2010-03-10 BBC
BBC News with Roy Larmour
The United States has condemned Israel's plan to allow another 1,600 homes for Jewish settlers to be built in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli announcement came as the US Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Jerusalem. Here is our state department correspondent Kim Ghattas.
The US Vice President Joe Biden issued a statement from Jerusalem in which he condemned the Israeli government's decision to allow more housing units for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem. He added it was precisely this kind of step that undermined the trust needed to make progress in the negotiations. It's very rare for the White House to actually condemn Israel for anything, but Israel's action must have been perceived as a snub in Washington. Just as Joe Biden was talking about a moment of opportunity for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, Israel was taking steps that would infuriate the Palestinians and possibly undermine that moment of opportunity.
Israel and Syria have both told a conference in Paris that they want to use nuclear power to generate electricity. Speaking to the BBC, the Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau said his country would be interested in regional cooperation on the issue as a way of promoting peace.
Police in the Irish Republic have arrested seven people over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who drew the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog. James Rodgers reports.
Irish police say that the seven people, four men and three women, were detained on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. The suspects have not been named. Police say that those arrested range in age from their 20s to their 40s. The police say that they have been working closely with law enforcement agencies from Europe and the United States. Few details of the investigation have been made public, but the Irish national broadcaster RTE has reported that it relates to a suspected plot to kill Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist who drew the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.
The governor of Nigeria's central Plateau state has accused the country's military commanders of ignoring warnings of unrest near the city of Jos in which hundreds of people were killed on Sunday. The head of the Christian Association of Nigeria Saidu Dogo accused the security forces of failing to stop the violence.
"We feel that the world just has to do something. If Nigerian government cannot do anything, the world just has to do something to stop this type of killing. That's such a desperate act or tipples of over four hours, and nobody did anything about it, neither the police nor the army, and that's why we become very very worried."
The Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands has announced an independent inquiry to investigate the more than 200 allegations of child abuse by priests in Dutch church schools. Reacting to the claims of sexual abuse in Catholic schools in several European countries, the Vatican said focusing accusations only on the Catholic Church led to a skewed perspective.
World News from the BBC
Police in Cyprus have arrested three men over the theft of the body of the former President Tassos Papadopoulos. The corpse had been stolen from its grave three months ago. On Monday night after a telephone tip-off, it was found in another cemetery. There are still conflicting reports as to whether a ransom demand was made for the return of the body.
The authorities in Bolivia have rescued 19 children and teenagers who were thought to have been kidnapped in Haiti by human trafficking gangs. A state prosecutor told the BBC the children were now being looked after by the Bolivian government while a search continued for at least eight others. Adam Mynott reports.
The 19 children, who are now being looked after in a safe house in Santa Cruz, were in a party of 88 Haitians who entered Bolivia from Peru on tourist visas in January. It's not clear when they left Haiti, but one report indicates they set off on their journey which took them through the Dominican Republic, Panama and Peru two days before the earthquake which devastated large parts of Haiti on January 12th. Prosecuting authorities in Bolivia suspect the children were being trafficked for sexual exploitation, and three people have been arrested, two Haitians and a Bolivian.
Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo have launched a scheme to reduce the number of illegal weapons in the east of the country by offering 50 dollars for each one that is handed in. But a BBC correspondent in Kinshasa says this campaign may prove counter-productive as the money gunner owners receive for their weapons would allow them to buy two more on the black market.
The British rock band Pink Floyd has taken its record label to court in a dispute over how its music is sold over the Internet. Pink Floyd, who signed with EMI over 40 years ago, says the label should not be able to sell individual tracks online rather than whole albums. The band is also challenging how the label works out online royalties.
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