BBC News with Marion Marshall
A $35m initiative against rape in wartime has been launched by the G8 group of industrialized countries. The money will be used to document incidents and to fund legal assistance for victims, as well as training peacekeepers to respond to sexual violence. At a G8 foreign ministers meeting in London, the British Foreign Secretary William Hague said sexual violence inflicted unimaginable suffering. The American actress Angelina Julie, who is a special envoy for the UN and has campaigned with Mr Hague on the issue welcomed the new commitment.
"I've heard survivors of rape from Bosnia to the DRC say that they feel that the world simply does not care about them. And who could blame them? For too long, they have been the forgotten victims of the war, responsible for none of the harm but bearing the worst of the pain. But today, I believe their voices have been heard and that we finally have some hope to offer them."
President Obama has called on North Korea to end what he called its belligerent approach. In recent weeks, North Korea has threatened war against the United States and its allies in response to UN sanctions over its nuclear weapons program. Speaking after talks with the UN Secretary General, he said that no one wanted to see a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
"It's important for North Korea, like every other country in the world, to observe the basic rules and norms that are set forth, including a wide variety of UN resolutions that have passed. And we will continue to try to work to resolve some of those issues diplomatically, even as I indicated the Secretary General that the United States will take all necessary steps to protect its people and to meet our obligations under our alliances in the region."
The government of Cyprus has confirmed that it will have to raise nearly twice as much money as previously thought towards an international bailout. An extra six billion euros on top of the seven billion it had already agreed. Officials said a deeper recession had resulted in more government spending on benefits and further recapitalization of troubled banks.
The Untied States senators have voted to debated new gun restrictions for the first time in 20 years. The vote was prompted by a massacre at a Connecticut primary school last year. Republicans who'd threatened to filibuster the motion were defeated by 68 votes to 31. The Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid said the killings at Newtown had changed attitudes.
"America has a different view of this and blame us just a while ago. We all believe in the constitution, we all know what all these amendments are about and what they're supposed to do and we're going to make sure that during this debate we keep the constitution in mind. But the families of the most recent tragedy in Newtown deserve a debate."
World news from the BBC
The founder and chief executive of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has joined a campaign for immigration reform in the United States. He's launched a pressure group Forward US backed by other leading entrepreneurs from companies such as Google, Yahoo and Linkedin as well as Silicon Valley investors. Mr Zuckergerg called the current US immigration policy unfit for today's world. He said he wanted comprehensive reform to allow businesses to attract the most talented and hardest working people no matter where they were born.
Tunisia has received about $29m from what it calls the looted assets held abroad by the ousted President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and his family. The money has been held in a Lebanese bank account in the name of the wife of Mr Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia after an uprising two years ago.
France's chief rabbi is leaving his post after admitting to plagiarism and lying about his academic background. The scandal began after a news magazine revealed that Gilles Bernheim had passed off another writer's work as his own. He also admitted to falsely stating that he'd obtained a prestigious qualification from the Sorbonne University in Paris. Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.
Gilles Bernheim started by denying the plagiarism, then he admitted it, but said it was a sin of pride which would not justify him deserting his post, but finally he has come to growing pressure from the Jewish community and agree to step down. He expressed his apologies for having misled people but said he hoped the scandal would not overshadow his works since 2008 as the country's senior rabbi.
The Nobel Prize medal awarded to the British scientist Francis Crick in 1962 for his discovery of DNA has sold for more than $2m at auction in New York. It was bought by Jack Wang, the chief executive of a bio-medical company based in Shanghai in China. Mr Crick's family is selling some of his possessions to coincide with the 60th Anniversary of the discovery.