BBC News with Iain Purdon
The United State special forces in Afghanistan are being given two weeks to leave the strategically important province of Wardak. A spokesman for the Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the decision has been taken after alleged abuses by Afghans working with American special forces. Karen Allen reports.
President Karzai's spokesman said US special forces would be expelled from the strategically significant province of Wardak within the next two weeks. It comes made allegations that Afghan units which the government says are working and paid for by the US teams are linked to allegations of torture and disappearances. A preliminary investigation also blames them for beheading university students in the province. Wardak has been the focus of recent counter insurgence operations and seen as a gateway for the Taliban to target Kabul. A spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan said they take all allegations of misconducts seriously.
Eleven African countries have signed an agreement aimed at ending the two decade insurgency in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The deal stipulates that the 11 signatures will not interfere in the each others internal affairs. The accusation often made against Rwanda and Uganda over their backing of Congolese rebel groups. The United Nations mediated deal will also say a 2,500 strong intervention brigade deployed in the eastern DRC.
A leading opposition figure in Egypt has called on President Morsi not to go ahead with parliamentary elections in April. In an interview with the BBC, Mohamed ElBaradei said that to do so would risk bringing total chaos and instability to a society that was ready polarized.
We need to send the message loud and clear, to the people here, to the people outside of Egypt, that this is not a democracy, that we have not participated in an uprising two years ago, to end up with, you know, a recycling of the Mubarak regime, when torture still there, when abduction is still there, when a lack of social justice - basic needs. So, I took the decision that we will not participate in a sham election.
Polling stations are closing in Italy at the end of the first day what has been seen as the country's most important parliamentary election for a generation. There will be a second and final day of voting on Monday. Gavin Hewitt reports.
The front-runner is the centre-left candidate Pier Luigi Bersani who will make growth rather than an austerity his priority. Europe leaders hope he can form a coalition with Mario Monti - the former unelected prime minister and a man credited with restoring some stability to Italy's government. Silvio Berlusconi may not win, but he does well as in the senate may end up with influence. Much attention will focus on Beppe Grillo - a comedian who is attracting a large protest vote, potentially making it very difficult to form a credible administration.
World News from the BBC
The centre-right candidate Nicos Anastasiades has won the presidential election in Cyprus with one of the widest margins in 30 years. The Conservative leader took more than 57% of the votes to secure a comfortable win over his left-wing rival Stavros Malas. The most pressing task facing as a new president will be to negotiate 70bn Euro bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
The Revolutionary Guard in Iran has said it'd downed one of its own unmanned aircraft as part of training drone rather than a foreign drone as it’d previously suggested. A spokesman for the Revolutionary Guard said on Saturday that its electronic warfare unit have forced to foreign drone to land after taking control of its navigation system.
The mother of the South African fashion model Reeva Steenkamp who was shot dead by her boyfriend, the athlete Oscar Pistorius has spoken of the moment she learned of her daughter was dead. Interviews by a South African current affairs programme, Carte Blanche - the eminent network - June Steenkamp said a man who said was calling from a police station told her the news.
...and he said is that Reeva, and I said yes, and he said there's been an accident and she's been shot. And I said all I want to know now is she alive or is she dead. The man says he was a police and say: I'm sorry to have to tell you, but I don't want you to go up and read in the paper that she's dead.
And finally, the remote Algerian gas plant at the centre of a deadly hostage-taking last month has resumed production. The Tiguentourine plant has been closed since the attack by al-Qaeda-linked gunmen who took hundreds of local and dozens of foreign workers hostage. The Algerian army ended the siege by storming the complex, but not before 29 insurgents and at least 37 hostages were killed.
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