BBC News with Julie Candler.
French prosecutors are investigating alleged child sexual abuse by French soldiers serving in the Central African Republic. The defense ministry said it would be
demanding the harshest possible sentences against any soldiers found guilty. The original allegations werecontained in an internal UN report which hasn't been
published but has been seen by Paula Donovan, who is co-director of the NGO AIDS-Free World.“This is actually a series of sex interviews with young boys ranging in
age from 8 to 15 all recounting cases where they were in desperate need of food and they approached soldiers asking whether or not they could beg some food and they
were told that they could get food and a little bit of cash in some cases in exchange for sexual favours.”
Reports from the Germany say the national intelligence agency the BND spied on European nations for years on behalf of the US national security agency. Germany's
interior minister Thomas de Maizière called for the intelligence service report to be presented to a parliamentary committee adding the sooner, the better. Mike
Sanders reports.
Spying on your friends, that's really not on, so said the German chancellor Angela Merkel when she found out that the US national security agency had listened in on
her mobile phone. Now, a leaked report suggests that Germany's own agency the BND spied on French and European targets at the behest of the NSA. It also monitored the
European firms on Washington's behalf to check that they weren't breaking trade embargoes against countries such as Iran.
California's governor Jerry Brown has issued an executive order to cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 1990 levels within 15 years. A statement said
the decision was the most aggressive benchmark enacted by any government in North America to reduce dangerous carbon emissions. Governor Brown said the measure was one
that must be reached for this generation and others to come.
There is growing frustration in Nepal at the pace of relief efforts after Saturday's devastating earthquake. In the ruined capital Kathmandu, riot police intervened to
control crowds of bus passengers trying to leave the city. The government says aid is starting to reach remote communities. Kent Page, from UNICEF said agencies were
working around the clock.“We've been getting in tents out, shelters out, water purification, tablets out, buckets just so people can collect water and keep clean. We
are tankering clean safe drinking water to affected communities. And we are doing that not only in Kathmandu but obviously in the other districts that are affected
outside of the capital.”
World news from the BBC.
Police and heavily armed national guardsmen are patrolling the streets of Baltimore as demonstrators prepared to march through the US city ahead of a second night of
curfew. Authorities say the curfew was largely respected on Tuesday night although police made 35 arrests.
The US central bank the Federal Reserve has downgraded its economic forecasts and kept its key interest rate unchanged. The announcement follows the release of the
latest economic data which showed that the growth in the United States slowed almost to a halt in the first 3 months of the year.
There's been a strong European reaction to a statement by the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban seeking to open the debate on reintroducing the death penalty. The
European commission said abolishing capital punishment was a condition of EU membership. From Budapest,Nick Thorpe sent this report.
Viktor Orban made his remarks on the eve of the funeral of a 21-year-old woman brutally murdered by a man in the tobacconist shop where she worked in the western
Hungarian town of Kaposvar last week. His request for Hungary to keep the issue of the death penalty on the agenda provoked the Council of Europe Commissioner for
Human Rights Nils Muiznieks to expressed his concern over the Hungarian government's approach to human rights in general.
International health officials have announced that German measles or Rubella has been eliminated from North and South America. Carissa Etienne from the World Health
Organisation said there had been no endemic cases of the disease for 5 years. The last infections were in Argentina and Brazil.
More than 50 American Airlines flights have been delayed over the past 2 days because of a glitch in an App used by their pilots. The airline said its pilots were
having to delete and reinstall navigation map software on the Ipads they all use. In some instances the plane had to return to the gate so that pilot could access a
WIFI connection to fix the problem.