BBC News with David Austin
An impromptu meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to discuss Syria has taken place at the request of Russia. It comes as western nations consider possible military action against the Syrian government following a chemical weapon attack in the capital Damascus.The UN weapons inspection team investigating last week's attack will leave Syria on Saturday and hold preliminary briefings over the weekend. Nick Bryant reports from New York.
“After leaving Syria on Saturday morning, the UN weapons inspectors will find out to a number of laboratories in European countries to test the samples they've taken from the site of the alleged chemical weapons attack. The UN says the test will take longer than days. The team has accumulated an extensive matter of material and also conducted interviews with survivors and the doctors who treated them. The UN team has been mandated to determine whether chemical weapons were used rather than apportioning blame. But it will produce what the UN is calling an evidence base narrative which could imply guilt.”
Both in the United States and Britain, the principal advocates of military action against Syria considerable pressure is being brought to bear by lawmakers weary of what direct involvement to the Syria crisis might entail and what it might lead to. Both Houses of the British parliament have been debating the case for and against direct British involvement. The Prime Minister David Cameron said his resolution urging action was not about taking sites or invading Syria but about Britain's response to a war crime.
“Interfering in another country's affairs should not be undertaken except in the most exceptional circumstances. It must be, as my honorable friend just said, a humanitarian catastrophe and it must be a last resort. But by any standard, this is a humanitarian catastrophe and if there are no consequences for it, there is nothing to stop Assad and other dictators from using these weapons again and again.” The British Prime Minister David Cameron.
According to Syrian state media, President Bashar al-Assad has said his country will defend itself against any aggression. But the International Committee of the Red Cross says the suffering of civilians is reaching unprecedented levels and it has called for unconditional access to all areas where people are in need.
Rwanda has accused the Democratic Republic of Congo of crossing a line by targeting its citizens after a Rwandan woman was killed and her two months old baby seriously injured by artillery shelling near the border. Olivier Nduhungirehe is Rwanda's deputy envoy to the UN.
“The persistent shelling on Rwandan territory is unacceptable, as it would be to any, any sovereign nation. Rwandan civilians are being targeted by DRC forces and we have remained restraint for as long as we can, but this provocation can no longer be tolerated.” Congo has denied the shelling and has blamed the M23 rebels.
World News from the BBC
Iraqi officials in the city of Samara, north of Baghdad, said a car bomb has killed at least 16 people, another two dozens people were injured in the predominantly Sunni Muslim city. The blast comes a day after more than 80 people were killed in a series of coordinated bomb attacks on mainly Shiite areas across Baghdad.
A judicial official in Pakistan has overturned for sentence handed down to Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped CIA agents hunting for Osama Bin Laden. The official has ordered a new trial. Charles Haviland reports from Islamabad.
“The commissioner of Peshawar in northwest Pakistan has told lawyers of the original trial of doctor Afridi was conducted by an official acting outside his jurisdiction. And a long jail sentence has therefore been struck down. It will now be a retrial heard by a more senior official. The doctor has not walked free and will remain incarcerated pending the start of the new trial. Shakil Afridi was publicly accused of working for the CIA to track down Osama Bin Laden under the cover of a fake vaccination campaign. But he was actually convicted of collaborating with the militant group working against the state. Something he denied outright.”
The Portuguese government has been told that its plan to make it easier to fire public servants is unconstitutional. It's a setback for the country's policy of reducing spending in the wake of international bailout. The government has promised creditors a big reduction in its budget deficit and other austerity measures have already been rejected by the same court.
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of the Colombia capital Bogota in support of small scale farmers who say that the government's agriculture policies have driven them into bankruptcy. The President has said the demonstrations are valid but the only way to find a solution was through dialogue. Negotiations to end the protests which started 11 days ago remain deadlocked.