BBC news with Neil Nunes.
President Obama has been outlining his vision for a new chapter in the American foreign policy. Speaking to graduates of the United States military academy at West Point, he said the US must always lead on the world stage. The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool has more.
President Obama said he wanted to give his vision for the way America conducts itself on the world stage in a changing world.While he said the US reserved the right to carry out unilateral action where there’s an imminent threat to America, he focused on the shift towards building international consensus, particularly when it came to world problems that did not directly threaten the US.
“Our action should meet a simple test” he said, “We must not create more enemies than we take off the battlefield.”
President Obama has led tributes to the American writer, a civil rights activist and an academic, Maya Angelou who has died aged 86. He described her as one of the brightest lights of our time. The first volume of Angelou's biography I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings told her coming of age in an era defined racial segregation. She wrote frankly of being raped as a child and not speaking for 6 years when the rapist was killed after she named him. Born in Saint Louise, Missouri, she became one of America's foremost orators. Here she performs one of her own poems.
“My life in heaven but it is showing here. I am not on top, but i call it swell. If I am able to work and get paid right and have the luck to be black on a Saturday night...”
The Afghan president Hamid Karzai has urged the armed opponents of government to use what he called an historical opportunity to end the war. His comments came as he welcomed the decision that announced on Tuesday by president Obama that US would withdraw all its combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016. President Karzai said this would give Taliban a reason to end their insurgency.
A delegation from the US chamber of commerce has begun his first visit to Cuba in 15 years.The chamber's president Thomas Donahue and several other businessmen said they were interested in assessing the changes taking place under the president Raúl Castro. More details from Leonardo Russia.
Since Fidel Castro handed power to his brother Raúl nearly a decade ago, Cuba's communist government has introduced a number of economic reforms. Cubans are now allowed to own small businesses and to buy and sell cars and properties. Members of the US Chamber of Commerce delegation said they go to Cuba to assess the trade possibilities in a post embargo scenario, but that may not happen any time soon. The vast politically active exile community in the US is strongly opposed to any changing trade links with the communist-run island.
World news from the BBC.
More than 10 people have been killed in an attack on a church in the Central Africa Republic. Residents in the capital Bangui said the attackers held grenades into a courtyard, where displaced people were sheltering. Their attack occurred in mostly Muslim neighborhood of the city.
Fighter plane to Libya have bombed Islamist militia bases on the eastern city of Benghazi, as part of an offense led by a retired renegade general Khalifa Haftar against Islamist extremists. RanaJawad is in Tripoli.
The air strike targeted the headquarters'of the February 17 militia brigade in Benghazi. It’s a powerful force known for its close ties to the hardliner Islamist group Asad Shilia. The latest development is seen as part of the ongoing operation that started 2 weeks ago. It is been led by the retired general Khalifa Haftar backed by a mix of armed groups including military forces in the East, as well as some members of the airforce. They said they aimed to purge Benghazi and other cities of terrorists.
Ballot survey counted in Egypt presidential election at the end of the third day of voting. The poll originally scheduled to take place over two days was hastily extended to try to boost turnout which has been poor despite the national holiday and free public transport. The former army chief Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is widely expected to win against the leftist candidate Sabahi.
Malcolm Glazer，the owner of the English football club Manchester United and the American football team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has died at the age of 85. He modernized the Buccaneers and helped them win the Super Bowl in 2003. Since buying Manchester United 10 years ago in controversial circumstances, the club has won the premier league five times and the champion's league in 2008. Mr. Glazer's business career started when he was age 15.