BBC News with Julie Candler.
The French foreign minister Laurent Fabius has said there is solid evidence that the Syrian government has used the nerve agent sarin against rebel fighters in Syria. Mr. Fabius said tests carried out in French laboratories on blood and urine samples from victims of an attack on the northern town of Saraqeb in April had detected traces of sarin.
“The conclusions of the laboratory are clear. There is sarin gas. The other question is: can we trace it? Who use the sarin gas? In the second case, there are no doubts that it is the regime and its accomplices.”
Mr. Fabius said the test results had been handed to the United Nations.
The American Secretary of State John Kerry has sharply criticized prison terms handed down by an Egyptian court to 43 pro-democracy workers, most of them foreigners in a case against unlicensed non-governmental organizations. Mr. Kerry described the trial as politically motivated and said it ran counter to Egypt’s transition to democracy. Only five of the foreigners including one American were present in the court in Cairo on Tuesday. They were given two-year jail sentences.
Turkey’s deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc has apologized for the violent police response to an environmental protest last week which sparked an unprecedented wave of anti-government unrest. Mr. Arinc admitted that police teargas had exacerbated what he called legitimate grievances but called for an immediate end to the protests. Despite his appeal, thousands have gathered in Taksim Square in Istanbul for the fifth consecutive night as James Reynolds reports.
The protesters say they won’t give up until they get what they want. In the square and the park they have now made themselves at home. They’ve set up small shops even they make shift chemists. Barricades on nearby roads act as their unofficial borders. Taksim Square has now become the protesters own mini republic.
Amnesty International has said Mexico is not doing enough to investigate the disappearances of thousands of people in the last six years. In a new report the human rights group accuses the Mexican government of tolerating and failing to act on what it called a national crisis. From Mexico City, Will Grant.
This report comes at an important time. As recently as last month the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto announced new measures to tackle a problem which by the government’s own admission stands at some 26,000 missing persons since the drug war worsened six years ago. Among the steps the interior ministry promised with a new unit dedicated to finding the missing in greater efforts to tiling national database of human remains in the country’s morgues with the DNA of disappeared people.
World News from the BBC.
Nigeria has imposed an official ban on the Islamist group Boko Haram declaring it a terrorist organization. The new law also applies to Ansaru, a suspected offshoot of Boko Haram. The order means anyone who supports the activities of either group faces a prison term of at least 20 years. The United States has offered a reward of up to seven million dollars for helping capture in Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau.
The European Union is imposing import duties on Chinese made solar panels. The EU said the tariffs would be introduced as China had been selling the panels at less than cost price in a bid to corner the market, a practice known as dumping. The tariff of about 12% will be introduced immediately rising to about 47% in August if no agreement has been reached with China by then. The EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht told the BBC the measure was necessary to protect the European industry.
“If European enterprises want to be innovative, they, of course lead a level playing field so that they compete. Because you have new developments and you need new developments in the sector. So it’s really about creating the right conditions so that European and Chinese companies can compete on equal footing.”
A judge in the United States has agreed that a man accused of shooting dead 12 people at a midnight screening of a Batman film last July can plead not guilty due to insanity. James Holmes who is 25 is charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder. Prosecutors in Colorado are seeking the death penalty.