BBC News with Fiona MacDonald
Police in the United States city of Cleveland, Ohio were searching for more bodies after three were found over the weekend wrapped in plastic. The mayor of East Cleveland has said that there may be more victims. From Washington, Katy Watson.
Police told searchers to brace themselves for the smell of rotten bodies and to look out for rubbish bags that could be hiding another corpse. The bodies discovered on Friday and Saturday were believed to be female and authorities said the victims were killed within the last 10 days. A man in his 30s believed to a registered sex offender is now in custody, but so far no charges have been made. But East Cleveland’s mayor has suggested the suspect could have been influenced by a local serial killer Anthony Sowell, who was sentenced to death in 2011 for killing 11 women.
Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos said on Sunday that he had instructed the military to keep on firing until the country’s 50-year-old armed conflict was over. He was speaking after the Colombian army said it had arrested 10 Farc rebels accused of killing 15 soldiers in an ambush near the border with Venezuela on Saturday. Arturo Wallace reports from Bogota.
An angry Juan Manuel Santos warned the Farc this was not the way forward. It was, he said, plain terrorism—more than 70 Farc members ambushing a group of 26 Colombian soldiers that were guarding an oil pipeline in Arauca close to the Venezuelan border. But the Colombian president, who on Saturday said he was willing to risk everything for peace, insisted the latest events hadn’t changed his mind, which means peace talks in Havana should continue normally.
A Syrian rights group has accused forces loyal to the government of killing 13 members of the same family in a predominantly Sunni village along the Syrian coast. Jim Muir reports from Beirut.
According to human rights and activist groups, at least three men from the Fattouh family in Bayda were shot dead by government forces and militia. The women and children from the same family were then crowded into one room in a house where they were all killed. Some reports said they were burned alive when the house was set on fire; others that they were shot beforehand. The reported killings came after clashes in nearby Banias, in which several regime loyalists were reported killed.
Meanwhile, in the northern province of Raqqa, there’s been a prisoner exchange between Kurdish forces and a group linked to al-Qaeda. The group released 300 Kurdish civilians it had kidnapped after Kurdish militants released one of its local commanders, Abu Musaab.
Three policemen have been shot dead in separate attacks in the Sinai Peninsula. An Egyptian security official says unidentified gunmen targeted the policemen at a government building, a television station and a police station in what are believed to be coordinated attacks in the town of El-Arish near the border with Israel and Gaza. Two other policemen were wounded.
World News from the BBC
A Pakistani foreign affairs envoy said that a peaceful, stable and united Afghanistan is vital to his country’s security. On a one-day visit to Kabul, Sartaj Aziz said Pakistan wanted to repair diplomatic ties with Afghanistan at a time of deep mistrust between the two countries. Afghanistan believes Pakistan is not doing enough to tackle Taliban activity on its border and is suspicious of Islamabad’s role in the opening of a Taliban office in the Gulf state of Qatar.
A human rights group in Zimbabwe says police detained an opposition candidate for this month’s elections and kept him in custody on Saturday night. The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said Arnold Tsunga, a human rights lawyer and parliamentary candidate for the opposition MDC, was arrested for holding an unauthorised rally in the eastern city of Mutare. Earlier this month, Amnesty International said the security forces in Zimbabwe were suppressing basic freedoms ahead of the poll. President Robert Mugabe has predicted a resounding victory over his main rival Morgan Tsvangirai.
Chris Froome of Team Sky has won this year’s Tour de France cycle race with a lead of just under 4.5min over his nearest rival. Kenyan-born Froome is the second successive Briton to win the tour after Bradley Wiggins’ triumph last year. Here is his moment of victory.
"Chris Froome is the champion of this 100th Tour de France. Froome can start to celebrate now. It’s a second British victory inside 12 months and Froome now rides up the Champs Elysees with his arms around Richie Porte and David Lopez. And the Sky team are riding side by side all the way up the Champs Elysees.”
The Colombian rider Nairo Quintana riding in his first-ever tour gave an outstanding performance to come second. He’s also been crowned king of the mountains and best young rider. Joaquim Rodriguez of Spain joins among the podium in third place.