Hello, I am Sue Montgomery with the BBC news.
A Mexican community activist who has been helping families search for their missing relatives has been found dead near his home in the southwestern state of Guerrero. Katy Watson reports.
"Miguel Angel Jimenez Blanco was killed on Saturday night, shot in the head in a taxi that he owned. It was the disappearance of 43 students in the city of Iguala last September that threw light on the cases of hundreds of other missing people in a major opium producing state and one place by violence among criminal gangs. In an interview with BBC in December, he said the hills around Iguala were cemetery. Angry with authority did little to help, Jimenez Blanco would regular search the hill sites of Guerrero digging for bodies and looking for clues."
Seven men have been arrested in eastern Pakistan in connection with a child sexual abuse scandal. The chief minister of Punjab province has ordered a judicial inquiry into reports that hundreds of children were sexually abused. Sanjay Dasgupta reports.
“The chief of police in the Kasur districts said investigators were shifting to the evidence including a number of video recordings that have been seized. It is not yet known exactly how many children were abused. Police are investigating claims that the suspects were blackmailing the families of the victims demanding money in exchange for not making the videos public. Those several copies were allegedly being sold in local markets.”
The Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi has won the back in his cabinet for sweeping reforms aimed at reducing government expenditure and fighting corruption. They include the abolition of the post of vice-president, and deputy prime minister, and men to appointments based on sectarian or party quotas. It comes after weeks of protest says Iraqis endure severe heat amid regular power cuts. The BBC's Ahmed Maher in Baghdad said anger of these cuts helped pushed forward the reforms.
“Electricity or the lack of electricity has united Iraqis from different walks of life and Iraqis almost for the first time in the past few years had set aside sectarian differences and value behind one cause, which is they have had enough. They say twelve years after the US led invasion and the downfall of Saddam Hussein are enough to build a new country from scratch, so the people are very angry.”
Pro-government forces in Yemen backed by Saudi-led airstrikes have retaken the city of Zinjibar in the south from Houthi rebels. The loss of the regional capital is another big blow to the rebels in the wake of the recapture of Yemen’s second city Aden by pro-government militias last month.
Islamic State militants in northern Syria are continuing a new offensive against rival rebels for control of villages along an important supply route to Aleppo. Syrian activists say IS fighters use suicide bombs to seize one of the villages.
BBC news.
In the United States, hundreds of people stood silent for 4.5 minutes at the spot in Ferguson Missouri where an unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was killed by a white police officer a year ago. This represented the hours that his body lay in the street. The killing led to heightened debate about race and policing across America. The mayor of Ferguson James Knowles Ⅲ says the city was now looking to the future.
"The past year has been a difficult time, I think, for many in our community and I think this upcoming year I think we have a lot of hope for both what we've done, what we've been able to accomplish over the past year and what we are going to accomplish in the future."
Britain's Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said that the number of African migrants entering the European Union is a threat to the bloc’s social structure and living standards. He said ultimately those who were not entitled to claim asylum must be sent back to their countries of origin.
The Burundian human rights activist Pierre Claver Mbonimpa who was seriously wounded in an attempt on his life this week has left the country for treatment in Belgium. He has strongly criticized President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term in office.
Police in Bangladesh say they've shot dead six alleged tiger poachers deep in the vast Sundarbans mangrove forest. Three tiger skins were seized. Harendra Nath Sarkar was the police officer in charge of the operation.
"When we went to the area, they began shooting at us and we fired back. The gun fire went on for about fifteen to twenty minutes. A total of six men with the gun were killed. It was a large hideout where apart from those were killed, a few more bandits must being based."
A recent survey suggested there were only just over 100 Royal Bengal tigers left in Bangladesh, far fewer than previously thought.