The campaign group Amnesty International says it has evidences that Russian air strikes in Syria since September have killed hundreds of civilians causing widespread
and indiscriminate destruction to infrastructure. Amnesty suggests the strikes are in violations of international humanitarian law and accuses Russia of attempting a
cover-up. Sarah Rainsford reports from Moscow. After interviewing witnesses, doctors and human rights groups, Amnesty reports that homes and hospitals were hit as well as a market and a mosque. In most cases, the location and timing of the attacks tally with Russian defense ministry reports on air strikes though it says it was
targeting so-called IS militants. Despite dropping thousands of bombs in Syria, Russian officials have never acknowledged causing any civilian casualties there. They
extolled effective pinpoints strikes against terrorists and had dismissed previous claims to the country as part of an anti-Russian information war by the west.
Iraqi forces are moving closer to the center of Ramadi after launching a major assault to drive out IS fighters who captured the city in May. Authorities say troops
have taken control of several districts where hundreds of IS militants are believed to remain. Iraq's ambassador to the US Lukman Faily said Iraqi soldiers were making
major gains against the jihadists. We have a joyful day for us Iraqis. We're stepping inch by inch of retaking Ramadi which we lost back earlier in the year. And we're
more or less near the center and we are making significant progress in making sure that we can sustain and minimize collateral damage and obviously get to redwarf IS
once and for all.
Military planes in Helmand in southern Afghanistan have dropped food supplies in the town of Sangin where Taliban militants are besieging a few hundred police and
soldiers cut off from the rest of the province. Helmand's governor confirmed the air drops，but declined to say whether promised military reinforcements were on the
way to Sangin. Civilians have been fleeing the town. Some say that Taliban have been executing security officials after storming government buildings.
A senior official in World Athletics Nick Davies is temporarily stepping down, pending an internal investigation into an email he sent linked to Russian doping. The
email to a colleague of the sport's governing body, the IAAF, suggests delaying naming Russian drugs cheats as long as they were not competing to spare embarrassment ahead of the 2013 world championships in Moscow. Mr Davies has denied any wrongdoing. But the British MP Damian Collins says the claims are damaging. It suggests that they've prioritized their own reputation over dealing with the serious issue of drug cheats competing in major championships. I thinks it also adds weight to the argument that has been made against the IAAF that rather than moving quickly to identify cheats and have them exposed and removed from competition, they have moved too slowly and put up barriers to making that progress. World news from the BBC.
France says it's turned away nearly three and a half thousand people from its borders since a state of emergency was introduced after last month's attacks in Paris.
The French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said they were refused entry because they posed a risk to security and public order.
The president of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos has signed a decree legalizing marijuana for medical use. He decided the move as an important step placing Colombia at the forefront of the fight against disease. He insisted it didn't contradict the country's international commitments on drugs control. Colombia has long been associated with the US-led war on drugs. It is latest Latin American country to move towards legalizing marijuana.
The American airspace agency NASA has suspended the launch of its next mission to Mars because of a fault in a key search instrument. The InSight space craft was
scheduled to take off in March and land on Mars six months later. Michael Sanders reports. It's a problem that will cause a major delay. The window for sending a probe
to Mars lasts a matter of weeks and comes around only once every 26 months. The next time Earth and Mars are in favorable alignment won't happen again until 2018. The snag lies with the seismometer, capable of measuring group movement as small as the diameter of an atom. It needs a vacuum seal around the three sensors and twice now that seal has leaked in the kind of the extreme cold found on Mars. But NASA points to previous successes after postponements saying that they far outweighed any disappointment about delay.
France's most famous brothel keeper Madame Claude has died on the French era aged 92. Her clientele during 1960s and 70s included ministers, business leaders, police chiefs, gagsters and even she claimed the Shah of Iran and John F Kennedy. Pursued by the French tax authorities, she fled to the US, returning in 1986 to spend time in jail. In later years, she lived as a recluse in a apartment in Nice. BBC news.