been killed along with his wife early on Wednesday.

The remoteness of the location is contributing to the delay in establishing the facts, the BBC's Orla Guerin reports from Islamabad.

A US official said there was "reason to believe reports of his death may be true but it cannot be confirmed".

Previous reports of Baitullah Mehsud's death have proved to be unfounded.

South Waziristan is a stronghold of the Taliban chief, who has been blamed by Pakistan for a series of suicide bomb attacks in the country. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8188859.stm>

By Anbarasan Ethirajan BBC News

The Tamil Tiger rebels' new leader, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, has been arrested, officials say.

Sri Lanka's defence secretary told the BBC that Mr Pathmanathan, better known as KP, was arrested on Wednesday.

The exact circumstances surrounding his arrest in a south-east Asian country are unclear.

The rebels have confirmed the arrest. Mr Pathmanathan became the leader of the remnants of the Tigers after their defeat in May by Sri Lankan forces.

Non-violent methods

"He is in Sri Lanka now and is being questioned by investigators at the moment," Sri Lankan military spokesperson Brig Udaya Nanayakkara told the BBC.

Earlier reports from Sri Lankan military officials suggested the arrest took place in Thailand, but Bangkok later denied them.

A pro-rebel website said Mr Pathmanathan was abducted from the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and blamed Sri Lankan and Malaysian intelligence for his disappearance.

He was wanted on two Interpol warrants.

Earlier, Sri Lanka's Defence Minister, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, confirmed to the BBC that the new Tamil Tiger leader had been arrested, but did not elaborate on the circumstances.

Mr Pathmanathan was widely believed to be running the rebels' arms and smuggling networks for years.

He took over the leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after Velupillai Prabhakaran and other top commanders were killed during the military offensive in north-eastern Sri Lanka in May.

As the new rebel leader, Mr Pathmanathan said the LTTE had decided to silence their guns and would try non-violent methods to achieve their goal of a separate state for the Tamil minority.

Analysts say his arrest has created a vacuum among the moderate elements within the LTTE supporters living overseas and is a significant blow for the organisation.

Mr Pathmanathan is also wanted in India in connection with the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a suspected Tamil female suicide bomber in 1991. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8188900.stm>

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction's first congress for 20 years has been extended amid rows between rival camps.

The meeting, which was originally scheduled to last three days, will go on for at least an extra day.

A spokesman described the meetings as "stormy", as delegates argued over voting procedures.

Younger members want to wrest more control from older leaders seen as corrupt and ineffective.

Participants have been divided over the process for voting in new members of Fatah's powerful 21-member central committee.

Delegates seeking to modernise Fatah have also accused the "old guard" of packing the conference with sympathisers to squeeze out younger members.

Tim Franks, BBC News, Jerusalem After yesterday's "stormy" day, Fatah delegates decided to cool off today with a four-hour lunch-break. The message had clearly also gone out that now is the time to be more upbeat, and less angry. Hazem Abu Shanab, Fatah's spokesman from Gaza, had just emerged from the morning session. "After the storm, we have rain," he said, approvingly. He changed the metaphor: "We are about to deliver a new baby. The baby will be very shiny, smiling, beautiful: the new Fatah, with the new leadership." Voting for that new leadership may now drag on until Friday evening. And that could mean this congress could well creep, unscheduled, into Saturday. But the approach seems to be: hang the timetable, we need the catharsis. One delegate, Mohammed Khorani, said it was only to be expected that after 20 years, "there should be some hard conversation, some angry feelings". But Fatah's poor image and self-criticism will abate, he insisted, "when we have a new leadership". Can Fatah reinvent itself Profile: Fatah movement

They accused those who control the Central Committee of adding hundreds of extra delegates to the original list of 1,550.

"They illegally keep adding new members. No-one knows the actual numbers," Fatah member Mansuor al-Sadi told Reuters news agency, accusing the committee of "trying to hijack the congress".

Proceedings have also been hindered by a row over the treatment of the votes of about 400 Gaza-based delegates who had been prevented from travelling to the congress in the West Bank town of Bethlehem by Fatah's rival faction Hamas.

Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, and refused to allow the delegates to leave unless Fatah released some 900 Hamas prisoners the Islamist movement says are being held in the West Bank.

The issue has been controversial as it could affect the chances of former Gaza security head Mohammad Dahlan, a younger but highly divisive figure, of being elected to the committee.

A Fatah spokesman said on Thursday that an agreement had been reached to allow the Gaza-based delegates to vote, but did not give further details "for security reasons".

Another row also broke out on Tuesday when another delegate, Hossam Khader, who has been critical of corruption among Fatah leaders, challenged Mr Abbas to provide a detailed report about the Central Committee's activities in the 20 years since the last conference.

Mr Abbas reportedly told him his lengthy opening speech on Tuesday should suffice and ordered him to sit down. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8187208.stm>

By Will Grant BBC News, Caracas

But Hugo Chavez has never been a conventional leader.

As he addressed journalists on Wednesday, he said the props were necessary to show that Colombia was lying when it suggested Venezuela had been arming Colombian rebels.

After explaining in detail to the assembled media how to use the weapons, the Venezuelan president said it was clear how easy it would be to fabricate the photographic "evidence" produced by the Colombian government to accuse Venezuela of supplying the Swedish-made rockets to the left-wing Farc guerrilla group.

The rockets in the photos were 14 years old, Mr Chavez said, and had been stolen from a military base in Venezuela.

President Chavez, who last week recalled the Venezuelan ambassador to Colombia, used Wednesday's news conference to announce he was halting the import of 10,000 cars from Colombia and seeking to substitute Colombian products with goods from other countries.

Distrust

This is far from the first time the two neighbours have fallen out. As recently as March last year President Chavez broke off all diplomatic relations with Colombia and recalled his ambassador over what was soon to become "the Andean crisis of 2008".

In that instance, a cross-border attack by the Colombian military on a group of Farc rebels on Ecuadorean territory - during which the guerrilla leader, Raul Reyes, was killed - sparked one of the worst diplomatic disputes in the region since the end of the Cold War.

At the time, Mr Chavez ordered 10 tank battalions to the border with Colombia in the midst of an escalating conflict that was eventually smoothed over at a regional meeting a few days later.

While last year's episode was over within the space of a week, the distrust it created between the main protagonists apparently persists.

"He is shameless," President Chavez said of his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe. "I'm very sorry, but he does whatever the yankees tell him to."

At this stage it is hard to know whether the situation will escalate beyond the war of words of 2008.

There have been several moments in recent weeks which have put the two presidents on bad terms.

Among them was a video released by the Colombian authorities which they said showed a key Farc leader saying the group sent money to the election campaign of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, who is an ally of Mr Chavez. Mr Correa has vigorously denied the accusations.

But it was undoubtedly the accusation about supplying arms to the Farc which was the final straw for the Venezuelan leader.

"Colombia is trying to blackmail us with this situation," he said, suggesting that the photos were part of an elaborate plan to equate him with terrorism and drug-trafficking, to justify a controversial move to grant the US military permission to operate from several military bases in Colombia.

"The bases will give the American military greater mobility in trying to control the guerrillas' activities in the region," says Elza Cardoso, international affairs professor at the Metropolitan University in Caracas.

"But from President Chavez's perspective, he thinks Colombia is being turned into the Americans' base of operations against Venezuela. He thinks that everything else - the video, the accusation about the Farc's weapons, and certain denunciations about Venezuela's relationship with Iran - is part of a conspiracy to allow an increased US presence on his border."

The word President Chavez has used is "smokescreen", alleging that "Washington is trying to turn Colombia into the Israel of Latin America".

"I think by that he is trying to portray Colombia under Uribe as an isolated US ally in Latin America, as a lonely country, the only one which has such a close relationship with the US, such solidarity with Washington," says Professor Cardoso.

"But also, he's saying that Colombia is a country which can aggressively respond to any provocation." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8188243.stm>

Two cabinet ministers have strongly denied allegations of collusion in the abuse of terrorist suspects overseas.

But Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Home Secretary Alan Johnson said it was impossible to remove all risk when using intelligence obtained overseas.

This came as a committee of MPs urged a probe into the transfer of terror suspects through UK territories.

Last week a committee of MPs and peers called for an independent inquiry into claims of UK complicity in torture.

The Joint Human Rights Committee said on Tuesday the government had not done enough to investigate these claims, because it had been unable to establish whether British officers were involved in mistreatment.

Now the Foreign Affairs Select Committee has also said it has grave concerns that British officers were complicit in torture. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8191450.stm>

Upset in Sri Lanka post-war polls

Initial results from the first post-war elections in northern Sri Lanka show the governing party has taken Jaffna, the region's biggest city.

But it suffered a surprise defeat in Vavuniya, the other town where polling took place, where a group supportive of the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels won.

Ballots are still being counted in the southern province of Uva.

Turnout was low. Correspondents say people felt the vote took place too early, with thousands still displaced.

The local elections came a day after the defence ministry said it had arrested the new head of the Tamil Tigers, Selvarasa Pathmanathan.

Mr Pathmanathan was detained abroad and was being questioned in Sri Lanka, it added. The rebels have confirmed his arrest. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8191031.stm>

Israel's foreign ministry has summoned for consultation a senior diplomat for criticising the government for harming ties with the United States.

Nadav Tamir, consul-general in Boston, will travel to Jerusalem next week to give "clarification" to the ministry.

In an internal memo, Mr Tamir wrote that public clashes with Washington over settlement construction were "causing strategic damage to Israel".

The government said he had violated protocol by expressing political views.

The three-page document, entitled "Sad thoughts on Israel-US relations", was leaked to Israel's Channel 10 TV.

"The way in which we are conducting the relationship with the US government is causing Israel strategic damage. The distance created between us and the Obama administration has clear implications on Israeli deterrence," Mr Tamir wrote.

There are people in US and Israeli politics who ideologically oppose Obama, and are willing to sacrifice the special relationship between the two countries in order to advance their political agenda Memo by Nadav Tamir

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected President Barack Obama's demand for a freeze on settlement construction, saying their "natural growth" had to be allowed.

All settlements are illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. More than 450,000 Jews live in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Mr Tamir said in his memo that narrow political considerations were contributing to the deterioration of bilateral ties.

"There are people in US and Israeli politics who ideologically oppose Obama, and are willing to sacrifice the special relationship between the two countries in order to advance their political agenda."

The "atmosphere of confrontation", he warned, was alienating the US public and putting the Jewish community in a difficult position.

