BBC News with Jonathan Izard
The Nigerian army says it’s destroyed a number of extensive and well-equipped camps being used by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram to launch terror attacks against local communities. At a news conference in Abuja, a Nigerian general showed photographs of what he said were hospital facilities, dormitories, and fuel depots. Mark Doyle was there.
Most of what was said at the press conference can’t be independently verified. Journalists can’t work freely in the conflict areas of north-eastern Nigeria because they are so dangerous. But a senior Nigerian officer just back from the north-east, Brig Gen Chris Olukolade, did reveal that some of the insurgent camps which the army says are now all destroyed were relatively extensive military facilities. It’s clear that some parts of northern Nigeria are still highly insecure. Foreigners and some Nigerians limit their movements in case of bombings or kidnap.
At least two people have died in an attack by militants in the Afghan capital Kabul. Explosions were followed by a gun battle that lasted for several hours. David Loyn reports.
A short time after they started shooting, a known spokesman for the Taliban phoned the BBC to say that they were responsible. He said that the target was a building housing what he called CIA advisors who were training Afghan intelligence officials. But the injured all came from an international organization that worked with displaced people. One foreign aid worker was seriously injured and three Nepali guards were also taken to hospital; one died of his injuries. Much of the centre of the city was locked down for several hours as fighting continued. Specially trained Afghan commandos fought alongside Afghan police to try to take control of the situation.
Prosecutors in Paris have decided not to place under formal investigation the managing director of International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde. After two days of questioning, a court in Paris has decided Ms Lagarde be only named as an assisted witness in the allegedly fraudulent payment of $400m to the controversial businessman, Bernard Tapie. From Paris, David Chazan has the details.
The status of assisted witness is far less damaging for Ms Lagarde than if she had been placed under formal investigation, which could have put her under pressure to resign as IMF chief. There will be relief in France where it had been feared that the country’s image could have been tarnished if Ms Lagarde had been forced to step down. Her predecessor as head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was also French, had to resign in the midst of a sex scandal.
China has signed the framework for a free-trade agreement with Switzerland, a deal which could become Beijing’s first with a major Western economy. Full details are expected to be finalised in July. The two countries already sell each other more than $26bn worth of goods a year. The BBC correspondent in Bern says that China has hinted it would also make Switzerland its financial centre of choice if Beijing allows off-shore trading of its currency, the yuan.
World News from the BBC
The popular Portuguese novelist and journalist Miguel Sousa Tavares has been investigated by prosecutors for calling the president a clown. If charged and found guilty, he could be jailed for three years. In a newspaper interview, Mr Tavares said Portugal had no need for a politician like the Italian Beppe Grillo, a former comedian, as it already had a clown as president. From Lisbon, here’s Alison Roberts.
Mr Sousa Tavares is not being investigated for libel, but for the crime of offending the honour of the president of the republic, the attorney general’s office said in a statement. It didn’t say if the move was prompted by the president himself, as it has been reported. If criminal proceedings were to run their full course, it might not do much good for the president’s image. Mr Sousa Tavares’s work is hugely popular. By contrast, recent polls show Mr Cavaco Silva with the lowest ratings of any Portuguese president ever.
The BBC has written off almost $150m after admitting an ambitious project to develop a revolutionary new digital archive system hasn’t worked. The BBC’s chief technology officer has been suspended pending a top-level investigation, and the team running the failed five-year project has been disbanded. The corporation’s head of strategy, James Purnell, said it had reached the point where good money was being thrown after bad.
"We messed up, I’m afraid, and everybody at the BBC is mortified because there’s been a really significant waste of license fee payers’ money. It was a project they’ve had a very good idea to start , but was too ambitious, has gone wrong.”
The former president of Guatemala, Alfonso Portillo, has been flown to the United States where he faces corruption charges. The American authorities accuse him of laundering $72m of public money during his presidency between 2000 and 2004. Mr Portillo had long been fighting the extradition, saying there was no proof against him. He told a Guatemalan radio station he was being unjustly kidnapped before boarding a plane to New York.