BBC news with Jerry Smit.
The United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay has for the first time directly implicated the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in related war crimes and crimes against humanity. Our diplomatic correspondent James Robins has more.
This is the closest the United Nations has come to naming President Bashar al-Assad as a war crime suspect. Navi Pillay as human rights commissioner has still stopped just short of saying the Syrian leader is on the secret list of those who could eventually face trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Instead she said the scale and the viciousness of the abuses being perpetrated by both sides almost defied belief and was being well documented by an expert panel of UN investigators.
Syria's deputy foreign minister has requested money and equipment from the international community to help with their efforts to remove chemical weapons from his country. Faisal Mekdad was speaking at a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague. He told the BBC Syria needed lorries and armoured vehicles to move the chemicals, ordinary vehicles will give those he described as terrorists the opportunity to attack.
The Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovic has called for both police and demonstrators to observe the law. At least 20,000 pro-European protestors have gathered in Independent Square in the capital Kiev demanding the president's resignation, who has decided not to sign an association agreement with the European Union. Steve Rosenberg reports.
In an interview with Ukrainian TV Channels President Yanukovic said that people have the right to express their views. But it was vital that these actions were peaceful. A bad peace, he said, was better than the best war. The Ukrainian president argued that the authorities, the police and protestors all had to abide by the laws of the state. He called on the opposition to work together with the authorities to identify those who have provoked trouble in recent anti-government protests.
The legendary singer and song writer Bob Dylan has been placed under judicial investigation in France allegedly for provoking ethnic hatred of Croats. It follows a legal complaint launched by the association representing the Croatian community in France over an interview which Mr. Dylan gave the Rolling Stone Magazine. Hue Scotfield reports.
In an interview last year Bob Dylan was sharing his thoughts about American history and the racial divide. Speaking of black emancipation, he said that even today if you have got Ku Klux Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that, just you can tone as Jews can sense Nazi blood and Serbs can sense Croatian blood. This is a reference to the prosecution of Serbs by the Croatian Ustasha regime in World War Two. This has now led to a legal complaint by Croats living in France and following regular procedure, the singer has been placed under judicial investigation. Hue Scotfield in Paris.
World News from the BBC.
Court authorities in the northern Italian town of Prato have opened an investigation into the deaths of 7 Chinese workers in a factory fire on Monday. They saw the fire began in a small kitchen area and spread quickly through the rest of the single- story workshop. The BBC's Rome correspondent says there is a widely-held view locally that those who died were being exploited in a dangerous sweatshop.
The BBC's African Footballer of the Year has been named as the Ivorian Yaya Toure. Here's Anis Capstick.
Five times he has been on the shortlist and finally Yaya Toure has landed the coveted prize. He's only the second Ivorian after Didier Drogba to be named by the BBC as the best player from the continent. He's been an influential member of a star-studded Manchester City Sight and although his country failed to make an impression at this year's Africa Cup of Nations, he was a key figure as Ivory Coast qualified for a third consecutive World Cup finals. Yaya Toure has also been at the forefront of the fight against racism in football after he was abused during a game in Moscow.
Colombia's biggest rebel group has invited one of the all time greats of world football Diego Maradona to join their side in a match for peace against the team headed by the former captain of the Colombian national squad, Carlos Valderrama. One of the Frac's leaders, Ivan Marquez says the group is making urgent appeals not only to the Argentine star but also to the Brazilian football star Romario to play for their side.
Animal conservation groups have warned that Africa could lose as much as a fifth of its elephant population in the next 10 years if illegal poaching continues at its current rate. A report published today by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Spices or CITES said poaching levels were unacceptably high although the estimated number of illegal killings last year had fallen to 22,000.