"Many of them are distancing themselves from the state of Israel because of this conflict," he wrote.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has reportedly demanded to know how Mr Tamir's letter was leaked to the media. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8191916.stm>

Confusion surrounds the leadership of the Taliban in Pakistan after reports of a gun battle between potential successors to leader Baitullah Mehsud.

Pakistani officials have said they had "credible evidence" that Baitullah Mehsud had died in a US drone attack.

But a senior Taliban commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, contacted the BBC to say his chief was alive and well.

Now officials in Islamabad say Hakimullah was himself one of those killed in a fight over succession.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool, in Islamabad, says the situation is very unclear and information is based on rumours from deep inside militant territory in north-west Pakistan.

The US and Pakistani governments say their intelligence suggests Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US rocket attack on Wednesday.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the BBC that they had received reports that a meeting of Taliban commanders in South Waziristan, called to decide on the movement's new leadership, turned into a gunbattle.

The unconfirmed reports say that Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, was killed.

The 'Shura' (party leaders) are at loggerheads with one another. This is going to grow in the coming days Maulvi Saifullah Mehsud

However, Hakimullah Mehsud had earlier contacted the BBC to say his chief was still alive.

Mr Malik said the other Taliban leader allegedly involved in the shootout was Waliur Rehman.

He challenged the Taliban to prove its leaders are still alive.

But Taliban commanders have dismissed the challenge as a ploy to flush them out into the open.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for a Taliban group that was opposed to Baitullah Mehsud, Maulvi Saifullah Mehsud, said Baitullah's supporters were turning on one another in the struggle to find a new leader.

"Differences have arisen between the followers of Baitullah, that is why they are claiming that he is not dead," he said.

"The 'Shura' (party leaders) are at loggerheads with one another. This is going to grow in the coming days. God willing, the infighting will get worse." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8191988.stm>

Matt Walker Editor, Earth News

A new species of giant carnivorous plant has been discovered in the highlands of the central Philippines.

The pitcher plant is among the largest of all pitchers and is so big that it can catch rats as well as insects in its leafy trap.

During the same expedition, botanists also came across strange pink ferns and blue mushrooms they could not identify.

The botanists have named the pitcher plant after British natural history broadcaster David Attenborough. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8195000/8195029.stm>

Russia is to spend almost $500m (£300m) next year reinforcing its military bases in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, the prime minister says.

Vladimir Putin's announcement came as he arrived in Abkhazia for talks.

He said Russia was committed to defending and financing the small strip of land in Georgia's north-west corner.

Moscow officially recognised the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia following the war a year ago between Russia and Georgia.

Apart from Russia only Nicaragua recognised the regions' independence in the conflict's aftermath; both areas are still widely held to remain part of Georgia. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8196974.stm>

Madagascar's government was overthrown in a coup earlier this year, after weeks of turmoil and street protests. As the Indian Ocean island begins a UN-brokered period of transition, the BBC's Christina Corbett reports that the political crisis has inspired a generation of cyber-savvy Malagasies to take to cyberspace.

After a year of stresses and strains, both claimants to the title of president of Madagascar appear to have come to an agreement.

The crisis has triggered something like social-media activism here in Madagascar Blogger Tahina

Andry Rajoelina, the incumbent who was installed after the March coup, and Marc Ravalomanana, deposed in the coup, have reportedly agreed a power-sharing deal.

The overtly political nature of the response to the deal in cyberspace is indicative of how far Madagascar's bloggers have developed.

In a blog called "reflections on Malagasy political life", an entry concludes: "A bad agreement is better than civil war."

Another blogger, known as Tgoose, muses: "In the next 15 months Madagascar is going to have one hell of an election. Can you imagine if you had to choose between Ravalomanana, [former President Didier] Ratsiraka or Rajoelina? That would be insane."

Andry, one of the legion of Madagascar's political bloggers, says the political crisis has transformed the way many people use the web.

"The internet can be a real platform for serious debate," he says.

"Before, most bloggers talked about personal everyday things. But now many more are involved in trying to find out the facts and analyse political events."

Tahina launched his blog in 2008 - a time when politics barely registered with him.

"When I started I didn't really want to blog about politics," he says.

"But since the crisis started I feel that I have something to say about what's going on here. I also blog about the social effects of the crisis and what Malagasy people think about it."

Tahina believes it has shown just how powerful blogging can be.

"It's a way for us to say to the world who we are and what we are. And that has been proven through this crisis," he explains.

"A lot of people from abroad rely on us to give them true information from citizens, not from the biased mainstream media here." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8196062.stm>

By Imogen Foulkes BBC News, Geneva

The Geneva Conventions are 60 years old on Wednesday, but the anniversary comes amid concern that respect for the rules of war is small.

The three existing Geneva Conventions, which relate to the immunity of medical personnel on the battlefield and the treatment of prisoners of war, were extensively revised in 1949.

The fourth Geneva Convention, which stipulates that warring parties have an obligation to protect civilians, was added.

The fourth convention in particular was born out of the horrors of the World War II - not just the appalling atrocity of the concentration camps, but the deliberate starvation of the city of Leningrad, and the indiscriminate bombing of Dresden and Coventry.

The conventions received widespread international support from the start, and today all 194 states have ratified them.

Unfortunately, signatures on paper have not led to respect for the conventions, and research conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) - which is the guardian of the conventions - shows that civilians suffer most in armed conflict.

Little compliance

In World War I, the ratio of soldiers to civilians killed was 10 to one.

In World War II it became 50-50, and today the figures are almost reversed - up to 10 civilians killed for every one soldier.

Last year's brief war between Georgia and Russia is a case in point.

In just a few days, several hundred civilians are believed to have lost their lives and tens of thousands were driven from their homes.

Along both sides of the closed "administrative boundary line" between Georgia and the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, dozens of villages are abandoned, the houses burned or bombed.

Mary Gelashvili, an elderly woman from the village of Tserenisi, has lost not just her house, which is destroyed, but her livelihood too.

Her fields are along the boundary line, and she can no longer get to them.

"No one should have the right to destroy my home," she says.

Under international law she is absolutely right. Indiscriminate damage to civilian life and property is forbidden.

"It's true the Geneva Conventions didn't help these people very much," admits Florence Gillette, head of the ICRC office in the Georgian town of Gori.

"The conventions actually state that all precautions should be taken to spare civilian lives and property, and not just lives and property but all infrastructure essential to survival.

"That's part of the fourth Geneva Convention that all the parties to this conflict, the Russians and the Georgians, signed and ratified a long time ago."<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8196166.stm>

By Aleem Maqbool BBC News, Gorja, Pakistan

On a street in the small Punjabi town of Gojra, house after house stands gutted and looted.

One home in particular is the focus of attention. The windows and doors are gone, what is left of the furniture lies gnarled inside, and some of the ceilings have collapsed. People are peering into a small bedroom at the back of the building.

It is from here that the charred bodies of six members of the Hameed family, from Pakistan's minority Christian community, were recovered. The youngest of the dead was four-year-old Mousa.

We found his father, Almass Hameed, 49, in a crowded hospital ward nearby.

'Shocked and crying'

"He was such a bright boy. His teachers complained that he was cheeky at times, but nobody could doubt how clever he was. But now he's gone," Mr Hameed said, breaking down.

It was like the most horrific movie. They destroyed our lives Almass Hameed

He described how an angry Muslim mob came through the area, known here as the Christian Colony.

"I think there were thousands," he said. "My elderly father went out to see what was happening and they shot and killed him. We were all shocked and crying. Before we knew it, they were breaking into the house."

Mr Hameed explained how he and nine other members of the family hid in the bedroom as the house was over-run.

"We could hear them smashing everything and dividing our belongings amongst themselves," he said. "Then they started beating on the door saying they would teach us a lesson and burn us alive."

Soon after, a fire was raging through his house.

"We just couldn't breathe," he said. "I grabbed my eldest son and managed to get out of the room through the flames, my brother came out with one of my daughters, but the rest were stuck and we had no way of rescuing them."

As well as his father and Mousa, Mr Hameed lost his 11 year-old daughter, his wife, a brother, a sister-in-law and her mother.

"It was like the most horrific movie. They destroyed our lives." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8196013.stm>

Israel must investigate the "unlawful" killing of 11 civilians carrying white flags during its Gaza operation earlier in 2009, Human Rights Watch has said.

Five women and four children were among those killed in seven incidents detailed by the US-based rights group.

Researchers said the soldiers at best failed to take precautions to protects civilians, and at worst deliberately shot at the unarmed civilians.

Israel denied targeting civilians but accuses Hamas of using "human shields".

In one incident, east of Jabalya, HRW said Israeli soldiers fired at two women and three children, three of whom were holding pieces of white cloth.

Two girls, aged two and seven were killed, and another, now aged four, was left paralysed below the waist.

The five were standing outside their home after an Israeli soldier had ordered them to leave it, HRW said.

"We spent seven to nine minutes waving the flags, and our faces were looking at them [the soldiers]," HRW quoted the girls' grandmother as saying.

"And suddenly they opened fire and the girls fell to the ground."

HRW said its findings were based on site investigations, ballistic evidence found at the scene, medical records of victims and lengthy interviews with multiple witnesses.

WHITE FLAG ACCUSATIONS Paralysed girl reflects Gaza plight Injured girl treated in Egypt Israel 'shot at fleeing Gazans' Hamas rocket attacks 'war crimes' Israelis 'followed law in Gaza'

Two of the incidents in question have also been investigated by the BBC.

In five of the seven incidents, Israeli soldiers shot at civilians who were walking down the street with white flags, trying to leave the areas of fighting, HRW said.

"All available evidence indicates that Israeli forces were in control of the areas in question, no fighting was taking place there at the time, and no Palestinian forces were hiding among the civilians or using them as human shields," the report said.

HRW notes claims by Israeli commanders that Palestinians mounted attacks from behind white flags, but said not enough detail had been provided for them to investigate the claims.

For example, one army colonel told the Israeli media that his soldiers had seen a Hamas fighter hide behind a woman with a white flag and a group of children behind her.

The Israeli military had not at the time of publication commented on the report.

But it has said its soldiers acted lawfully during the operation, although some mistakes were made, such as the bombing of a house containing 21 civilians by accident.

It says it went to great lengths to distinguish between civilians and combatants, while Hamas put civilians at great risk by firing rockets from near schools and UN facilities, commandeering hospital facilities and ambulances, hiding weapons in mosques and booby trapping civilian neighbourhoods.

Human Rights Watch last week accused Hamas of war crimes, for firing rockets at Israeli population centres.

The group also says Palestinian militants operated from populated areas.

HRW's Bill Van Esveld said on Thursday that a Newsweek report quoted in a recent Israeli Foreign Ministry briefing was "as clear evidence of human shielding [by Hamas] as you're going to get".

