BBC news 2011-11-05
BBC News with Iain Purdon
The fate of George Papandreou's crisis-stricken government will be decided in the next few hours with a confidence debate underway in the Greek parliament. The Socialists barely command a majority after defections from their own ranks following the prime minister's controversial proposal for a referendum on the latest bailout and austerity deal. Mark Lowen reports.
It now appears that what originally caused this week's political crisis in Greece has been scrapped. The prime minister concocted the proposal for a referendum on the latest bailout package for the country. But now it's his finance minister who's officially killed the plan, indicating once again a rift at the very top of the Greek government. With the threat of a referendum removed, George Papandreou hopes he will secure the backing of his own MPs in the confidence vote on Friday night. But even if he scrapes through this test, speculation is mounting that he will soon call for a new government of national unity and may stand aside in the coming weeks, hoping for a dignified exit.
The French President Nicolas Sarkozy has closed the summit of G20 leaders in Cannes with a pledge to defend the euro. The leaders agreed to boost the resources of the International Monetary Fund, but there were no firm figures. The discussions focused on the financial and political crises in Italy and Greece. James Robbins has the details.
This summit did not ride to the rescue of the euro and the eurozone. In the midst of crises in Greece and Italy. President Obama barely concealed his exasperation with European decision-making, saying he'd learnt a lot in the past two days about how laborious it was. This summit also pushed Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi into accepting that the IMF should monitor his government's debt reduction programme to reduce the risk of financial catastrophe in one of the eurozone's largest economies. Italy insists it volunteered, but this amounts to a public audit every quarter by the IMF.
The Liberian opposition presidential candidate Winston Tubman has said he will boycott next week's run-off election against the incumbent, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Thomas Fessy reports.
Winston Tubman told the BBC the current conditions were not acceptable for him and left him with no choice but to pull out of the vote. Opposition parties accuse the electoral commission of siding with the ruling party during the counting process of the first round. The head of the electoral body resigned earlier this week. But this wasn't enough for Mr Tubman and his running mate George Weah. They accuse the incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of trying to bring back a one-party state system in Liberia.
The head of Liberia's election commission has said that the run-off vote will go ahead as planned.
Israel says its navy has boarded two boats carrying pro-Palestinian activists trying to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Officials say the seizure of the vessels took place peacefully.
World News from the BBC
There's been more violence in Syria in spite of a promise by the government to withdraw its tanks. Opposition activists say armed forces killed at least 13 people in protests after Friday prayers. Earlier, the Syrian authorities said people should hand in their weapons in exchange for an amnesty. Meanwhile, an officer representing defectors from the Syrian army told the BBC that they would stop attacking government forces in line with an Arab League initiative earlier this week.
"If there is any attack against a demonstration or a neighbourhood, or any other type of civilian life being attacked by the Syrian army, we will never stand by and do nothing. But if the regime withdraws its mercenaries and its army from inside the cities, then we will fully stop all our activities, so our job will just be to retaliate against any breach of the Arab League agreement."
The jury in the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor has begun considering its verdict. Prosecutors say Doctor Conrad Murray gave the singer an overdose of a powerful sedative, propofol, and then abandoned him, leading to his death two years ago. Doctor Murray denies the charge of involuntary manslaughter. He faces up to four years in jail if convicted.
Police in Spain say they've dismantled a drug ring which smuggled cocaine disguised as designer shoes into the country. The officers said they had detained a Colombian couple who molded cocaine into the shape of women's shoes which they dubbed Manolos after the Spanish shoe designer Manolo Blahnik. The cocaine shoes were worth almost $70,000 a pair.
Six men who've been locked up in total isolation for over 500 days to simulate a mission to Mars have emerged smiling from their capsule in the Russian capital Moscow. The Russian, European and Chinese crew have been living inside steel tubes in a warehouse meant to mirror the confinement and stress that a real voyage to Mars would entail.
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