BBC News with Justin Greene.
The United States has made an urgent plea for an unprecedented global effort to fight the Ebola outbreak that's originated in West Africa.The Secretary of State John Kerry said the disease was a global crisis demanding a global response. Ali Mcbull reports from Washington.
President Obama is now trying to reassure a nervous American public that fighting Ebola is, in his words, not just a public health issue, but a national security priority. But the death in Texas of 42-year-old Thomas Eric Duncan has for many raised questions about just how effectively health officials here can isolate the virus. A new screening regime including taking the temperature of visitors has been announced at five American airports that together receive over 90% of those arriving from the Ebola-affected countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia where Mr. Duncan arrived from in mid September.
Britain has said it would send 750 military personnel and a medical ship to Sierra Leone to help with efforts there. Washington has pledged more than 3,000 soldiers for Liberia. The Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said the response from the rest of the world to the Ebola crisis in West Africa has been too slow. During a tour of villages in remote northern Liberia, he said the human and financial response was well appreciated but needed to be speeded up.
France has said it backed a proposal by Turkey to create a buffer zone along its border with Syria to protect the country and help refugees fleeing from Islamic State militants. A fierce battle has been taken place between IS militants and Kurdish fighters for control of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani. Paul Adams is on the border of Turkey and Syria.
At times today, it seemed the entire eastern side of Kobani was one vast street battle. It was relentless. Thick clouds of smoke drifted across the town as grenades exploded. At one point a suicide truck bomb driven by a lone jihadist detonated in flames. The Kurds said they managed to blow it up before it reached its target. And all day, another series of massive airstrikes.
The UN says at least 330 people have died in violence in eastern Ukraine since last month's ceasefire deal. I beg your pardon. A senior United Nations official says the rural glories are failing in eastern Ukraine. J. M. from the UN Human Right Agency says people there are being terrorized by armed groups.
It is a total breakdown of law and order. There are no measures of redress effectively available. There is continuing abduction, torture,disappearances, even executions ongoing. There is seizure of property where there is apartment, businesses or even cars.
BBC News.
Mali has asked the United Nations to send a rapid intervention force to help fight Islamist extremists in the north of the country. Mali's Foreign Minister told the UN Security Council that urgent measures were needed following recent killings of UN peacekeepers. A Senegalese soldier was killed on Tuesday days after nine peacekeepers from Nigeria were killed by Islamist militants.
The authorities in Nepal have charged a well-known political activist with treason after he called for a separate homeland for a marginalized ethnic group. T. K. who wants a homeland for the M. community living along the Indian border was arrested three weeks ago. He spent 11 days on hunger strike to protest this but resumed eating after government politicians promised to free him.
Chinese state media says thousands of rescuers have been sent to Yunan Province after an earthquake on Tuesday that forced more than 100,000 people from their homes. The strong quake which struck at night is said to have led at least one person dead and more than 300 others injured. President Xi Jinping has urged local governments and the armed forces to join relief efforts.
Some of the earliest cave paintings which were produced by humans have been found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. That discovery challenges the belief that arts originated in Europe. Pub Ghost described them.
Some are of bright rust-colored outlines of human hands, which the researchers describe as hand stencils. Early artists made them by carefully blowing paint around hands that would press tightly against the cave walls and ceilings. There are also detailed pictures of wild hoofed animals. Art and therefore the ability to think in abstract concepts is what distinguish our species from other animals. Its emergence therefore marks one of the key moments when our species became truly human.