Journalist Rod Nordland wrote on 20 January: "Suddenly there was a terrific whoosh, louder even than a bomb explosion. It was another of Hamas' homemade Qassam rockets being launched into Israel - and the mobile launch-pad was smack in the middle of the four [apartment] buildings, where every apartment was full."

But Mr Van Esveld said he was only aware of evidence of "three or four" such cases, and had seen more evidence of the use of human shields by Israeli troops than by Palestinian militants. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8198863.stm>

By Claire Prentice BBC News, Washington

In-car computers are helping DC police reduce crime rates

It is mid-morning and, despite being several hours into his shift, Officer Frank Buentello of the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department has not received a single call for assistance.

It was a different story when he started his police career in Washington DC 20 years ago.

"The city has really cleaned up. Even 10 years ago this street here was a crime hotspot," he said, pointing towards bustling Columbia Road.

The murder rate in the District of Columbia is down 22% this year, with 84 murders so far in 2009.

The district is on track to have fewer killings than in any year since 1964.

It is a remarkable turnaround for an area which, as recently as 1991, was dubbed "the murder capital of the United States".

New technology

And DC is not alone. Across America, major cities have experienced a significant drop in violent crime, a definition which includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

They include once-notorious crime hubs like New York and Los Angeles, both of which are on track for their lowest homicide rates in 40 years.

Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Minneapolis are among other cities seeing notable reductions in murders.

Mr Buentello and DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier say a return to beat policing combined with the introduction of sophisticated new crime fighting technology are responsible for slashing DC crime rates.

We are using our pooled expertise to gain a better understanding of crime and to more precisely target the perpetrators of violent crime Cecil Thomas Policing expert

Inside Mr Buentello's patrol car, a small computer, or Mobile Data Terminal, receives minute-by-minute updates of all emergency calls coming into the department along with any new information on cases under investigation or crimes taking place in the area.

Commanders also receive regular updates on their mobile phones.

On the roof of his vehicle, Mr Buentello points out a "Tag Meter" which automatically scans licence plates and identifies vehicles which are stolen or are suspected of being used in a crime.

The DC police force also uses Shot Detectors to monitor activity in parts of the city associated with gun crime.

This information is then sent electronically to officers patrolling the area.

"All of these things add up to a powerful crime fighting weapon," said Officer Buentello. "They help us solve cases and act as a powerful deterrent."

In New York, police send a mobile data unit to murder scenes, allowing police there to listen to emergency calls and search databases listing everyone in a certain building who is on parole.

Cincinnati police have in-car computers which allow them to use surveillance cameras to zoom in on everything happening within a known trouble area.

In New York, murder has dropped 8.8% over the last two years, and 77.2% since 1993.

It is a similar story in Los Angeles, where murder is down 20.8% in the last two years.

PhD policing

Some experts warn that police departments may be celebrating prematurely, however.

"I'm sceptical about the claim that violent crime is down because policing has got better," says Andrew Karmen, a criminologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and author of New York Murder Mystery.

"The truth is that not all violent crimes are down in all cities."

Baltimore, Denver and Dallas are among cities experiencing a higher number of homicides compared with last year.

According to experts factors contributing to a rise in crime include poverty, unemployment, the size of the police force, the efficiency of the local criminal justice system in identifying and locking up repeat offenders and whether there is an entrenched gang, drug and gun culture.

Despite some regional discrepancies, most observers agree, however, that the drop in violent crime in many cities is significant.

The trend also cast doubt on the widely-held view that crime increases during times of economic hardship.

Criminologists point out that crime rates were relatively low during the Great Depression compared with the Roaring Twenties, when there was more violence across America.

Policing expert and Cincinnati councilman Cecil Thomas worked for the Cincinnati police force for 27 years.

He said that a greater willingness to pool resources with criminologists, the FBI, other police departments and crime fighting bodies has led to more effective policing.

"We all used to be very territorial but what you are seeing now is 'PhD policing' - we are using our pooled expertise to gain a better understanding of crime and to more precisely target the perpetrators of violent crime," said Mr Thomas.

Chief Lanier stresses that new technology alone cannot fight crime.

She has introduced a number of initiatives aimed at building relationships with the community, including All Hands On Deck, whereby every police officer in DC goes out simultaneously on foot patrol.

The introduction of these measures has led to a greater volume of tip-offs from the public.

"We'll never kick back and relax and think we've done our work," said Chief Lanier. "We can always do better." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8190226.stm>

As the US healthcare debate hots up during Congress's summer recess, anti-reform campaigners have been directing criticisms across the Atlantic at the UK healthcare system.

The most recent row erupted after an editorial at the Investors Business Daily (IBD) launched an attack on the British National Health Service (NHS), as a warning against what could happen if the US adopted such a model.

"The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof are legendary," the article said. "The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror movie script."

The article's author went on to assert that "people such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jay Bookman quickly pointed out, Prof Hawking was born in the UK, and has lived and worked there for his entire life.

And UK newspapers the Guardian and Daily Telegraph reported Prof Hawking as saying that he "wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS".

Basic stupidity

Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein said the IBD article was an example of conservatives "lying" about healthcare.

"It's not just that they didn't know that Stephen Hawking was born in England. It's that the underlying point was wrong, as you'll note from the continued existence of Stephen Hawking. They didn't choose an unfortunate example for an accurate point. They simply lied."

The New Republic's Jason Zengerle - while endorsing Mr Klein's objections to the IBD's article - was not convinced that the article's author should be given the credit for a conscious lie.

"The point the IBD writer was trying to make would have at least been theoretically plausible if, as the writer believed, Hawking was not British," Mr Zengerle wrote.

It's worth emphasizing, for those who remain confused and misled, that Democratic reform proposals would not create a British system Steve Benen Washington Monthly

"I'm just reluctant to credit the IBD writer with the sufficient smarts to concoct such a lie. Seems like basic stupidity is the easier explanation here."

The IBD's fundamental charge was that President Obama's healthcare plans would lead to the rationing of healthcare, and that rationing is a feature of the British system.

This point was echoed by conservative blogger Michelle Malkin , who warned that "the effects of socialised medicine in Britain - engineered by government-run cost-cutting panels on which Obamacare would be modelled - continue to wreak havoc on the elderly and infirm."

In making this point, Ms Malkin was explicitly re-affirming the assertion made by former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, that Mr Obama wanted to create a "death panel" to decide whether the elderly or disabled are "worthy of health care". <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8198084.stm>

At least 43 people - including 23 soldiers and 20 militants - have been killed in clashes in the southern Philippines, an army commander says.

Maj Gen Benjamin Dolorfino said 400 troops launched co-ordinated attacks on a camp belonging to Abu Sayyaf rebels on the southern island of Basilan.

He said soldiers recovered home-made bombs and 13 high-powered firearms.

Fighting has ceased, but troops were combing the area to see if two targeted Abu Sayyaf chieftains had been killed.

The rebel leaders were named as Khair Mundus and Furuji Indama by the Associated Press (AP) news agency, citing military officials.

'Slugfest'

Abu Sayyaf is one of several militant groups in the southern Philippines seeking independence or greater autonomy for Muslims in the region.

It was really close-quarter fighting so we couldn't use our artillery Maj Gen Benjamin Dolorfino Guide to the Philippines conflict

US military advisors have been helping to train the Philippines military to fight them.

Abu Sayyaf was once linked to regional Islamist networks, but has recently become better known for criminal brutality and high-profile kidnappings, mostly targeting Christians and foreigners.

In January, militants kidnapped three staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Two were freed in April, while the last hostage, 62-year-old Italian Eugenio Vagni, was released in July after being held for nearly six months.

The troops "launched a decisive law enforcement operation targeting the Abu Sayyaf's main training camp in the province", said army spokeswoman Lt Steffani Cacho.

She said "sizeable quantities" of bombs were found, some already "rigged to explode".

The army's losses were the highest in a single day's combat for some years.

The fighting was a "slugfest", said Maj Gen Dolorfino. "It was really close-quarter fighting so we couldn't use our artillery," he told AP. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8198684.stm>

A former general who headed a notorious detention centre during Argentina's military rule has been sentenced to life in prison for human rights abuses.

Santiago Omar Riveros, 86, commanded the Campo de Mayo military barracks on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

He was found guilty of involvement in the 1976 murder of 15-year-old communist youth member, Floreal Avellaneda, who was tortured to death.

Some 30,000 people disappeared or died in Argentina's 1976-1983 "Dirty War".

Riveros's former intelligence chief, Fernando Verplaetsen, was also jailed for 25 years in connection with the boy's killing.

And four other officers were given jail terms of between eight and 18 years. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8198702.stm>

Arroyo signs Magna Carta of Women

By Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Sherzad, Nangarhar

As Afghanistan heads towards presidential elections, residents of the district of Sherzad, in the eastern province of Nangarhar, have witnessed a sudden spurt in violence.

Most of Afghanistan's 28 million people live in the villages, hamlets and valleys of remote districts like Sherzad. It is areas such as this which will decide the outcome of the presidential election on 20 August.

One summer night earlier this year, a group of armed Taliban militants raided a local school for boys and girls in Kodi Khel village. The militants forced guards to vacate the school compound and then blew it up.

Although there were no casualties, the Taliban succeeded, to a large extent, in creating a wave of fear in the area.

"We had warned the government about the possibility of such an attack long ago," said a village elder, requesting anonymity as he feared the Taliban may target him in retaliation for speaking out.

"If you don't have girls and boys in schools, if you don't have police patrols on the streets, the government and the Afghans lose and the Taliban wins," he said.

'Antipathy'

One local official is not too shy to admit that people in this area have been caught in the crossfire between the Taliban and Western forces.

Afghan voters on forthcoming elections In pictures

"Many Afghans have been killed in recent years," he said, also asking not to be named.

"The violence has generated a feeling of antipathy among the Afghans, driving some of the locals into the hands of the Taliban."

Seven years ago, when Afghanistan conducted its first democratic election, residents of Sherzad walked for hours across the mountains to reach polling stations. Threats from landmines, suicide attacks and firing by the Taliban did not deter them from participating in the election then.

"We thought the election would lead to security and development of our villages. It was worth the risk," said Wali Shah, a resident of Kodi Khel, who was among the millions of Afghans who cast their ballots at that time.

Seven years after that election life is still fraught with hardship, Mr Shah said.

Security for Afghan citizens is also the biggest election issue in the neighbouring village of Pitlaw.

Many Afghan intellectuals have been killed in Pitlaw, schools have been destroyed and irrigation canals and bridges blown up.

