Hello, I’m Sue Montgomery with the BBC news.
The United Nations' envoy to Libya has just announced that warring factions have reached an agreement to form a national unity government. The deal was announced by the UN envoy Bernardino Leon at a news conference in Skhirat in Morocco.
“After a year of work in this process, after working with more than 150 Libyan personalities from all the regions, finally the moment has come, in which we can propose a national unity government.” The agreement comes after months of talks between the rival groups. Two rival governments and various militia groups have been competing for power.
American defense officials say four Russian cruise missiles,launched from the Caspian Sea towards targets in Syria, have crashed in Iran. Laura Becca is in Washington.
“Earlier today, the Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said Russia had launched the missiles without warning. And this evening unnamed officials said four had gone astray and crashed in Iran without giving details of where they might have landed. Russia is insistent that all 26 hit their targets. Iran was in the flight path of all the cruise missiles and the state news agency did note an unknown flying object in a western province. But beyond that, Tehran has not commented.”
The American Secretary of State John Kerry has spoken by phone to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. Moscow said they discussed the need to avoid incidents in Syrian air space and how to coordinate the fight against Islamic Stete.
The three top officials of world football's governing body FIFA have protested their innocence after they were suspended for 90 days over corruption allegations. The president Sepp Blatter said he would appeal and present evidence to show he did not engage in any misconduct. Here's Alex Capstick.
“Sepp Blatter, of course, has been a powerful figure in FIFA for 40 years. Now he's been president since 1998. Despite all the scandals, the controversies swirling around him, he has been clinging onto power, but now they reached the very very top. Surely it is his time to go. But defiant as ever, he seems prepared to fight to clear his name and be back in his seat before next year's elections.”
The head of European Football Michel Platini described the allegations against him as fake and vowed to fight them. FIFA's secretary general Jerome Valcke also denied any wrongdoing.
Spencer Stone, an American airman, hailed as a hero for helping to prevent a terror attack on a French train, has been stabbed and seriously wounded in California.A US air force official said he had been defending a friend. He's in a stable condition in hospital.
World news from the BBC.
The father of a young Saudi man facing execution in his country has told the BBC his son is innocent and has called for international pressure to help save his life. Mohammed al-Nimr said his son Ali had been put in solitary confinement. Ali al-Nimr was 17 when he was arrested in 2012 following anti-government protests.
The American pop singer and actress Selena Gomez has revealed that she underwent chemotherapy after being diagnosed with the autoimmune disease lupus. Concerns were raised about the singer's health in 2013 when she cancelled part of a tour and checked into a rehabilitation center. She said the disease was now in remission.
The mayor of Rome Ignazio Marino has resigned amid claims he used official credit cards to pay for family dinners. Prosecutors opened an investigation this week into his expenses. He insisted the money had been spent legitimately on official entertainment, but agreed to pay back more than 22000 dollars.
Researchers say DNA extracted from the remains of a man buried 4500 years ago in Ethiopia has provided new evidence of a mass migration into Africa. An international team for the first time sequenced the complete genome of anancient African. They say that a comparison of his genetic material with that of modern Africans supports the theory of huge migration from Middle East into Africa about 3000 years ago. Professor Adrea Manic of Cambridge University led the research.
“In Ethiopia, up 20%, so 1/5 of the genome of people who live there right now is actually of Eurasian origin who come from these farmers. But it goes further than that because if you go even to the very corners of Africa,the older way to West Africa or Southern Africa, even populations that we really saw were purely African, have 5 or 6% of their genome that dates back to this west Eurasian farmers.”