BBC News with Jonathan Izard
A spokesman for the United Nations human rights commission Rupert Colville has said the forced feeding of prisoners at the American detention camp Guantanamo Bay contravenes international law. About 100 inmates of the camp on hunger strike and camp officials said at least 20 are been fed through nasal tubes. Mr. Colville described this development as very worrying.
"It's clearly against the will of the people who've been forcibly fed, then in a view of the World Medical Association and indeed our view, this would amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment which is not permissible under international law."
President Obama has said he does not want any prisoners to die in Guantanamo and has pledged to renew efforts to close the camp down.
President Obama has said that the United States does not know how chemical weapons have been used in Syria or when or by whom. At a news conference in Washington, Mr. Obama repeated that the US did have evidence of chemical weapons use, but he said he had to make sure the facts before deciding on a response. He added that he had asked the Pentagon for a range of options if it was proved that President Assad had used chemical weapons.
The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has declared that Syria has real friends who will not allow it fall to American, Israeli and Islamic extremists. The Syrian opposition has long claimed that Hezbollah, a Shiah Muslim movement based in Lebanon has been supplying fighters to help President Assad. Sebastian Usher reports.
In a live broadcast on Hezbollah's TV station, Al-Manar, Hassan Nasrallah raised the stakes in his movement support for its longtime backer, President Assad. He tacitly confirmed that the Lebanese Shiah movement has been involved in Syria, saying it had never hidden its martyrs, but the reports of large numbers of its members killed were lies. He backed this up with a warning, saying if the key Shiah shrine in Damascus were to be destroyed; it would spark revenge which could get out of control. He tried to reassure his domestic audience, but above all, Hezbollah wanted to avoid a Syrian war coming to Lebanon, but many there may find little to comfort them in his latest show of defiance.
An extensive global survey of Muslim attitudes to religious, political and social issues shows most Muslims want their countries to adopt Islamic Sharia Law, although they differ on how strictly it should be applied. Thirty-eight thousand Muslims in 39 countries were conversed by the US based Pew Research Center. Jane Frances-Kelly reports.
Sharia is the moral code and religious law of Islam. A solid majority of Muslims question notably in Asia, Africa and the Middle East were in favor of it being adopted as the law of the land. This allowed Sharia cords to preside over family legal issues such as divorce and property disputes. However, in most countries there was less support for severe punishments, such as cutting off the hands of thieves or executing people who convert from Islam to another faith. Violence carried out in the name of Islam was also widely rejected, although substantial minorities in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territory said it was permissible.
BBC News
Italy's new Prime Minister Enrico Letta says Europe must be as determined to promote growth as it has been to control spending. Mr. Letta fresh from announcing his plans to lift his country out of a protracted recession was speaking in Berlin alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel, he said austerity policies had failed to bring growth.
"It's important to understand that the big crisis we've been going through for five years has not been solved, because Europe hasn't been strong enough to find solutions. That's my government's most important objective to achieve, an objective I am convinced we will achieve with a strong mutually agreement between Germany and Italy."
Mrs. Merkel said controlling budgets and pursuing growth were not opposing economic strategies.
Parliament in Cyprus has narrowly ratified the country's bailout deal imposing tough conditions in exchange for a loan. MPs decided by a majority only two to accept the agreement. Chris Morris reports.
Parliamentary approval will be it by a razor-thin margin means Cyprus should receive the first installment of international bailout loans within weeks. Otherwise it would have run out of money with the government warning that salaries and pensions would have been unpaid. This latest Euro Zone bailout is relatively small, but for the first time depositors have been forced to bear the cost of recapitalizing failing banks. The main opposition party argued that the country should seek alternative funding, but the government narrowly won the day, saying there was little choice but to accept an agreement which will change the very nature of the Cypriot economy.
The Congress in Mexico has approved a major reform of the country's telecommunications industry, a move that could challenge the business empire of the world's richest man, Carlos Slim. The shakeup aims to improve competition in the market dominated by Mr. Slim's America Movil and a big television network Televisa. The changes will allow more foreign investment and include the creation of a new regulatory agency.