"Some changes have indeed taken place over the past seven years," said Khan Shah, a resident of Pitlaw.

"But security, roads and medical facilities remain only on paper. We want security."

Corruption is another issue bothering villagers.

Last winter, an earthquake devastated much of Sherzad. Thirty two people were killed, more than 200 injured, and many houses and buildings were reduced to rubble.

Sayed Marjan, 30, of Kodi Khel, survived the calamity but lost six members of his family.

"I lost my family and my home. But the food, medicine and blankets sent as relief materials by Kabul and the world never reached me," he said. "This is shameful."

"I am not going to name anyone, but whoever wins this election will have to give us security and freedom from corruption."

Village elder Ahmed Khan says that local people were promised many things during the last election. "But we got nothing of it."

Similar feelings of resentment against the government in Kabul are seemingly everywhere in Kodi Khel.

"Food and blankets meant for us have been stolen by a local warlord. This is why I am not interested in this election," said an angry Sayed Marjan.

"Where was the government when I needed it? I have already told my village elder that I will not vote this time." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8199777.stm>

By Jon Leyne BBC News, Tehran correspondent

At any opposition demonstration in Iran they materialise from nowhere. For opposition supporters, they have become notorious.

The government's Basij militia have become President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's chief enforcers, as he tries to consolidate power in the wake of his disputed re-election.

Sometimes they tear into demonstrations in fleets of motorcycles, wielding clubs, and sometimes firearms.

Sometimes they are in plain clothes, mingling amongst the crowd until it is time to strike.

It's like setting a wolf loose amongst a flock of sheep Amir Farshad Ebrahimi Former Basiji

One notorious tactic is for them to wield tiny knives or razor blades to use against protestors from behind their backs.

Many are recruited at the age of 12 or younger. In their long training they are steeped in the ideology of the Islamic republic - indoctrinated, some would say.

Amir Farshad Ebrahimi was just such a young Basiji. He has long since left the militia and fled the country.

He describes the training as "brainwashing."

"I can genuinely say that it's a form of brainwashing," he told me.

"It takes place every night or weekly in the mosques they attend, so much so that they really believe that the protesters and opposition supporters on the streets are standing against the Prophet's teachings and Islam, they are mohareb (enemies of God) and their blood can be spilt, they should be killed."

He said that Basijis have been performing ritual ablutions, as if before going to the mosque, before going out to quell recent protests.

It is clear the Basij have been preparing to deal with this sort of internal unrest for many years, quite different from their role as frontline soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war.

And it's a role which Mr Ebrahimi says many of them have taken to with enthusiasm.

"There is no need at all to tell them what to do - when they hand them a baton or gun and tell them to go, it's clear what they have to do.

"It's like setting a wolf loose amongst a flock of sheep," he said.

But there are also some Basijis who are having doubts, according to Mr Ebrahimi.

He says he has received 10 to 20 calls or emails from his former colleagues asking what they should be doing.

'Complicated situation'

"Some of them have become disillusioned," he said.

"I can't tell you how many. But I am sure that many are not happy about what is happening right now.

"But others are standing firm, supporting their revolution, taking up arms and oppressing people. They don't even have any mercy for the injured.

"They even torture detainees in prison. It's a very complicated situation."

That analysis is supported by Alireza Nourizadeh, an expert on the Basij, and director of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies in London.

"These Basijis are also part of the nation and gradually you don't expect them to stay loyal to the authorities when they see that people in the streets are their neighbours and their children," he said.

"I heard that many, many of the Basijis, especially their commanders, when they go home they have problems with their children and their wives, and they ask 'why do you kill people?' "

Fierce ideology

By all accounts the Basijis are a mix of ideologues, some just in it for the power or the money, and some who relish the violence.

But the corps is underpinned by many true believers.

Some interviewed recently spoke about their belief that they were working for the improvement of humanity: "We want to change the world, to save the world and all its people from tyranny and submit only to God."

That ideology is a strength for the militia, but also a potential weakness.

As the conflict with the opposition drags on, as it seems set to do, the self doubts must surely creep in.

A crucial factor in the success of the Islamic revolution in 1979 was the defection of the armed forces from the shah.

Those who rule the Islamic Republic have worked hard to build up their own loyal cadre, made up of both the Basij and the regular forces of the Revolutionary Guards, to avoid any repeat of that collapse.

But in the ferment into which the country has been driven, even the loyalty of these ultra-loyalists may be open to question. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8200719.stm>

By Andrew North BBC News, Beirut

Summer is at its peak in Lebanon. Each weekend its famous beach clubs are heaving with people seeking some relief from the oppressive heat.

Thanks to the relative peace in the country, many clubs are now having their best season in years - with thousands of tourists joining the beachside throng.

However, it seems not everyone is welcome at the clubs.

The Lebanese office of campaign group Human Rights Watch says a majority of beach clubs it surveyed are preventing many migrant workers from Asia and Africa from using their facilities.

[The ban is] a clear manifestation of the racism that exists in large parts of Lebanese society Nadim Houry Human Rights Watch

The clubs are not being quite as specific as that.

It is alleged the bans are on household maids and domestic servants, widely employed by Lebanese families and the many Gulf Arabs among the tourists.

As the vast majority of the maids are women from places like the Philippines, Nepal, Ethiopia and Kenya, it seems no-one can be in any doubt as to who these restrictions are aimed at. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8200001.stm>

US Senator Jim Webb has arrived in Burma on a visit during which he is to meet military ruler Than Shwe.

He would be the most senior US official to meet Than Shwe, the Democratic senator's office said in a statement.

He visits days after pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest for 18 more months.

Adding to international condemnation, the UN Security Council has expressed its "serious concern" and the EU extended sanctions against Burma.

Mr Webb, who is close to US President Barack Obama, is due to meet Than Shwe on Saturday, a Burmese official said.

He is not expected to meet Ms Suu Kyi or American John Yettaw, whose uninvited visit to her home led to the trial which ended on Tuesday.

Four senior members of Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) have been invited to Burma's administrative capital, Nay Pyi Taw, "to meet with an important person", party spokesman Nyan Win said, adding that it was unclear if that person was Than Shwe or Jim Webb. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8200958.stm>

Two Japanese ex-PMs have visited a controversial shrine honouring Japan's war dead, including war criminals.

The visit by Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe coincides with the anniversary of the end of World War II.

Mr Koizumi's visits to the shrine when in office caused tensions with China and South Korea, which see it as a symbol of past militarism.

Current PM Taro Aso vowed not to go but expressed remorse for Japan's wartime actions at a Tokyo memorial service.

Mr Aso, along with Emperior Akihito and Empress Michiko, joined thousands of families of the fallen at the ceremony, which was broadcast on national TV.

"Our country inflicted tremendous damage and suffering on many countries, particularly people in Asia," Mr Aso said.

"As a representative of the Japanese people, I humbly express my remorse for the victims, along with deep regret." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8202870.stm>

The leader of a radical Islamist group involved in a shootout with Hamas in Gaza is one of at least 22 people killed in the raid, reports say.

Abdul-Latif Moussa died in an explosion, officials said, but it was not clear whether he blew himself up.

On Friday Hamas, which controls Gaza, launched a bloody crackdown on the group, Jund Ansar Allah, after it declared an "Islamic emirate".

Scores were injured in the attack, on a mosque in Rafah, near the Egypt border.

Hamas also stormed Abdul-Latif Moussa's house.

'Hasty declaration'

The fighting lasted seven hours and ended at about midnight on Friday.

These declarations [of an Islamic emirate] are aimed towards incitement against the Gaza Strip Ismail Haniya, leader of Hamas in Gaza

Followers of the group said Abdul Latif-Moussa blew himself up in a crowd of Hamas police, but Hamas has denied this.

Six Hamas fighters, including a senior commander, and one civilian died. The rest of those killed were from Jund Ansar Allah.

About 120 people were injured, with some in a critical condition, the BBC's Rushdi Abu Alouf says.

The Hamas spokesman, Taher al-Nono, said: "We hold Abdul-Latif Moussa and his followers fully responsible for what happened because of his hasty declaration during Friday prayers of a so-called 'Islamic Emirate'."

The Jund Ansar Allah (Army of the Helpers of God) is thought to be linked to al-Qaeda.

Mr Nono said: "Anyone who belongs to this group has to immediately hand himself and his weapons over to the Palestinian police and security forces."

Another Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, branded the cleric's speech "wrong thinking". <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8202746.stm>

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has announced a series of reforms to integrate the country's war-torn tribal areas into mainstream Pakistan.

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) have been administered by the central government in a system inherited from British rule.

The new laws will allow political parties to operate there.

Since 2001 the region has been a haven for militants behind surging violence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan, in Islamabad, says that the new laws are a landmark moment for Pakistani politics and will allow people living in the Fata to join and vote for mainstream political parties.

'Extremists weakened'

A spokesman for Pakistan's president said the move "empowers the locals and weakens the extremists".

"This breaks the monopoly of clerics to play politics from the pulpit of the mosque to the exclusion of major secular political parties," Farhatullah Babar said.

He was speaking at an overnight ceremony held at President House in Islamabad to celebrate Pakistan's 63rd Independence Day.

Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous agencies have never been politically and administratively integrated into the rest of the country during the years since the British pulled out in 1947.

Critics say that has created a vacuum which has allowed lawlessness and and militancy to thrive.

The four million people who live in Fata have been ruled by government-appointed agents in concert with tribal leaders.

They are subject to tribal laws that allow for detention without trial and communal punishment, among other unpopular measures.

Mr Babar said the new laws would not reduce the powers of the political agent or alter the laws, but they would mean that political parties could campaign there and represent the region in the national parliament after elections in 2013.

Our correspondent says that the hope is that they will also end draconian laws such as the powers of administrators to hold tribesmen in custody for three years without trial and the power of officials to confiscate or destroy property.

President Zardari said that he expected the reforms to be passed into law later this month.

Since partition a lack of political participation has contributed to a strong sense of alienation among the tribes, correspondents say.

