BBC News with Marion Marshall
Members of parliament in Britain have voted to back marriage between same sex couples in England and Wales.
“The ayes to the right, 400, the noes to the left, 175, so the ayes have it, the ayes have it.”
The result allows the draft legislation to clear its first hurdle on the path to becoming law. Here is our political correspondent Rob Watson.
To some, gay marriage is a radical change; to others, a natural step towards greater equality. The Prime Minister David Cameron is very much in the latter group but the prime minister has had to pay a heavy price with around half of his own MPs voting against the bill. Mr. Cameron had been hoping his support for gay marriage would help soften and modernize the image of the conservative party. This vote suggests he still has battles to fight and divisions to heal within his own ranks.
Bulgaria says the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah was behind a bomb attack last July on the Black Sea coast that killed five Israeli tourists and a local bus driver. Bulgaria’s foreign ministry said two of the attackers were Hezbollah members who entered the country on Canadian and Australian passports. Hezbollah has previously denied any involvement.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the group and its main backer Iran of waging a global terror campaign.
A leaked United States government memo says it is legal to use unmanned drone aircraft to kill Americans abroad if they are believed to be senior al-Qaeda leaders. The document obtained by the US television channel NBC News says such killings were lawful if the suspected militants were considered to pose an imminent threat and their capture wasn’t possible without undue risk to US personnel. Critics argue that drone strikes amount to execution without trial and cause many civilian casualties but the White House spokesman Jay Carney defended their use.
“We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats, to stop plots, prevent future attacks and again save American lives. These strikes are legal. They are ethical and they are wise.”
A report by an expert panel in Ireland has concluded that the state sent thousands of women to work unpaid in industrial laundries ran by the Catholic Church. The Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny apologized for the conditions endured by the women who over decades were forced to do washing and ironing in workhouses known as the Magdalene Laundries. Mello Rock is a member of the Justice for Magdalene’s campaign.
“We feel that the women have been vindicated in what they have been saying all along, that the state was involved and sending girls and women to the laundries that the police force, the Irish police force was involved in returning anyone who escaped. That’s their worst day-contracts through laundry to be washed by the girls and women here in the institution.”
BBC News
The French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said that the town of Kidal in northern Mali is under the control of French forces. He said this had been achieved with help of African soldiers mainly from Chad. Earlier about 1,800 Chadian troops were reported to have entered the town. Kidal had been the last stronghold of the rebels who seized northern Mali in April last year. In Brussels, representatives of the United Nations, the European Union and the African Union have been discussing how to restore stability in Mali.
The White House says President Obama will visit Israel in the next few months, his first trip to the country since taking office. Mr. Obama mentioned the plan to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month when he congratulated him for being reelected. White House officials said the President would also visit the West Bank and Jordan.
A Danish writer and prominent critic of Islam has survived in an assassination attempt outside his home in Copenhagen. Lars Hedegaard described how he opened the door to a man of Middle Eastern appearance dressed as a postman who opened fire with a pistol narrowly missing his head. More from Malcolm Brabant
Mr. Hedegaard has had a price on his head following the publication in 2008 of a book containing anti-Muslim cartoons including several by Kurt Westergaard, the artist who caused outrage in the Islamic world by depicting Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. Denmark’s Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has condemned the shooting as an assault on freedom of expression. The attack highlights the dangers facing those connected with the Muhammad cartoon’s crisis.
The electoral commission in Madagascar has postponed this year’s presidential election aimed at solving a political crisis by more than two months. The vote has been moved from May to July because of what the commission called operational difficulties.
The United Nations has endorsed the postponement.
BBC World Service News