BBC News with David Austin.
The US-led coalition has launched its most sustained air attacks so far on Islamic State positions around the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane. The Pentagon said US war planes had hit tanks, heavy guns and fighters. The BBC correspondent near the town says the advance of IS appears to have been halted. Misa Abdul, a Kurdish commander in Kobane, told the BBC the strikes had been effective, but had been late in coming.
“It is true that the coalition airstrikes against the heavy weapons of IS and against large groups of IS fighters were more effective yesterday. However they were a bit late. If the coalition had attacked with such strength and effectiveness beforehand, we wouldn't have seen IS reach the city and destroy so many lives.”
Meanwhile the UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has warned that the world cannot allow another city to fall under IS control, and called for concrete action. From New York, here's Nick Bryant.
Kurds in the town of Kobane had defended themselves with great courage, said the UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, but were now very close to the point of not being able to do so. They were fighting with normal weapons up against Islamic State's mortars and tanks. The international community needed to defend them. In a massage that appears to be aimed at Ankara more than Washington, the Italian diplomat said Turkey had been very generous in receiving more than 200,000 people fleeing Kobane, but the concrete action was now needed. Turkey has tanks lined up on the border, but has not intervened militarily.
Meanwhile protests by Kurds demanding stronger action by the Turkish government to defend Kobane has spread across Turkey. Police used teargas and water cannon. At least one person was reported killed. Kurdish protesters in Brussels forced their way into the European Parliament to demand stronger international action.
The senior scientist advising the World Health Organization on Ebola says he's not surprised that a Spanish nurse became infected at a Madrid hospital while treating two Sierra Leone based missionaries who died of the disease. Professor Peter Piot, who chairs the WHO's Ebola Science Group, says the slightest mistake while caring for the patient can be fatal. Imogen Foulkes reports from Geneva.
“From the start of the Ebola epidemic, the World Health Organization has emphasized the impoverished health care systems of the countries hardest hit: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Its experts have been insisted that modern hospitals with vigorous disease control measures would prevent infection. But the case of Madrid nurse proves that's far more difficult than many realize. Professor Peter Piot, a world specialist in Ebola, now brought in by the WHO as an advisor, warned that even the simplest movement, like rubbing your eyes, is a risk.”
World News from the BBC.
The Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has arrived in the Netherlands the day before he's due to appear before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Mr. Kenyatta, who'll be the first head of the state to come before the court, denies organizing ethnic killings of 1200 people following elections seven years ago. Peter Mzambi, from the BBC Swahili Service, reports.
“Mr Kenyatta arrived in Amsterdam at Schiphol Airport, but he and his family wished missed away, even though he's here in his capacity as a citizen, as he said, not as a president. So tomorrow he will appear before the court, and it is expected that he will be questioned over allegations by the Chief Prosecutor that his government has been withholding crucial evidence. It is only after tomorrow's status conference that the judges are going to decide later the future of this case against Mr. Kenyatta.”
The United Nation's mission in Mali says rocket fire has hit a UN military camp in the north of the country killing at least one peacekeeper. It's not yet clear who carried out the attack, but Islamist insurgents have been increasingly active in recent weeks.
Chile Supreme Court has halted the development of a gold and copper mine owned by the Canadian conglomerate Goldcorp saying that indigenous communities have not been consulted. The court overruled a local appeals court which dismissed an appeal filed on the El Morro Mine by the Diaguita community in northern Chile. The Diaguita said the mine could pollute a local river. Several mining projects in Chile have been blocked after opposition from local communities.
A British man, who was jailed in Morocco for an alleged homosexual act, has been freed. Ray Cole, who's 69, was in prison for four months along with his Moroccan partner after images were found on his phone. There had been wide-spread calls for his release.