BBC News with Jonathan Izard
A magistrate in South Africa has granted bail to the athlete Oscar Pistorius who denies murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Bail has been set over 110,000 dollars. Mr. Pistorius who says he shot Ms. Steenkamp thinking she was a burglar must also avoid his home and surrender his firearms and passports. His next court appearance will be on June 4th. Andrew Harding was in court in Pretoria.
It took two hours in a packed expectant courtroom for the magistrate reaches decision, Oscar Pistorius listening in silence. The magistrate Desmond Nair had discussed whether a man as well-known as the Paralympic athlete might skip bail as the prosecution argued. The magistrate ruled that Oscar Pistorius was not a flight risk nor the threat to witnesses. But he also concluded that he had some concerns about the athlete’s statement regarding the shooting of his girlfriend in the middle of the night. The magistrate suggested that prosecution and defense had in a sense fought each other to a draw over the last few days in their competing versions of the shooting.
The main Syrian opposition group has said it will meet in Istanbul next week to choose a prime minister to head a provisional government that will operate in rebel-held areas of Syria. The proposals from the Syrian National Coalition emerged after two days of talks in Cairo, from where Jim Muir reports.
The idea of a transitional government has been in the air ever since the opposition coalition was formed in Qatar in November. But if it fails to attract sufficient financial and diplomatic support and if it can’t operate inside the rebel-held areas of Syria still subject to intensive bombardment by government forces, the coalition may lose its already shaky credibility. But if it doesn’t try, it risks leading those areas to slide further out of control and increasingly into the hands of radical Islamist factions which are making the running on the ground.
Police in Bangladesh say at least four protesters have been killed in clashes with the security forces. In the capital Dhaka thousands of demonstrators from alliances Islamic groups demanded the execution of bloggers who they’ve accuse of blasphemy. Police used rubber bullets and teargas. Some protesters threw stones and vandalized buildings.
The United Nations has warned that a major humanitarian crisis in the south of Democratic Republic of Congo while the UN is focused on the M23 rebels in the east. M23 rebels are due to sign a peace deal on Sunday but the UN has said that problems in the south are escalating. From the UN, Barbara Plett reports.
The UN says an increase in militia attacks have produced a major humanitarian crisis in the southern Katanga province, the heart of the mining industry in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN envoy to the country Roger Meece told the Security Council the situation had reached alarming proportions and would likely grow worse. The government is already overstretched by a separate insurgency in the east of the country led by the M23 rebel group. In response to that, the UN is discussing plans to deploy a combat brigade to beef up its existing peacekeeping mission.
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The most senior Roman Catholic in Britain says priests should be allowed to marry and have children. In a BBC interview, Cardinal Keith O’Brien said the next pope will be free to change the current policy because the principle of celibacy wasn’t of divine origin as it hadn’t come directly from Jesus Christ. Cardinal O’Brien said many priests struggled to cope with celibacy.
“I realize that many priests have found it very difficult to cope with celibacy as they lived out their priesthood and felt the need of a companion, of a woman to whom he could get married and raise a family of their own.”
The Cardinal who is the leader of Catholic Church in Scotland will be part of the conclave that will choose the next pope after the resignation of Benedict XVI.
A row over the death of a Russian boy adopted by an American family has worsened. The Russian parliament has passed the statement alleging that he was murdered by his adoptive parents and demanding the return of the boy’s brother from the same family. Here is Dan Rodjevich.
The three-year-old Maxim Shatto born as Maxim Kuzmin died a month ago. His adoptive mother in Texas says she found him unconscious in the family’s garden. Investigators in the U.S. are yet to announce their findings about the cause of death. Yet in Russia just weeks after the country decided to ban American citizens from adopting Russian children officials immediately said they suspected the boy might have died because of cruel treatment by his adoptive family. On Friday the Russian parliament fully backed the allegation.
A ruling by Uruguayan Supreme Court will prevent new trials of human rights abuses committed during the military governments in the 1970s and 80s. The court declared unconstitutional a law approved two years ago which lifted the statute of limitations on human rights abuses. The ruling effectively reinstates an amnesty law from 1996 that shielded most military officers from being prosecuted.
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