BBC News with Fiona MacDonald.
The Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has declared 3 days of national mourning, following the al-Shabab attack on a university that left nearly 150 people dead. Mr. Kenyatta said the planners and financiers of militant attacks in Kenya were, as he put it, deeply-embedded in the country's community. Emmanuel Igunza reports.
“In a speech at State House, the President called for international support in tackling al-Shabab fighters, who, he say, were deeply rooted in parts of the Kenyan community. He asked locals and leaders in the affected areas to help police in tackling the radicalization of youth. Authorities say they have so far arrested 5 people in connection to the attack. Some were trying to cross the border into Somalia. Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been gathering at a mortuary in the capital, Nairobi, to identify the bodies of their loved ones. Survivors of the attack and family of victims were also receiving counselling at a stadium in the city, which has now been converted into a disaster operation centre.”
Russia has urged the United Nations Security Council to demand, what it called, a humanitarian pause in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition that's fighting Houthis Shiite rebels in Yemen. The Council's current President, Jordan's U.N. Ambassador, Dina Kawar, said the draft resolution also expressed concerns over the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Sebastian Usher reports.
“The Saudi-led coalition has imposed an air, sea and land blockade on Yemen that has essentially put the country under siege. No one can get in or out, aside from some foreign nationals who've been evacuated by boat from Aden. Aid agencies say this has made it impossible for them to get supplies to the many areas hit by airstrikes, or where there's the heaviest fighting on the ground between rebels and forces loyal to the President, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The Red Cross said a temporary halt in the air campaign is urgently needed, even just to allow families in the worst-affected areas to venture out to get food and water or medical care.”
The Islamic State group has released a video that claims to show the destruction of artefacts in the ancient Iraqi city of Hatra. In the film, members of the group used sledge hammers and pickaxes to smash stone sculptures and ornamentation.
The French authorities say they have ended the search for remains at the site where a Germanwings co-pilot crashed his aircraft into a mountainside, killing all 150 people on board. Rister Peaker reports.
"For the past 10 days, investigators have been searching the crash site for human remains. But now the work is over. They have found 150 sets of DNA from the mountainside, and over the next weeks, these will be analysed. The victims can only be identified this way, because the plane was completely destroyed on impact. Work to clear the debris from the site will begin next week. The remote location in the mountains will make the operation slow and difficult. It is expected to take up to 2 months."
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One of the leaders of France's Muslim community has called for a doubling in the number of mosques in the country within the next 2 years. Dalil Boubakeur, who is Head of the Paris Mosque, as well as the President of the French Muslim Council, said the current 2,200 mosques weren't enough to meet the needs of France's Islamic community.
The number of people now known to have died in floods which struck one of the most arid places on earth has risen to 25, and could be said to increase further. Officials in Chile say 101 people are still missing after last week's flash floods, which saw mudslides, cut power lines, swamped routes and destroyed thousands of buildings in the Atacama region, which includes the world's driest desert. The news came as President Michelle Bachelet visited the area.
The former president of Cuba Fidel Castro has made his first appearance in 14 months. Images of the iconic communist leader, who's 88 years old, appeared in the state-run newspaper in Cuba. Will Grant reports from Havana.
“Pictures of Fidel Castro have emerged over the past year, but in the main they were of him greeting foreign dignitaries or Latin American intellectuals at his home. In this case, Fidel has now been seen in public again. The state-owned newspaper Granma, showed 4 pictures of him on its website and republished 2 of them in its print edition. They showed the aged communist leader shaking hands with a group of Venezuelan students who traveled to Havana as part of a solidarity movement between the allied nations.”
The Moroccan authorities say one of the 3 missing cavers from Spain has been found dead. The other 2 are said to be injured but are now being moved to safety. The rescue operation was launched after the men were spotted in a ravine in the high Atlas Mountains. They've been missing since Monday after setting off to explore caves in the southern Uarzazate region, some 500 kilometres from the capital, Rabat.