Pakistan's current problems with militancy along the tribal belt are largely seen as a direct product of such feelings. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8201802.stm>

By David Reid BBC Click Italian bloggers went on strike in July to protest against government measures that they claim could kill the internet. They say the Alfano decree restricts the rights of bloggers to express their opinions without fear of comeback. Italians use the internet less than many other Western Europeans Demonstrators online and on the streets say the Italian government is trying to muzzle the internet. If the Alfano decree becomes law, it would put websites on a par with newspapers, giving a right to reply to anyone who believes their reputation has been damaged by something published on the internet. But critics say the law is so archaic it barely works in print. Apply it online and it could kill free speech on the internet. Hefty fines Alessandro Gilioli, a journalist and organiser of the blogging strike, says the measures could deter people from going online. "They are discouraging the use of the internet, forcing all the bloggers to rectify any opinion that anybody thinks is hurting his honour or reputation and they are creating big fines, more than €10,000 (£8,500), if you don't publish your rectification in two days. "So that means that if a teenager stays two days away from the computer and he doesn't rectify his opinion, he is going to pay €10,000. "That's stupid and that's incredible and overall that's discouraging people to use the internet." The planned rules are not just about correcting factual errors. They give anyone who feels their reputation has been damaged by an opinion the right to have their side heard within 48 hours. The essence of blogging is that anyone with an opinion on almost anything can share it with everyone, which is why there are so many trenchant views out there. So much so that most bloggers would dismiss as laughable an obligation to give a right to reply to anyone or any entity they criticise. Unclear If they write something false about me on a website, I have the right to see my opinion published Francesco Pizzetti, Italy's Data Protection Authority It is not clear if the law Italy's senate will be voting on in the autumn will extend to bloggers, or, for that matter, who to ask about it. The Italian Ministry of Justice did not take up Click's request for an interview. However Francesco Pizzetti, the president of Italy's Data Protection Authority says he does not believe the law will apply to bloggers. "I believe these norms are acceptable. They just state that if they write something false about me on a website, I have the right to see my opinion published and my request for a correction published," he said. "I don't believe they create a new obligation, so I don't believe they concern bloggers. It concerns the websites of newspapers and of the press generally." Supporters of the law say it is unfair that bloggers can dole out a verbal bludgeoning online without regulation or any journalistic obligation to be fair and balanced. Critics say a summary fine in the thousands will not guarantee balance but silence. Behind the times These bloggers and the internet are the only escape valve for this information that is free from the control of the big industrial groups who own the newspapers Marco Lillo, investigative journalist Italy's Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi owns or heavily influences swathes of the country's media. Investigative journalist Marco Lillo sees Italy's bloggers as vital for freedom of speech: "The fact is these bloggers and the internet are the only escape valve for this information that is free from the control of the big industrial groups who own the newspapers. "They have commercial interests and often have to obtain authorisation and concessions from the government. This means the web is the only place where the editor or journalist is independent. The blogger is his own man." Italy appears to have a problem with the internet. More than half the population has no web access and one source puts average usage at just two hours a week. As the Alfano decree suggests, official attitudes to the web are fundamentally out of step with other Western countries. You need an ID, for example, to log-on at a wi-fi hotspot, and there has even been talk of banning anonymity online and obliging bloggers to register with the government. The Italian government's uneasy attitude to the internet will likely have a chilling effect on the web's development in the country, stifling a sector that has elsewhere proven so dynamic economically and politically. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/8197639.stm>

US President Barack Obama has accused the media of focusing on healthcare forums only when "tempers flare".

"What you haven't seen on TV and what makes me proud are the many constructive meetings going on all over the country," he said.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in Montana, Mr Obama called on Americans who have insurance to support reform.

Extending coverage to the millions of Americans who lack health insurance is Mr Obama's top priority for 2009.

In recent days, a number of healthcare "town-hall" meetings hosted by US lawmakers have been targeted by conservative opponents of reform.

The opposition has sometimes been quite vocal, with anti-reform campaigners chanting slogans and shouting down supporters of reform.

Ruckus

"I know there's been a lot of attention paid to some of the town hall meetings that are going on around the country, especially when tempers flare," said Mr Obama.

"TV loves a ruckus."

Mr Obama said he was pleased that an event he had attended earlier this week had been less rowdy.

"I was glad to see that people were there not to shout, they were there to listen and to ask questions. That reflects America a lot more than what we've seen covered on television for the last few days."

Mr Obama has said that he wants to pass a healthcare reform bill before the end of the year.

Some 47 million people in America currently do not have health insurance, and rising healthcare costs are a major contributing factor to America's spiralling budget deficit.

But there is disagreement about how to go about reforming the system.

HEALTHCARE IN THE US 47 million uninsured, 25 million under-insured Healthcare costs represent 16% of GDP, almost twice OECD average Reform plans would require all Americans to get insurance Some propose public insurance option to compete with private insurers Q&A: US healthcare reform Anger clouds US healthcare debate

Democrats in the House of Representatives have reportedly reached a deal on a bill that would mandate all Americans to take out health insurance, with subsidies for the less well-off paid for by a tax on families earning over $350,000 a year.

The House bill would also offer Americans who do not get coverage through their employer the chance to join a publicly-run scheme.

But in the Senate negotiations have stalled, with moderate senators expressing opposition to both the tax and the public plan proposed by the House.

Both chambers need to agree on a bill before it can become law. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8202631.stm>

A Jewish-born Israeli has been elected to the governing body of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party.

Uri Davis, 66, an academic who is married to a Palestinian, is an outspoken critic of what he calls Israel's "apartheid policies".

As the only Israeli member of the Revolutionary Council he says he wants to represent non-Arab people who support the Palestinian cause.

He called for an international campaign to boycott Israel to be toughened up.

Dr Davis said his Israeli citizenship made no difference to his election.

"Within the conference itself the welcome was most heartfelt and enthusiastic - the Fatah movement is an open, international movement - membership is not conditional on ethnic origin, it's conditional on agreement with the main part of the Fatah political programme," he told the BBC News website.

Dr Davis said he did not define himself as Jewish but as "a Palestinian Hebrew national of Jewish origin, anti-Zionist, registered as Muslim and a citizen of an apartheid state - the State of Israel".

Young leaders dominate poll Can Fatah reinvent itself? Profile: Fatah movement

He was one of around 700 Fatah members competing for 89 open seats in the body, which oversees the group's day-to-day decision making.

Others elected to Fatah's revolutionary council included Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of the senior Fatah figure, Marwan Barghouti, who was jailed by Israel five years ago for the murder of five people.

The old guard of Fatah retained only four of the 18 elected seats. The rest went to younger men. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8203989.stm>

Hamas says it has restored order in the southern Gaza Strip after crushing a rebellion by a radical Islamist group.

At least 24 people died in Friday's gun battle between Hamas and the Jund Ansar Allah (Soldiers of the Companions of God) group in a mosque in Rafah.

The group's leader, Abdul-Latif Moussa, blew himself up using a suicide belt. More than 100 people were injured.

Hamas launched the crackdown on the group after it declared an "Islamic emirate" in Gaza.

'Hasty declaration'

The fighting in Rafah, near the Egypt border, lasted seven hours and ended at about midnight on Friday.

JUND ANSAR ALLAH Name means "Soldiers of the Companions of God" Member of Salafist movement, advocating return to the type of Islam practised at the time of the Prophet Muhammad Wants to establish Islamic emirate throughout Middle East Calls for strict enforcement of Sharia law, says Hamas is too liberal Several hundred sympathisers in southern Gaza Profile: Jund Ansar Allah Hamas's Gaza challengers

Abdul-Latif Moussa blew himself up, killing a Hamas policemen sent to arrest him.

Six Hamas fighters, including a senior commander, and several civilians died. The rest of those killed were from Jund Ansar Allah.

About 120 people were injured, and some were in a critical condition, the BBC's Rushdi Abu Alouf says.

Hamas spokesman Tahir al-Nunu said: "We hold Abdul-Latif Moussa and his followers fully responsible for what happened because of his hasty declaration during Friday prayers of a so-called 'Islamic emirate'."

The Jund Ansar Allah is thought to be inspired by al-Qaeda. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8203713.stm>

The US man jailed for visiting Burma's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been released and deported.

John Yettaw, whose health is described as fragile, left Burma on a plane with visiting US Senator Jim Webb, who negotiated the deal on Saturday.

Mr Webb was the most senior US official to meet the Burmese leader. He also met pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr Yettaw was jailed for seven years over the visit and Ms Suu Kyi was given an additional 18 months' house arrest.

Mr Yettaw flew with Senator Webb to Bangkok, where he was taken to hospital in a US embassy van.

Senator Webb told reporters Mr Yettaw, who is in his mid-60s, was "not a well man".

"He had a medical incident this morning when they read him his orders of deportation," the senator told reporters at Bangkok airport.

"He's now undergoing a thorough medical review here in a hospital, and soon he will be able to return to his family."

His wife, Betty, told the BBC on Saturday she was happy to hear the "wonderful" news that he would be released.

'Sent by God'

Senator Webb thanked the Burmese authorities for releasing Mr Yettaw.

It is my hope that we can take advantage of these gestures as a way to begin laying a foundation of goodwill and confidence-building in the future Senator Jim Webb Burmese junta's tactical manoeuvre Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi intruder

"I am not going to apologise for the actions that he took but I believe that it was a good gesture from your government to our country to allow him to return home to his family for humanitarian reasons," he said at Rangoon airport shortly before his departure.

However, Burmese dissidents say Senator Webb's trip could be seen as an endorsement of the poor treatment received by Ms Suu Kyi and more than 2,000 other political prisoners.

After his arrest, Mr Yettaw, said he had been sent by God to deliver a warning to Ms Suu Kyi that she would be assassinated.

Senator Webb said he had asked Burmese leaders to consider the release of Ms Suu Kyi and allow her to participate in the political process ahead of next year's elections, but that they had not yet responded.

Later he met the pro-democracy leader for talks lasting about 40 minutes. She was taken to a state guesthouse near her home to meet Senator Webb. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8203810.stm>

Parents have been urged not to put ham and other processed meat into their children's lunchboxes to avoid them developing a cancer risk later in life.

The World Cancer Research Fund said parents should act now to stop their children developing a taste for smoked, salted or cured meats.

Eating too much over decades can raise the risk of bowel cancer, they said.

The UK's Food Standards Agency said processed meat was fine for lunchboxes but should not be eaten "too often".

It is only in recent years that the link between processed meats and bowel cancer in adults has been made, with some estimates suggesting that thousands of cases could be prevented if everyone limited intake to 70g a week - equivalent to three rashers of bacon.

WHAT IS THE OFFICIAL ADVICE? The Food Standards Agency says ham and other processed meats can form part of a balanced diet The agency even has a range of menus for healthy lunch boxes, some of which contain ham But it warns that processed meat should not be eaten to excess Food Standards Agency

Even though the available evidence looks only at adult diets, rather than child diets, the World Cancer Research Fund believes that bad eating habits can start in childhood.

It says curing, salting or adding preservatives to meat can introduce carcinogenic substances.

It wants the likes of ham and salami given the chop in favour sandwich-fillers such as chicken, fish or cheese.

