BBC news with Marian Marshall.
The Afghan army says at least ten members of the Taliban have been beheaded by rival militants from the Islamic State group in the east of the country. The beheadings followed weeks of fierce fightings between the two groups. Mark Lobell reports from Kabul.
“The revelations emerged in a secret memo from the Afghan army’s 201th Col mistakenly sent to the media on Wednesday. The document says that a Taliban attack on a government-held area in the remote action district close to the border with Pakistan was repelled by the army. Then ten fleeing insurgents were captured by Islamic State militants and beheaded. This is the first known beheadings of Taliban members by Islamic State linked fighters who have reportedly been trying to recruit soldiers from the Taliban.”
South African police have launched a preliminary investigation into allegations that the country’s football association paid a ＄10 million bribe to FIFA officials to host the 2010 World Cup. The claim emerged as part of a corruption scandal that engulfed FIFA. South Africa’s Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene said he had seen no indication of financial wrong doing.
“We were very vigorous and then all the available information that we save before those instructions were intensely interrogated and I can attest that none of such evidence ever surfaced in those meetings.”
Britain’s Sports Minister John Whittingdale says there’s a strong case for rerunning the bids to host the World Cup in 2018 and 2022 if there’s evidence of corruption. FIFA awarded the tournaments to Russia and Qatar.
The Chinese authorities say they are planning to right the cruise ship that overturned in the Yangtze River on Monday. More than 450 people on board, but only 14 are known to have survived. From Jianli on the Yangtze River, John Sudworth reports.
“The divers have been battling near 0 visibility and serious risks in trying to search ship’s 150 compartments. The body recovery work had begun to gather pace after holes were cut into the Eastern Star’s exposed upturned hull allowing workers to enter from above, but it now seems the engineers have decided the best option is to raise the 4-decked cruise ship out of the water. Hooks have been well in the place and the net has been stretched around the entire structure.”
Google has apologized to the India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his photo appeared in Internet search results for the world’s top ten criminals. Here's Anberison at Rajkot.
"Google said the way images were described on the Internet could lead to surprising results to specific queries and they were not reflective of the opinions of the company. Google’s apology came after many Indian politicians and commentators expressed concern on social media. Despite the company’s apology, an image search for the world’s top ten criminals still shows pictures of Mr Modi alongside the wanted militants, murders and dictators."
BBC news.
The father of a Russian opposition activist has told BBC he believes his son, who collapsed suddenly last week, was poisoned. Vladimir Kara-Murza has been diagnosed with acute kidney failure and remains severely ill in a Moscow hospital. So far, toxicology tests have revealed no evidence of foul play.
The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she's optimistic that a good solution would be found to keep Britain in the European Union. But the deal has issued all EU countries. Britain’s newly re-elected Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership ahead a referendum on whether the country should remain in the EU. Mrs Merkel told the BBC she wasn’t losing sleep over the prospect of a British exit.
Saudis have been arguing online over a provocative Tweet that’s opened the battle lines between the sexes. Since it was posted on twister this week, the harsh tag "don’t marry a Saudi man" has prompted a flurry of impassioned, as well as humorous responses. Sebastian Usher reports.
"Online those were segregated young Saudi women and men meet to swap their hopes and ideas. It’s a place where they can squabble, too, over the issues that divide them. In a country a woman still needs to rely on male guardian. Some Saudis have used Twitter to highlight abuses by men of the power the society gives them over women. A leading Saudi female activist recently tweeted that women like her were becoming increasingly choosy about who they married, not restricting themselves just to Saudis. That kind of forthrightness may have prompted a counter campaign earlier this year with Saudi men calling for no girls on twitter.”
Seven new species of colorful tiny frogs have been discovered in a rainforest near the Atlantic coast of southern Brazil. Each one has been found on the upper reaches of a separate mountain where the cool cloud forests have a unique climate. All the frogs are less than one centimeter long and many have poisonous skin to help them avoid becoming meals for predators.