BBC News with Marion Marshall
About 1,000 people have been injured in Russia after a large meteor burned up in the skies above the southern Ural’s region causing a shockwave that damaged buildings across a wide area. Most of those hurt suffered minor cuts and bruises from flying glass, but several dozen had to be kept in hospital. The meteor released several kilotonnes of energy equivalent to that of a nuclear bomb. An official in Chelyabinsk, Polina Zolotarevskaya, described what she had seen.
“It was quite extraordinary. We saw a very bright light and then there was a kind of a track, white and yellow in the sky. It was a very broad track. And then in several seconds, there was a strong explosion.”
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said he thanked God that no big fragments from the meteor had fallen in populated areas.
An asteroid about half the size of a football field has safely passed Earth in what scientists say as the closest known approach for an object of its size. At its nearest point, the rock, with a diameter of about 45 metres came within about 28,000 kilometres of Earth, closer than some TV and weather satellites. Scientists say the asteroid has nothing to do with the Russian meteor. It’s just a cosmic coincidence.
The South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius has denied murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. In a statement issued after Mr Pistorius was charged in Pretoria, his family said that he disputed the charge. This report from Peter Biles.
Oscar Pistorius remains in police custody after his dramatic court appearance at which he broke down and sobbed. He’ll spend the next three days at a police station in Pretoria before returning to court on Tuesday. State prosecutors will oppose a bail application. They say this is a case of premeditated murder. But Oscar Pistorius’s family issued a statement saying the alleged murder was disputed in the strongest terms. They refer to the killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp as a terrible, terrible tragedy.
The Venezuelan government has released the first photo of President Hugo Chavez since his fourth round of cancer surgery which he underwent in Cuba last December. There’s been widespread speculation about when or whether the president will resume his leadership. Sarah Grainger reports from Caracas.
The photos show Mr Chavez wearing his customary tracksuit, reclining on a bed next to his two daughters. He’s smiling in one of the pictures reading a copy of a recent edition of the Cuban newspaper Granma. Addressing the public on state television, Venezuela’s Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said President Chavez was breathing through a tracheal tube and could not speak at present. But he also stressed the measure was reversible. Ministers have been under pressure to produce some good news about President Chavez. Just a week ago the government announced that it was devaluing Venezuela’s currency.
World News from the BBC
The International Committee of the Red Cross says the humanitarian situation in Syria is catastrophic. The organisation’s director of operations said he’d seen unbearable suffering for civilians on a recent trip to the country. Imogen Foulkes reports from Geneva.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has been working in Syria since the start of the conflict. It describes the situation now as nothing short of catastrophic. The number of different armed groups is increasing. Villages change hands on a daily basis. Attacks on hospitals and the killing of nurses and doctors are now so common. The Red Cross says that the health service in some parts of the country has become a wasteland.
The authorities in the Netherlands have raided a meat processing plant they suspect of mixing horsemeat with beef and selling it as pure beef. It’s the latest in a series of similar actions across Europe. As Matthew Price reports from Brussels:
This scandal has spread fast. Across Europe, some 13 countries so far have been affected. The Brussels bureaucracy has moved uncharacteristically rapidly. EU food safety officials decided to start new tests immediately to find out how much of the food chain has been affected. It’s clear this is not the result of one or two rogue suppliers. It’s beginning to look like an industry and continental-wide problem.
A British academic has stumbled upon a 500-year-old proclamation calling for the arrest of the Renaissance political writer Niccolo Machiavelli in the Italian city of Florence. The Medici family, who ruled Florence at the time, accused Machiavelli of plotting to overthrow them. He was detained, tortured and placed under house arrest, where he started writing his famous book The Prince, describing the art of political manipulation. The term Machiavellian is still synonymous with the cunning pursuit of power.
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