BBC News with Julie Candler.
The United Nations mediator Lakhdar Brahimi has announced the representatives of the Syrian government and opposition will meet in the same room on Saturday at the peace conference in Geneva. Mr. Brahimi said he believed that both parties understood what was at stake. He made the announcement after meeting them separately. From Geneva, Bridget Kendall reports.
Today was supposed to be the launch of formal negotiations. Instead, Mr. Brahimi was forced to shuttle between the two rival delegations abhorrently knocking heads together to iron out last-minute disagreements. Finally, he emerged to announce that they would now meet in the same room tomorrow morning. Then when asked if their agreement was definite, he replied, "That's a good question", an indication of just how fragile every aspect of this process is.
A wave of bombings in Cairo has sparked violence across Egypt between supporters and opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood. The bombs killed at least 6 people and wounded 100 more. At least 12 people died in the clashes that followed. The biggest blast was at the police headquarters. From Cairo, here is Orla Guerin.
The bomber has delivered a message to the heart of the security establishment. Insurgents have been carrying out attacks since President Mohamed Morsi was ousted last July, but this was the most significant strike so far in the capital. Crowds chanted their support for the army chief and their fury at the Muslim Brotherhood. Many put the blame on the Islamists though they condemned the attack.
The violence comes a day before rival rallies to mark the third anniversary of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
There has been a drop in stock markets across the world sparked by alarm over a slowdown in emerging economies. Many investors seem to have bought safer assets instead. More from our economics correspondent Andrew Walker.
There are some fact that have had an impact across the emerging markets-disappointing manufacturing data from China, and the expectation that investment will return to US government bonds. But there are also countries' specific issues-some including Turkey and South Africa have large deficits in their international balance of payments. Argentina is seen as having poor polities and recent moves suggested it's willing to accept a weak currency. Some central banks have gone into the markets to support their currencies but there is a limit to what they can do.
American Airlines and Copa Airlines of Panama have become the latest to suspend the sale of tickets to and from Venezuela because of unpaid debts. On Thursday, Ecuador's Tame Airlines suspended flights to Venezuela and Air Canada stopped selling tickets. The Venezuelan government is said to owe millions of dollars to several airlines. Tough currency controls in Venezuela make it difficult for foreign airlines to repatriate money obtained from tickets sells there.
World News from the BBC.
A survey of women serving in the German armed forces has found that more than half say they've suffered sexual abuse at work.In a poll conducted in 2011, 45% of service women reported some kind of sexual mistreatment, from being confronted with pornography to sexual assault. The new German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said the report showed more must be done to address problems faced by women in the military.
A German newspaper says it's uncovered a horde of private documents belonging to one of the most powerful man in Nazi Germany, the SS leader Heinrich Himmler. The Paper Die Welt says they include letters, dairies and photographs and had currently stored in a bank vault in Tel Aviv in Israel. Die Welt says experts have been studying the documents for 2 years and there is no reason to doubt their authenticity. ()was one of those working on the archive.
Now that we have access to the collection of Himmler's 700 private letters for the first time. We are able to understand this bureaucrat criminal and mass murderer by across, better than ever before. That does not mean that we can sympathize with him or what he did. But it gets us a better understanding of what drove him.
The Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has promised to reshuffle his government in response to demands from protesters, but has warned of tough measures if the crisis gripping the country doesn't ease. He said he would do all he could including holding more talks with the opposition to halt the violence, but he was quoted as telling religious leaders that he was prepared to use all legal methods if his efforts failed.
Platon Levedev, the business partner of the former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been released from jail. The two men were imprisoned in 2005 for tax evasion. Mr. Khodorkovsky was freed last month. Mr. Levedev's release comes two weeks before the Winter Olympics in Sochi.