BBC News with Sue Montgomery.
Chinese state media say rescue teams are working to free 83 miners buried by a landslide near the Tibetan capital Lhasa. More than 1,000 emergency workers have been sent to the disaster site. Here’s Steve Jackson.
The landslide described by Chinese media was on a huge scale spreading mud and rock over an area of 4sq km. The missing miners were working for a subsidiary of a state-owned gold mining company at high altitude in a mountainous region. Many are believed to have been asleep when the landslide struck. Rescue teams with sniffer dogs have been searching for signs of life and dozens of excavators are reported to be digging through the debris. Local officials described the landslide as a natural disaster, although intensive mining activity has in the past been known to trigger such events.
Greek media have published a list of loans written off by banks at the heart of the financial crisis in Cyprus. The Bank of Cyprus, Laiki and Hellenic Bank apparently forgave loans of millions of euros to companies, local authorities and politicians. Here’s Chloe Hadjimatheou.
A list has been published featuring names from all of Cyprus’s main parties apart from the Social Democrats and the Ecologists. The Bank of Cyprus is said to have written off a 2.8m-euro loan to a hotel with ties to the communist Progressive Party, which was in power until last month. And a prominent member of President Anastasiades’s Democratic Rally party is said to have had more than 100,000-euro worth of loans wiped out.
Savers with more than 100,000 euros in the banks currently face losses under a levy imposed in return for an EU bailout.Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Cyprus has eased some of their financial restrictions imposed after the country received its bailout. Debit and credit cards can be used normally for domestic payments, but strict controls will remain on international transfers to stop money flowing out of the country.
Talks about forming a coalition government in Italy have again broken up without agreement. The president, Giorgio Napolitano, who’s been chairing the negotiations, said it was now time to pause for reflection. The centre-left Democrats won the largest share of the vote in the elections in February but fell short of a majority. Alan Johnston reports from Rome.
One after the other, representatives of each of the big political parties went into talks with President Napolitano and each group emerged to give a brief statement. But nothing any of them said through the day suggested that much progress was being made. There was no indication that compromise might be in the air. Nobody really knows how President Napolitano might attempt to play his very difficult hand and the situation is made more complicated by the fact that this key figure in the drama is entering the final weeks of his period in office.
World News from the BBC.
The authorities in the Libyan city of Benghazi say they’ve arrested two men over sexual attacks on three British women. The women had been trying to reach Gaza in an aid convoy, but were stopped on the border between Libya and Egypt. They then travelled to Benghazi by taxi, but were abducted at a checkpoint. There are conflicting reports about what happened. The women have now returned to Britain.
The United States has blamed North Korea for an increasing tension between the two countries after Pyongyang threatened military action in response to US bomber flights over the Korean Peninsula. Here’s Jonny Dymond.
Ever since North Korea was hit with UN sanctions following its most recent nuclear test, there’s been a new tone. And America has not been slow in responding-- the flight of two B-2 stealth bombers from the American mainland over the Korean Peninsula, an open indication of America’s commitment to its South Korean ally. The United States said the White House this morning remains committed to safeguarding its allies and interests in the region. China has appealed for calm. The Russian foreign minister warned that he could see the situation getting out of control.
Chinese police have arrested the brother-in-law of the jailed dissident and Nobel peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo. A lawyer for the family says Liu Hui was detained in Beijing in January and charged with property fraud. The political activist Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year prison sentence for subversion after calling for democratic reform. His wife is under house arrest and her family say they are under constant close surveillance by public security officials.
Animal rights activists in Mexico have demanded an official investigation into alleged cases of animal torture by street gangs carrying out initiation rituals. In a petition to the authorities in the city of Leon, they said one gang had beaten to death a pregnant dog and burnt a cat alive.