BBC News with Marion Marshall.
Counting is underway in Kenya following the first general elections to be held there since the bitterly contested poll of 2007. Voting had to be extended in some places after long queues formed. The race for the presidency is expected to be tight with the Prime Minister Raila Odinga being challenged by his deputy Uhuru Kenyatta. The BBC’s Anne Soy is at the national counting centre in the capital Nairobi.
So far Uhuru Kenyatta is in the lead with just over 650,000 votes. Raila Odinga is following at 450,000. Now it’s still very significant given that Kenya has 14.3 million registered voters. And according to the electoral commission that just gave a statement about half an hour ago, they expect that the voter turnout would be well over 70 per cent—those are the early indications, but could be higher once the results are released.
Iraqi officials say at least 40 Syrians and seven Iraqis have been killed in an ambush by gunmen in the Iraqi province of Anbar. The convoy was attacked with mortar rounds and automatic weapons. James Reynolds reports.
Initial reports say that a number of Syrian soldiers escaped into northern Iraq following heavy fighting against rebels in their own country. One report suggests that Iraqi officials took the soldiers further south and arranged for them to cross from the Sunni-majority Anbar province back into Syria. But reports say that the soldiers’ convoy was ambushed before it crossed the border. The identity of the assailants is not yet clear. Some Sunni Muslims in Iraq sympathise with the Sunni rebels in Syria, who are fighting against the government of Bashar al-Assad.
Separately, Syrian opposition activists say rebel fighters have driven government forces out of most parts of the northern city of Raqqa. They say cheering people have torn down a bronze statue of the late father of the Syrian President Bashar Assad, which stood in the city. The reports haven’t been verified and BBC correspondent says Syrian rebels often struggle to hold onto territory they’ve taken. Opposition fighters already control parts of Damascus, Aleppo and Homs.
The upper house of the Czech parliament has voted to charge President Vaclav Klaus with high treason over his controversial decision to pardon several thousand prisoners. He announced the amnesty which covers almost a third of the prison population in January. Rob Cameron reports.
The Czech Republic faces an unprecedented constitutional case against its most senior official after a landmark vote to impeach the conservative president for treason. President Klaus will now be referred to the constitutional court to defend a number of accusations including charges stemming from his New Year’s Day amnesty, under which several dozen high-profile corruption cases were halted. The Senate is dominated by leftist opponents of Mr Klaus and he leaves office anyway on Thursday.
World News from the BBC.
A fire has killed nine children at a Koranic school in the Senegalese capital Dakar. The blaze broke out as 45 children aged from six to twelve slept in a packed room with wooden walls and zinc roofing. A candle is thought to have caused the blaze. Human rights groups have repeatedly warned of the poor conditions in which children are housed in Koranic schools.
In Britain Queen Elizabeth has left hospital after spending a night there with a stomach infection. Peter Hunt reports.
The Queen left hospital after a briefer-than-expected stay. Dressed in red, she said goodbye to a nurse on the steps of the King Edward VII's Hospital and then was driven off in a green Bentley to Buckingham Palace. According to officials, she’s been suffering from the symptoms of gastroenteritis which include vomiting and diarrhoea. For the past 24 hours, the 86-year-old monarch has been assessed by doctors. The nature of her treatment hasn’t been made public. It could have included tests to establish if the symptoms she’s been suffering from have been caused by an infection or a potentially more serious underlying problem.
The Mexican telecommunications magnet Carlos Slim has topped the Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s richest people for the fourth year running. Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, came second followed by Amancio Ortega from the Spanish retailer Zara, who saw the biggest increase in his wealth. The American publication said more than 200 people joined its list of the world’s billionaires this year.
Hundreds of people in western Bosnia have held a mock funeral for their own town to protest about unemployment, which has risen to 80 per cent following the collapse of a wood factory that was the last major local employer. They lit candles for the soul of the town of Drvar and left traditional obituary placards on electricity poles and in shop windows. The protesters accused the authorities of not doing enough to revive the town’s economy after it suffered extensive damage during the Bosnian War.
BBC News.