BBC News with Neil Nunes.
The US president Barack Obama has canceled a planed meeting with the Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow next month. This follows Russia’s decision to grant temporary asylum to the fugitive American intelligence analyst Edward Snowden. The US said there had not been enough progress on other issues such as missile defense and human rights. A Kremlin official described the cancellation as disappointing. Famier Esamilov is in Moscow.
Kremlin’s foreign affairs advisor Mr. UshaKov said that the cancellation of the meeting shows that the Americans are unable to develop a relation with Moscow on equal footing. And he said that Kremlin’s disappointed but they are ready to continue to work with American partners. They like to call the United States, American partners, on the key issues of bilateral agenda.
Campaigners in London supported by the British-Somali Olympic runner Mo Farah have delivered a petition urging the Prime Minister David Cameron to help save dozens of money transfer companies. Many UK residents used the informal system of remittance transfers to help relatives in country such as Somalia which has no regulated banking system. Barclays bank is due to close the accounts of the transfer companies next week because of concerns that some of the funds could be connected with money-laundering or terrorism. Rushanara Ali from Britain’s main opposition Labor Party is one of the campaigners.
“What we are here to do today is make sure that the prime minister takes action to come up with a lasting solution to save the lifeline of millions of people around the world especially in countries like Somalia where there is no banking system.
This is about communities helping each other, it’s about taking the pressure off UK taxpayers. That is why this is so important.”
The United States and the European Union have called on all sides in Egypt to make compromises after Egypt’s interim government said that international efforts to resolve the crisis had failed. In a joint statement, the US Secretary of State John Kerry and the EU high representative Catharine Ashton said the Egyptian government bore a special responsibility to begin this process. Here is State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
“Over the course of the last several days envoys of the United States, the EU, the UAE and Qatar provided constructive ideas to the Egyptians in order to prevent further violence and help advance the transition to a democratically elected civilian government. We believe these ideas are a strong basis to create an environment in which Egypt can move forward for the sake of all Egyptians and we believe that any solution will require both sides to make compromises.”
World News from the BBC.
A house where a former American school bus driver held three women captive as sex slaves for a decade has been demolished. Last week 53-year-old Ariel Castro was jailed for life plus 1,000 years after pleading guilty of kidnapping, rape and aggravated murder. David Willis has this story.
Ariel Castro signed the house over to the local authority as part of a plea deal which spared him the death penalty. It took a local wrecking crew less than 90 minutes to raze the building to the ground. Present to watch was Michelle Knight who spent the longest time there. The aunt to the other former captive Gina DeJesus got the demolition underway taking the controls of the mechanical digger to gouge at an upstairs bedroom.
The Sri Lankan Roman Catholic Church has criticized the country’s military for storming a church and allegedly assaulting people inside during a protest against contaminated water. The archbishop of Colombo said it was unacceptable to attack civilians who had sought refuge. The BBC’s Anbarasan Ethirajan has the background.
It happened last week when thousands of people were protesting against the contaminated drinking water according to them. And it turned violent. And the government had to send security forces and what the protesters alleging was they were shooting at will and three people were killed and several injured. And many of them tried to escape from this onslaught by the army. So they entered into this church and they are seeking refuge. The local people say then the army came into the church and beat them up.
A suspected ivory smuggler known as The Boss has been arrested in the capital of Togo, Lome. Emile Edouwodzi N’bouke was detained after police found 700 kilograms of ivory at his shop. He denied any involvement in exporting illegal ivory and said he dealt in bone ornaments from other animals.
BBC World News.