Marni Craze, the charity's children's education manager, said: "It is better if children learn to view processed meat as an occasional treat if it is eaten at all."

She also wants to see a crackdown on high calorie snacks in school lunchboxes, as being overweight as an adult can also increase the risk of cancer later in life.

She said: "Putting ham or high calorie snacks in your child's lunchbox may seem like a convenient option, particularly for parents who do not have a lot of time to prepare their child's lunchbox.

"But packed lunches are part of a child's diet that is relatively easy to control and it does not have to take too much time or effort to prepare a healthy lunch." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8202188.stm>

By James Rodgers BBC News

Richer, stronger, prouder: in May 2008, Russia revived its tradition of parading military hardware across Red Square.

Three months later, its forces rolled into Georgia. The fighting lasted less than a week. It seemed to be a swift and stunning victory for the Russian army.

Doubts soon emerged.

"There were some failures which I don't think were expected, in the way that Russian forces performed," said Christopher Langton, the senior fellow for conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.

"Particularly in the air force: they lost seven aircraft to not a particularly well developed air defence system in Georgia, and I think that surprised a lot of people."

Communication problems

There were other, even more basic, shortcomings.

Alexander Golts, a military correspondent since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan 30 years ago, picked out the example of a senior officer unable to communicate orders.

The life of those who serve can be nasty, brutish, and short - even in peacetime In pictures: Russia's V-Day parade Pomp and pride on show in Moscow

"This general asked some journalist who was near him to borrow his mobile phone, just to give command to his officers," he said.

"Russian military radio stations are more or less useless in mountains."

It is now clear that this was not the straightforwardly successful campaign which the Russian army initially described.

The Russian Defence Ministry did not reply to the BBC's request for an interview for this story but, speaking at a news conference ahead of the anniversary of the war, the deputy chief of the Russian general staff admitted to weaknesses.

"Of course, the Russian armed forces taking part in this conflict showed that not all is well with us," said Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn. "First and foremost, there were technical problems."

Radical reform

So Russia's reaction to its victory was not simply backslapping and celebration. Politicians and generals alike realised that things needed to improve.

"Just after the war ended, the Ministry of Defence speeded up the most radical military reform in the last 50 years," said Mr Golts.

Those challenges amount to more than just modernizing equipment.

Despite suggestions in the 1990s that the Russian army would eventually become a professional force, it still relies largely on conscription.

The life of those who serve can be nasty, brutish, and short - even in peacetime. In 2008, 471 Russian soldiers died in non-combat incidents.

Suicide accounted for almost half of the deaths. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8204941.stm>

An investigation by the BBC has found evidence of fraud and corruption in Afghanistan's presidential election.

Thousands of voting cards have been offered for sale and thousands of dollars offered in bribes to buy votes.

The findings come as campaigning closes ahead of Thursday's election in which incumbent President Hamid Karzai faces more than 30 challengers.

Early on Tuesday, two rockets hit targets in central Kabul, without causing injuries, Reuters reports.

One rocket caused some damage inside the presidential palace compound, and a second hit the city's police headquarters.

Militants have said they will disrupt the elections, and have already targeted the capital twice this month.

A Taliban spokesman quoted by Reuters claimed that four rockets had been fired in the latest attack.

Multiple voting cards

An Afghan working for the BBC went undercover in Kabul to investigate reports that voting cards were being sold.

He was offered 1,000 cards, each costing around £6 ($10). Other vendors made similar offers.

It is impossible to know how many voting cards have been sold in such a manner, says the BBC's Ian Pannell in Kabul, but there have been a number of arrests.

Multiple voting cards are reported to have been issued to some individuals, while government workers have actively and illegally campaigned for candidates, says our correspondent.

An influential tribal leader in the north of the country said he had been offered thousands of pounds by campaign teams in exchange for delivering large blocks of votes.

Final rallies

An independent monitoring group said it had shown evidence of corruption to election officials but they had not acted on the information.

But Western officials have said that, while the election will be flawed, Afghanistan should not be held to the same standards as elsewhere and that a flawed election is still better than no vote at all.

Mr Karzai is seen as the frontrunner in the race.

On Monday, a notorious ex-warlord and key ally of Mr Karzai, Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, flew in from Turkey to endorse the president at his final campaign rally.

"We need to go with Hamid Karzai into the future," Gen Dostum told cheering supporters in Shiberghan, his home city.

Two of Mr Karzai's main rivals, who formerly served under him as ministers, also held their final rallies on Monday.

In Kabul, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah addressed a crowd of 10,000 supporters, many wearing blue shifts or waving blue flags.

The ex-Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani, addressed a rally of 5,000 in the eastern Nangarhar province.

Mr Ghani, who is running on a campaign of economic development, vowed to replace the "corrupt government with a legitimate one", according to French news agency, AFP.

The UN and the US both expressed concern at the timing of Gen Dostum's return and any prospective role he may have in government.

In a live televised election debate on Sunday, Mr Karzai defended his alliances with several Afghan warlords, saying they served the interests of national unity.

Taliban threat

The election is taking place amid mounting violence in the country, with Taliban militants threatening to harm anyone who takes part. There are fears that the turnout could be low as a result.

Afghan elections: Main candidates In pictures: Campaigning closes Deaths take UK Afghan toll to 201

A survey by the BBC's Afghan service suggests the government has limited or no control in 30% of the country.

The survey is based on assessments by reporters in the field who found that in 4% of Afghanistan's districts, the government provides no security or services.

The majority of them are in the south, where most Taliban attacks have taken place.

A spokesman for President Karzai said the government did not agree with the findings and there were security problems in just a few districts.

Our correspondent says that, while there is evidence of corruption, above all it is the ongoing war with the Taliban - in at least a third of the country - that makes this election far from normal.

But having invested so heavily in terms of time, money and even lives, Western officials are likely to declare the vote a success - whatever the flaws and challenges, he adds. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8206469.stm>

Afghans talk about their daily struggles

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8206184.stm>

The mother of the 200th British soldier killed in Afghanistan has angrily accused politicians of leaving troops "short-changed".

Hazel Hunt's son, Richard, 21, of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh, died on Saturday after being injured on patrol.

She said troops needed more and better equipment and called Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth "stupid and arrogant".

Mr Ainsworth has predicted UK forces could hand over many frontline duties to Afghan troops in about a year.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, has also called for more equipment to counter the threat of roadside bombs.

Gen Dannatt, who stands down later this month, also predicted that British troops could be on the ground in Afghanistan for five years.

Mrs Hunt's attack came as the Ministry of Defence prepared to name three soldiers killed in an explosion while on patrol in Afghanistan.

Mrs Hunt, 49, from Hardwick, near Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, told the Daily Mail that Mr Ainsworth should spend time on the front line to understand how desperate troops were for more men and equipment.

Bob Ainsworth is being utterly delusional. For centuries people have been invading and fighting in Afghanistan. We have been kicked out twice and the Russians couldn't manage it Hazel Hunt

She said: "He hasn't got a clue. It makes me very angry when our top military commanders demand extra resources but nothing is forthcoming.

"The army has been short-changed and the troops are suffering because of it.

"But the politicians are not listening to the troops on the ground.

"They've got to find more resources, better equipment and make sure there's enough of it."

Aerial drones

Pte Hunt, who was born in Pembrokeshire and grew up in Abergavenny, had been part of a vehicle patrol from A Company the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh when it was hit by an improvised explosive device near Musa Qa'la.

Mrs Hunt said: "Bob Ainsworth is being utterly delusional. For centuries people have been invading and fighting in Afghanistan. We have been kicked out twice and the Russians couldn't manage it.

"Unless Nato is completely co-ordinated, it is going to happen again. There needs to be a clear plan. Without one our soldiers will carry on dying.

"Bob Ainsworth has made some very silly comments in the past few days and he has only been in the job for five minutes. I think he is speaking too soon and out of turn. He has been stupid and arrogant."

Among the resources being demanded by commanders in the field are increased numbers of unmanned aerial drones which can be used to spot improvised explosive devices (IEDs). <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/8206542.stm>

By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.

That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.

They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures.

The scientific paper is published in a book - Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress.

In books, films, video games and folklore, zombies are undead creatures, able to turn the living into other zombies with a bite.

But there is a serious side to the work.

In some respects, a zombie "plague" resembles a lethal rapidly-spreading infection.

My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever Professor Neil Ferguson

In their study, the researchers from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University (also in Ottawa) posed a question: If there was to be a battle between zombies and the living, who would win?

Professor Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake) and colleagues wrote: "We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies.

"We introduce a basic model for zombie infection and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions."

On his university web page, the mathematics professor at Ottawa University says the question mark distinguishes him from Robert Smith, lead singer of rock band The Cure.

To give the living a fighting chance, the researchers chose "classic" slow-moving zombies as our opponents rather than the nimble, intelligent creatures portrayed in some recent films.

"While we are trying to be as broad as possible in modelling zombies - especially as there are many variables - we have decided not to consider these individuals," the researchers said.

Back for good?

Even so, their analysis revealed that a strategy of capturing or curing the zombies would only put off the inevitable.

In their scientific paper, the authors conclude that humanity's only hope is to "hit them [the undead] hard and hit them often".

They added: "It's imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly or else... we are all in a great deal of trouble."

According to the researchers, the key difference between the zombies and the spread of real infections is that "zombies can come back to life".

But they say that their work has parallels with, for example, the spread of ideas.

The study has been welcomed by one of the world's leading disease specialists, Professor Neil Ferguson, who is one of the UK government's chief advisors on controlling the spread of swine flu.

"The paper considers something that many of us have worried about - particularly in our younger days - of what would be a feasible way of tackling an outbreak of a rapidly spreading zombie infection," said Professor Ferguson, from Imperial College London.

However he thinks that some of the assumptions made in the paper might be unduly alarmist.

"My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever. So perhaps they are being a little over-pessimistic when they conclude that zombies might take over a city in three or four days," he said. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8206280.stm>

Friendships can be inferred with 95% accuracy from call records and the proximity of users, says a new report.

Researchers fitted 94 mobiles in the US with logging software to gather data.

The results also showed that those with friends near work were happier, while those who called friends while at work were less satisfied.

The data, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed a marked contrast with answers reported by the users themselves.

"We gave out a set of phones that were installed with a piece of 'uber-spyware'," said the study's lead author Nathan Eagle, now at the Santa Fe Institute.

"It's invisible to the user but logs everything: communication, users' locations, people's proximity by doing continuous Bluetooth scans."

