BBC News with Fiona MacDonald
President Obama has promised a vigorous investigation into reports that forces loyal to the Syrian leader have used chemical weapons. Speaking during talks with King Abdullah of Jordan, Mr Obama repeated that proof of the deployment of chemical weapons would be, in his words, a game changer. However, he stressed that the intelligence assessments were preliminary.
"We are going to be working with countries like Jordan to try to obtain more direct evidence and confirmation of this potential use. In the meantime, I’ve been very clear publicly, but also privately, that for the Syrian government to utilize chemical weapons on its people crosses a line that will change my calculus and how the United States approaches these issues. So this is not an on or off switch. This is an ongoing challenge that all of us have to be concerned about.”
A United Nations envoy Martin Kobler has warned that Iraq is at a crossroads after a wave of violence, which has left more than 150 people dead since Tuesday. The fighting has raised fears of a return to wider sectarian conflict between minority Sunnis and the Shia-led government. Here’s the BBC’s Nahed Abouzeid.
The Iraqi government’s decision to act firmly to end the protests in Sunni areas has increased the level of tension in the country. Sunni leaders accused the army of committing a massacre when they stormed the protest camp in the town of Hawija. The Shia-led government says, however, that soldiers were attacked and acted in self-defence. And the latest violence in Baghdad, a series of attacks on Sunni mosques, caused many casualties and the protests by the Sunnis have continued since the start of the year in the Anbar district and show little sign of stopping.
Rescue workers searching the rubble of a collapsed building in Bangladesh say they’ve found a large number of survivors in one corner of the site. They remain trapped. More than 300 people are known to have died when the eight-storey building collapsed on Wednesday. It housed a number of factories that made clothes for budget retailers in Europe and the United States.
Police in Moscow say they’ve arrested around 140 people suspected of links with Islamic extremist groups. Dejan Radojevic reports.
The arrests were made in the south of Moscow in a building used as a place of worship by the city’s growing Muslim community, many of whom are migrant workers from former Soviet republics. Of those detained, more than 30 are said to be foreign nationals. It’s not clear what they are accused of. Local media alleged some people who prayed at the mosque later joined militant Islamic groups, fighting in Russia’s North Caucasus.
World News from the BBC
A bomb explosion at a political meeting in the Pakistani city of Karachi has killed ten people and wounded 25 others. The Taliban said it carried out the attack as part of its policy of targeting secular political parties, who spoke of fighting against the group. It’s the third bombing by the Taliban in Karachi since Wednesday.
Kenya’s new vice president, William Ruto, has asked the International Criminal Court to delay his trial for alleged crimes against humanity. The charges against him relate to post-election violence in Kenya five years ago, in which more than 1,000 people were killed. Karen Allen reports from Nairobi.
William Ruto’s lawyers have argued that there are genuine legal reasons to request a delay in his trial. These relate to the full-disclosure of witness identities which they say are required to prepare a thorough defence. Yet some will interpret the move as an attempt to kick the ICC case into the long grass a little over a fortnight after Mr Ruto was sworn in as Kenya’s new vice president. Already there’ve been requests for the trial to be heard by video link and for proceedings to move from The Hague to Arusha in Tanzania.
Wildlife campaigners say that elephant poachers are taking advantage of instability in the Central African Republic to kill more of the endangered species. They say elephant meat is being sold openly in markets in the southwest of the country. Anti-poaching rangers say Sudanese elephant hunters are working with armed Seleka rebels, who seized control of the Central African Republic in March.
Two Honduran police officials who were in charge of purging the force of corrupt officers have resigned after coming under heavy criticism in Congress for their lack of progress. One of them said that there was a mistaken perception that the police force could be purged in a day. The Honduran president has made tackling police corruption a high priority.