The BBC World Service. The World's Radio Station
Welcome to assignment on the BBC World Service with M. Hakim. This week we had a journalist undercover in the Boko Haram stronghold of northeastern Nigeria in the city of Maiduguri.
Whoever is working as a journalist in Maiduguri is taking a great deal of risk. It's difficult to get there; the airport has been closed since December last year. And there is virtually only one route that leads to Maiduguri. You don't know when nor where you will be blocked by Boko Haram insurgents; and once they block you, they have no mercy. They will slaughter you like sheep.
We also hear allegations of unjustified detention and brutality by Nigerian Security Forces.
Albeit occupied by Israel, there are no reports of Israeli fatalities. From Gaza, here is Y. N.
The streets now in Gaza City are completely empty; nobody at all is out on the street. It's been a very noisy night here, a lot of shelling by naval forces. Israeli military says that it tipped more than 100 targets since midnight local time. In that time as well, it says, that there were five rockets that it hit Israel fired by militants in Gaza and a further seven that were intercepted by its Iron Dome Defense System. Of course, here at the moment there is a lot of concern about the increasing number of civilian killed.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that the situation in Gaza could quickly get out of control. He is due to brief an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council on the crisis later today.
Iraq has warned the United Nations that Sunni militants have seized nuclear materials used by scientists in the city of Mosul. Nick Bryant reports.
The nuclear materials were seized at Mosul University by ISIS rebels according to a letter sent to Ban Kin-moon by Iraq's UN ambassador. Some 40 kilograms of uranium compounds were taken which were being used for scientific research. The letter warns that despite the limited amount involved, the materials could be used in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction and enable what they calls terrorist groups with sufficient expertise to deploy them either separately or in combination with other materials to carry out attacks.
The Indian government has promised to bring back higher growth to the world's third largest economy, saying Indians were exasperated after two years of economic slowdown. It's the first budget since the Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a landslide victory two months ago. From Delhi, S. M. reports.
Presenting his maiden budget, India's new Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said his government had inherited a challenging situation and needed to cut spending while taking steps to revive economic growth. Mr. Jaitley raised caps in foreign investment in key sectors such as defence and insurance. He also announced increased spending on building India's infrastructure including roads, ports, power generation and gas pipelines. But in a move that should disappoint millions of middle class voters, the Finance Minister said there will be no change in personal income tax rates.