Hello, I'm Jerry Smit with the BBC news.
The five largest European economies have agreed to work together to combat tax evasions and have urged other members of the G20 to follow their example. Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain will share information about the secret owners of companies and trusts and have proposed creating a blacklist of havens like Panama that do not share corporate registry data. Speaking on the sidelines of an IMF meeting in Washington, the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble said all countries should work together to thwart tax evasion.
We need to ensure that all relevant countries and jurisdictions implement the new standard for their automatic exchange of financial account information. In the future, nobody should be able to hide his activities behind complex legal structures and with tax evasion, this requires a global response.
Microsoft is suing US government over a law that allows officials to search emails and files kept on the internet cloud without an owner's knowledge. Microsoft says the legislation violates constitutional rights of free speech and protection from unreasonable government searches. The Department of Justice said it was reviewing Microsoft's submission. Dave Lee reports.
In the past 18 months, Microsoft said it received 5624 requests to give access to private information on its users. In just under half of those cases, the court had demanded absolute secrecy. Microsoft argues that this goes against the country's Fourth Amendment which states individual should be made aware of the government's searches or seizes their property. The requests were made using the electronic communication's previous act, a 30-year-old law that several tech firms feel is outdated and being abused.
The charities regulator in Britain has expressed serious concerns about a foundation set up by the former Ivory Coast footballer Didier Drogba. The regulator told the foundation that further investigation was needed into the oversight provided by trustees abroad and the accumulation of unspent money. Didier Drogba, who played for Chelsea, has denied allegations by the Daily Mail newspaper that less than 1 percent of the 2.4 million dollars the foundation had raised in Britain had gone to help vulnerable people in Ivory Coast. He told the BBC he would take legal action against the paper.
Rescue operations have continued throughout the night after a powerful 6.2 magnitude earthquake stuck the southern Japanese town of Kyushu. 9 people have been killed and hundreds have been treated in hospital. From Tokyo, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.
The quake struck at around 9:30 this evening when most people were at home. Fortunately, this time there has been no tsunami and damage appears to be limited. At least 10 houses are reported to have collapsed and a number of people are trapped.
World news from the BBC.
The American Secretary of State John Kerry says the US navy would have been within its rights to shoot down Russian aircraft which flew close to an American warship in the Baltic Sea. The commander of the USS Donald Cook said 2 Russian jets came within meters of his vessel in what he described as a simulated attack on Monday.
A judge in the US state of Connecticut has ruled that a court case against the manufacturer the weapon used in the Sandy Hook school shootings can go ahead. 20 school children and 6 teachers were killed when Adam Lanza opened fire in 2012 with the rifle bought by his mother. Laura Bicker reports from Washington.
This is a small legal victory for the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims. Their lawyers argued that the semi-automactic rifle used in the school shooting was a military weapon and should not have been sold to civilians. The gun manufacturer that's named in this case asked for it to be dismissed on the grounds that federal law protects them from criminal use of their products. But the superior court judge said that that should be argued later in the legal process. The families will now continue their fight in court.
Mexico's human rights commission says that for the first it's found evidence that national police were involved in the disappearance of 43 training teachers in the state of Guerrero two years ago. The Mexican human rights Ombudsman said a new witness had overheard two federal officers questioning local police as they were taking the students from their bus. They allow the abductions to continue.
The parliament of the Czech Republic is to vote on a recommendation to shorten the nation's day-to-day name to Czechia. The country's president Milos Zeman is one of a number of leaders who said the present name is too cumbersome. They believe Czechia will be more practical and flexible and will make it easier to promote the country in sports events and marketing.