BBC News with David Austin
The United States is to bolster its missile defence system to counter what it calls a growing threat from North Korea. The Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said 14 additional interceptors would be deployed in Alaska along with a radar tracking station in Japan. Mr Hagel said he was determined to keep ahead of the threat presented by the increasing long-range ballistic missile capability in both North Korea and Iran.
"The American people expect us to take every necessary step to protect their security at home and US strategic interests abroad, but they expect us to do so in the most efficient and effective manner possible. By taking the steps I’ve outlined today, we will strengthen our homeland defence, maintain our commitments to our allies and partners, and make clear to the world that the United States stands firm against aggression.”
The Treasury in Washington says it will end restrictions on American citizens sending money to the opposition rebel coalition in Syria. It exempts the rebels from wide-ranging sanctions imposed shortly after the start of the mass movement attempting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Matt Wells in Washington has more details.
The announcement on Friday from the US Treasury which controls financial sanctions lifts the ban on citizens, companies and banks sending money to the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. The sanctions law remained, but for now the US government wants to do whatever it can, short of sending arms, to aid the rebel effort. A statement from the Treasury said that the Syrian government had sacrificed all legitimacy in its violent attempts to cling to power. The US has already said it will provide medical supplies and food directly to opposition fighters.
The Vatican has rejected as defamatory allegations that Pope Francis did not do enough to protect two priests in his native Argentina during the country’s military dictatorship more than 30 years ago. Here’s James Robbins.
The Vatican has responded to allegations that Pope Francis much earlier in his life as a senior Jesuit priest failed to protect two fellow Jesuits who were kidnapped. The Vatican says there has never been accusation that was concrete or credible. In a statement the Vatican said he had tried to protect people during the so-called Dirty War under military dictatorship in the late 1970s and early 1980s in Argentina. Later as a bishop, he had promoted the whole cause of reconciliation. The Vatican has accused what it called a left-wing publication of bias and of pursuing an anti-clerical campaign.
The body of the late president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has arrived at a military museum in Caracas where it will be laid to rest. It was received by a military guard of honour. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans, many of them in red, the colour of Mr Chavez’s political movement, lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the hearse carrying his body from the military academy.
This is the World News from the BBC.
After weeks of political manoeuvring a deal has been signed to form a new government in Israel. The Likud party of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will form a coalition including the centrist Yesh Atid and the pro-settler Jewish Home parties. Reports say there have been weeks of hard bargaining over the allocation of government jobs. The new coalition is the first in a decade to exclude ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties.
Current and former executives of the giant American bank JP Morgan are facing tough questioning by a US Senate sub-committee investigating how a star trader lost $6.2bn last year. The committee chairman, Senator Carl Levin, compared the trading operation to a runaway train barrelling through every risk limit.
Prosecutors investigating widespread embezzlement of state funds in Senegal have ordered the son of the former president to justify an estimated fortune of $1.3bn. Karim Wade held several ministerial posts during his father Abdoulaye’s 12-year presidency. Mr Wade’s lawyer said he proved the allegations to be groundless.
Surgeons in London have carried out the world’s first liver transplant using a newly developed machine which keeps the donated organ alive at body temperature before it’s transplanted. The prototype invented at Oxford University was used successfully on two patients. The machine’s co-inventor, Professor Constantin Coussios, said they’d had to recreate the type of environment that the liver would normally encounter within the human body.
"You should think about it. A warm-preserved organ is very very different to something stored on ice. It has to be kept warm. It is now breathing and burning sugar just as it would within the body. So it needs to be fed. It needs to be oxygenated. Blood needs to be circulated around it.”Professor Constantin Coussios
It’s hoped commercial models will revolutionise liver and other organ transplantations saving many lives.