The researchers then compared the data with results from standard surveys given to the mobile users - and found, as the social sciences have found time and again, that people reported different behaviour than the mobile data revealed.

"What we found was that people's responses were wildly inaccurate," Dr Eagle told BBC News.

Mobile phone data are fantastic complements to the existing, very deep survey literature that the social sciences already have Nathan Eagle Santa Fe Institute

"For people who said that a given individual was a friend, they dramatically overestimated the amount of time they spent. But for people who were not friends, they dramatically underestimated that amount of time."

The researchers were able to guess from the mobile data alone, with 95% accuracy, if any given pair of users were friends.

An analysis of the overall proximity of a given user to his or her friends - maximised if they worked together - was correlated to people who reported a high level of satisfaction at work.

Conversely, those who made calls to their friends while working were found to report lower levels of satisfaction at work.

Wide application

One principal question of such a small sample size, made up exclusively of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is how much the results really mean in a sociology context.

However, the group has gone on to carry out a larger study that just finished, comprising 1,000 people in Helsinki, Finland.

There is also an ongoing trial of the approach in Kenya, which Dr Eagle said includes participants ranging from computer science students to people who had never used a phone before.

Dr Eagle sees the approach not as a means to supplant but rather to supplement traditional measures.

"Mobile phone data are fantastic complements to the existing, very deep survey literature that the social sciences already have," he said.

Moreover, he sees it not just as a means to map out the networks of friends that mobile users might have, but to carry on this "reality mining" in contexts ranging from the modelling of the spread of disease to the design of urban spaces.

"We were capturing data when the Red Sox won the [baseball championship] World Series for the first time," Dr Eagle recounted.

"Suddenly all our subjects became unpredictable; they all flooded into downtown Boston to a rally in the centre of the city.

"City planners approached us because they wanted to know how people were using urban infrastructure, to know when the people left the rally, how many walked across the bridge and how many took the subway, how many biked or took the bus.

"We can give them some real insight with the idea of helping them build a better city that reflects people's actual behaviour." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8205940.stm>

Plans to allow police to issue on-the-spot fines for careless driving would undermine justice, say magistrates.

John Thornhill, chairman of the Magistrates' Association, said ruling driving careless was subjective.

Police would be acting as jury and sentencer if they were allowed to impose the fines, he said.

He said concern over misuse of out-of-court disposals in England and Wales also involved cautions over serious accusations, including rape.

In 2003, 68% of all matters reached court, but this had fallen to 48% in 2007, Mr Thornhill said.

The proposals to make careless driving a fixed-penalty offence would see motorists given an on-the-spot fine and three points on their licence.

Mr Thornhill expressed concern that people would pay to resolve the matter, not realising they were getting a conviction that would show up in future criminal record checks.

Many of the police actually don't want to do this, because they believe it's more important that an independent tribunal which is not fettered by financial considerations or targets makes that decision John Thornhill Magistrates' Association

Suspects are currently prosecuted in the courts, where they can be fined up to £5,000 and receive nine points.

Mr Thornhill told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the idea of on-the-spot fines is "effectively saying that every case of careless driving is the same".

He added: "We have been investigating the use of out of court disposals, on-the-spot-fines for the last 12 months, and the evidence we have suggests that on many occasions, where the matter is serious police go for the easy option of the on-the-spot fine, because it's done and dusted, dealt with there and then.

"What this is doing is turning the police into jury and sentencer.

"And many of the police actually don't want to do this, because they believe it's more important that an independent tribunal which is not fettered by financial considerations or targets makes that decision." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8206463.stm>

UFO sightings revealed in archives

Dr David Clarke from Sheffield Hallam University explains some of the reports to the BBC's David Sillito. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8202432.stm>

By Richard Galpin BBC News, Vilnius

The trial in Lithuania of a County Louth man charged with trying to buy arms and explosives for the Real IRA has been adjourned until October.

Michael Campbell, 36, was arrested in Lithuania after allegedly trying to buy weapons from an intelligence officer posing as an international arms dealer.

His brother, Liam, is believed to be a senior Real IRA member, which opposes British rule in Northern Ireland.

It was set up in 1997 after the mainstream IRA declared a ceasefire.

Michael Campbell, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, faced the wall in court to avoid the cameras. The Dundalk man asked for reporters to be removed from the courtroom, but the request was turned down.

The judge also rejected the prosecutor's request for the trial to be closed to the public.

However, he said it could be closed when witnesses whose identities needed to be protected were testifying.

The Real IRA has claimed responsibility for a number of serious attacks, including the murder of two British soldiers in Northern Ireland in March.

Liam Campbell was one of four men held responsible for the 1998 Omagh bombing, following a landmark civil action. The Omagh blast killed 29 people.

A judge declared there was cogent evidence that he was a member of the Real IRA's army council during the June trial. The Lithuanian authorities are seeking his extradition from Northern Ireland.

Michael Campbell's arrest followed a sting operation involving the British, Irish and Lithuanian intelligence agencies.

Prosecutors in Vilnius told the BBC that following a series of meetings in France and Poland, Mr Campbell eventually came to Lithuania, where he was kept under police surveillance.

They allege he paid 10,000 euros (£8,600) for a haul of weapons including a sniper rifle, detonators, timers and about 10kg (22lb) of high explosives.

He was detained after allegedly handing over the money in a garage in the industrial zone of Vilnius.

The arms dealers were, in fact, Lithuanian intelligence agents.

Mr Campbell has been charged with the possession and attempted smuggling of illegal weapons and supporting a terrorist organisation.

The latter charge carries a possible 20-year sentence.

But his lawyers question the means by which he was detained and also say there is not enough evidence to convict him.

On Tuesday, the defence lawyers made a specific request for Mr Campbell to be released on bail as they said he was being held in poor conditions and had been denied family visits.

However, the judge said a decision on this would be made next week. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8206384.stm>

By Torin Douglas Media correspondent, BBC News

New light has been shed on the early career of the notorious spy Guy Burgess, with the publication of 24 previously unreleased documents from the BBC Archive.

Enlarge Image

Burgess worked for the BBC as a radio producer in two spells between 1936 and 1944 before joining the Foreign Office.

In one memo, he explained why he tried to break open his office door with a fire extinguisher, insisting that he had not been drunk.

In another, he described how Winston Churchill, then an opponent of the government, complained he was "always muzzled by the BBC".

The documents have been published on the BBC Archive website, in a section titled Burgess at the BBC: The Early Career of a Notorious Spy.

Expenses claims

Guy Burgess joined the BBC after Cambridge University, where he'd been recruited as a spy. He was helped by a reference from the renowned historian Sir George Trevelyan, who said: "He is a first-rate man. He has passed through the communist measles that so many of our clever young men go through and is well out of it."

In 1938 as a radio producer on The Week in Westminster, Burgess wrote a letter to his friend and fellow spy Anthony Blunt (whom he'd recruited at Cambridge), advising him what to do in case his radio talk was too short - "sit facing the clock and gag a bit at the end".

As part of his job, Burgess wined and dined MPs. In the current climate, his BBC expenses might face particular scrutiny.

He said a lunch with Megan Lloyd George - the daughter of the former Prime Minister David Lloyd George - had been sanctioned in advance "to discuss a very difficult coal debate at only time available". It cost 17 shillings.

Other entertainment expenses were frowned upon by his superiors.

One memo says: "The entertainment to Captain Harrison at 6s. 6d is heavy for what amounted to 'a drink at 6.45'. MPs are expensive to entertain and doubtless Burgess likes the Corporation to give as full measure as the Press.

"It requires a very strong character to reduce this expenditure but the attempt should certainly be made." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8206413.stm>

North Korea has sent condolences for the death of the former South Korean president, Kim Dae-jung, the North's official news agency has said.

Pyongyang also said it would like to send a delegation to pay respects at Mr Kim's funeral in Seoul.

Relations between the countries have been poor since President Lee Myung-bak took office in the South last year.

But the North has said it wants to ease border restrictions and re-open a joint industrial park near the border. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8208751.stm>

By Sanjeev Srivastava BBC News, Delhi

If it was not happening for real and if it had not concerned India's principal opposition party and one of its most senior leaders, the rather unsavoury dismissal of Jaswant Singh would have been seen as a kind of a political farce.

Mr Singh's book (Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence), released earlier this week, was in the news because of praise it lavished on the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

In his book, Mr Singh described Jinnah as a great man who has been "demonised" in India.

This praise for Jinnah was unacceptable to some senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders who disagreed with his assessment.

Verging on blasphemy

But regardless of the controversy, hardly anyone predicted that praise for Jinnah would lead to such an unceremonious outcome for the former defence, finance and foreign affairs minister.

Mr Singh was not given even an opportunity to explain himself.

It is not the first time the founder of Pakistan has come to torment the right-wing Hindu nationalist BJP.

In 2005, the then party president Lal Krishna Advani saw his political career almost coming to an end after he described Jinnah as a secular leader who stood for Hindu-Muslim unity.

For the BJP rank and file, such comments from their leader were unacceptable and almost blasphemous.

The reason is simple.

Partition is an emotive issue for many Indians and a majority of them - not just the Hindu right - have grown up believing that Jinnah was the architect of two-nation theory based on religion.

For right-wing nationalist organisations like the RSS - which provides ideological moorings to the BJP and wields considerable clout in it - issues like partition and Jinnah's role in it are an article of faith.

They blame Jinnah and his Muslim League for the partition.

By the end of 2005, Mr Advani was forced to quit his BJP post and though he did manage to claw his way back to the top rungs of the party leadership (he was the BJP's prime ministerial candidate in parliamentary elections earlier this year) he never fully regained his stature and clout.

'Thought policing'

Jaswant Singh has not been so fortunate.

While he will retain his parliamentary seat, his expulsion from the BJP could mean the end of the road in terms of power politics.

Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Mr Singh ruled out the possibility of apologising to the BJP leadership and regretted that they did not even bother to seek an explanation from him.

He was also critical of the manner in which BJP leaders resorted to what he described as "thought policing".

But for the BJP top brass - which began a "chintan" or introspection meeting in the salubrious climes of the hill town of Shimla on Wednesday - the Jaswant-Jinnah issue is perhaps the least of their worries.

Maybe that is why they have been able to take such quick and arguably not very well thought-out action.

The other issues confronting India's principal opposition party are far more challenging, serious and fraught with far-reaching implications.

Having lost two successive national elections in 2004 and 2009 the BJP is desperately trying to refocus, rejuvenate and reinvent itself.

It needs to focus on issues which help it play the role of an effective opposition and win back the support of the people.

Instead it is a house divided. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8210545.stm>

By Oana Lungescu BBC European affairs correspondent, Sopron

"It was in Hungary that the first stone was removed from the Berlin Wall," said the former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

His successor Angela Merkel went to the Hungarian town of Sopron on Wednesday, to thank the country for opening its border 20 years ago. That decision led to the fall of the Wall three months later.

The most important thing in those days was how I judged the position of Gorbachev in power Miklos Nemeth Former Hungarian Prime Minister

But curiously enough, it was a picnic in a field outside Sopron that would change the face of Europe.

In the summer of 1989, thousands of East German "tourists" had been making their way to Hungary, looking for a way to cross into Austria. What drew them was a bold decision taken earlier that year by the reformist prime minister Miklos Nemeth to start dismantling the security system along the border.

"I thought it was obsolete in the 20th Century," Mr Nemeth told the BBC. Another reason was that Hungary, heavily in debt, simply could not afford to pay $1m to maintain it.

As he returned from holiday in his official car, Mr Nemeth was shocked to see hundreds of young people and families camping outside the West German consulate in Budapest. Others had found refuge in the imposing Holy Family Church in a leafy district of the Hungarian capital.

Among them was Robert Breitner, who was 19. He arrived with just the clothes on his back, after losing his backpack in a failed escape attempt.

"The street was full of East German cars," he recalls.

"There were families who came with two or three cars and did a lot of escapes. They lost one car so they took the next one!"

Mr Breitner's story was fairly typical. Because of his family's Christian beliefs, he was not allowed to do his high-school degree in the GDR. He could not travel to the Soviet Union, let alone to West Germany, where most of his family lived.

From the age of 14, he had decided to flee. "I grew up just 300 metres behind the Berlin Wall but for me it was too dangerous to try it there," he said. He thought in Hungary "the chance to die was not as high".

East German agents

The man who opened the gate to the church was Father Imre Kozma, who led the Order of Malta charity service. The charity erected tents and distributed food - all under the watchful eye of the Stasi, the East German secret service, whose agents were posted just across the street.

They were afraid we would ... hand them over to the East German authorities Father Kozma about the refugees

Father Kozma said the refugees feared each other and even the Hungarian volunteers. "They were afraid we would gather them in one place and hand them over to the East German authorities."

Then in August, the place was awash with rumours and leaflets about the Pan-European Picnic.

Opposition groups had decided to organise the event as a celebration of good-neighbourly relations, with beer and gammon roasted over a bonfire right on the border with Austria. But the refugees wanted more than a picnic.

Today, you can simply drive or walk into Austria with no questions asked. The Iron Curtain has become a bike trail.

But in August 1989, much of the barbed wire fence was still there. Just before 3 o'clock that afternoon, Lt-Col Arpad Bella, who was in charge of the Hungarian border post, saw a crowd of men, women, even children rushing towards him.

Before his eyes, the first wave of East German refugees pushed through a barbed wire-topped wooden gate into the West. Some cried, laughed, embraced each other. Others kept running because they could not believe they were in Austria.

Guards' dilemma

Without clear instructions from his superiors, Lt-Col Bella decided not to shoot ."It was terrible for me!" he said. "Those two hundred people were just ten metres away from freedom. So I took the decision that I thought was best for Hungary and for my own conscience."

On the other side of the border, Austrian chief inspector Johann Goeltl faced another dilemma. In their headlong rush to freedom, an East German family had left their eight-year-old son on the other side of the gate, which had now been closed.

"Please, please, let him through," they pleaded, "otherwise we'll have to go back to that terrible regime". Somehow, chief inspector Goeltl managed to sneak the boy in.

By the end of that day, more than 600 East Germans had crossed over to the West. Three weeks later, when Hungary fully opened its borders, 60,000 flooded out. Among the first to leave was Robert Breitner, who arrived in Berlin in time to see the Wall collapse.

But 20 years on, Lt-Col Bella feels he was only an actor in a complex play whose director remains unknown. Some of those who organised the Pan-European Picnic, like engineer Laszlo Nagy, also feel politicians used it to test how far they could go.

"If you are taking part in a test of which you are not informed, you feel yourself as a worm that they use in fishing," Mr Nagy said. "They threw us in deep water and they were watching whether the sharks are coming or not."

The shark of course was the Soviet Union, which still had 100,000 troops in Hungary. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, its appetite seemed to be for reforms rather than military intervention.

In March 1989, Miklos Nemeth told the Soviet leader he planned to dismantle the barbed wire along the border. Mr Gorbachev reacted calmly and said border security was Mr Nemeth's problem, not his. The Hungarian prime minister took it as a green light. But could things have gone differently?

"Absolutely, we had worked out a lot of scenarios," Mr Nemeth told me.

"For me, the most important thing in those days was how I judged the position of Gorbachev in power. If he's being toppled, kicked out of power, that would have been a different story, I can tell you."

Like Mr Gorbachev, Mr Nemeth has retired from politics. He is disappointed that crisis-ridden Hungary is no longer a leader in Central Europe.

Lt-Col Bella and chief inspector Goeltl are friends and often meet to talk about the past.

Robert Breitner went on to study politics and now works in St Petersburg, happy that East and West can do business together.

For Father Kozma, little has changed. Except that now he drives one of the Trabants left behind by the refugees he helped 20 years ago. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8209639.stm>

At least nine people are reported to have been killed in north-west Pakistan in a suspected US missile strike.

One or two missiles targeted a compound in the village of Dande Darpa Khel in the tribal region of North Waziristan, Pakistani officials said.

The village is believed to be frequented by associates of an Afghan Taliban leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani.

There have been dozens of such drone strikes in the past year in the restive region, which borders Afghanistan.

Residents of the main town in the region, Miran Shah, reported hearing a huge blast which shattered windows and blew out doors, said the AFP news agency.

Officials said some people had also been wounded in the attack.

The US military does not routinely confirm drone attacks but the armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are believed to be the only forces capable of deploying drones in the region.

Pakistan has been publicly critical of drone attacks. The government says that they fuel support for the militants. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8213354.stm>

A bomb attached to a small lorry has exploded at the entrance to a wholesale vegetable market in Baghdad, killing two, Iraqi police say.

About 20 others were injured in the bombing in the Dora area of the Iraqi capital.

The latest attack follows two vast bombings on Wednesday which killed 95 people - the worst violence in Iraq for several months.

Security measures in the city have been tightened in the wake of the attacks.

The government had said it was increasing security at checkpoints near government buildings and setting up concrete blast barriers around potential targets.

But, according to an official quoted by the Associated Press, the truck passed through an Iraqi police checkpoint but was not searched before it exploded in the early hours of Friday morning.

The fruit and vegetable market in the southern district of the city is a regular target for bombers. In July, 18 people died during an attack there.

On Thursday, the Iraqi authorities detained 11 security officers on suspicion of negligence following the truck bombs that struck the foreign and finance ministries on Wednesday. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8213534.stm>

People with conditions such as HIV, TB and malaria should not rely on homeopathic treatments, the World Health Organization has warned.

It was responding to calls from young researchers who fear the promotion of homeopathy in the developing world could put people's lives at risk.

The group Voice of Young Science Network has written to health ministers to set out the WHO view.

WHO TB experts said homeopathy had "no place" in treatment of the disease.

There is no objective evidence that homeopathy has any effect on these infections Dr Nick Beeching, Royal Liverpool University Hospital

In a letter to the WHO in June, the medics from the UK and Africa said: "We are calling on the WHO to condemn the promotion of homeopathy for treating TB, infant diarrhoea, influenza, malaria and HIV.

"Homeopathy does not protect people from, or treat, these diseases.

"Those of us working with the most rural and impoverished people of the world already struggle to deliver the medical help that is needed.

"When homeopathy stands in place of effective treatment, lives are lost." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8211925.stm>

Candle-lit dinners may be romantic, but researchers are warning they could be harmful to health.

South Carolina State University experts analysed the fumes released by burning candles in lab tests.

They found paraffin wax candles gave off harmful fumes linked to lung cancer and asthma - but admitted it would take many years' use to risk health.

UK experts said smoking, obesity and alcohol were much more important in terms of cancer development.

And even the researchers admitted occasional candle use was not something people should worry about too much.

In terms of cancer, a far more significant type of indoor air pollution is second-hand cigarette smoke Joanna Owens, Cancer Research UK

Lead researcher Amid Hamidi said people who frequently used candles, for instance to help them relax in the bath or provide the right ambience for dinner, were most at risk.

He told the American Chemical Society in Washington: "An occasional paraffin candle and its emissions will not likely affect you.

"But lighting many paraffin candles every day for years or lighting them frequently in an un-ventilated bathroom around a tub, for example, may cause problems."

To investigate candle emissions, the researchers burned a range of candles in the laboratory and collected the mixture of substances they gave off.

Paraffin-based candles produced "clear sharp peaks" for many chemicals, mainly because burning candles does not produce high enough temperatures to combust hazardous molecules such as toluene and benzene.

The scientists suggested switching to candles made from beeswax or soy, which did not release significant levels of the chemicals. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8211543.stm>

By Aleem Maqbool BBC News, Lahore

These days, their footage is all over the Pakistani news channels. Lawyers, dressed in black suits and ties, on the attack.

Every few days seem to bring a new incident; the beating of a policeman; a scuffle with members of the press outside the high court in Lahore.

The newspapers scream that lawyers have become a public menace. The police are incensed.

"Lawyers used to be a very gentle people," says superintendent Sohail Sukhera of Lahore police force. "They were polite and educated. But the last couple of years have converted them into an absolutely different commodity."

He says that, in the last month, there have been 18 cases of assaults carried out by lawyers in Lahore alone.

"In one case, lawyers broke the leg of a police inspector. Others have had their skulls exposed when lawyers have hit them on the head with stones or chair legs. It's really uncalled for." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8207101.stm>

Mr Mueller has long been involved with the Lockerbie case himself Letter from FBI's Robert S. Mueller

FBI director Robert Mueller has launched a scathing attack on Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill over the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

In a letter, dated 21 August, Mr Mueller said the decision makes "a mockery of justice" and gives comfort to terrorists around the world.

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi has received a hero's welcome in Libya.

The Scottish Government said it had consulted widely in the US and UK and had made the right decision.

Mr Mueller was previously a Justice Department lawyer leading the investigation into the 1988 bombing.

The director's letter is also being sent to families of the Lockerbie victims.

Mr Mueller wrote: "Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law.

"Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world who now believe that regardless of the quality of the investigation, the conviction by jury after the defendant is given all due process, and sentence appropriate to the crime, the terrorist will be freed by one man's exercise of 'compassion'." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8216122.stm>