2010-03-15 BBC
BBC News with Michael Powles
The United States has authorized the departure of government dependents from Mexican border cities, following fatal attacks by suspected drug traffickers on consular staff. In two separate incidents, one official from the US consulate in Ciudad Juárez was killed along with two others connected with the mission. Madeleine Morris reports from Washington.
An American female consulate employee, her husband and infant daughter were returning from a party on Saturday when their car came under gunfire in Juarez. Both adults were killed; the child survived. In a separate attack, the Mexican husband and two children of another consulate employee were also shot at after leaving the same party. He was killed and the two children suffered injuries. President Barack Obama has expressed outrage of what he called "the brutal murders", and he's vowed to help bring the killers to justice.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is in Haiti to inspect what has been described as the most challenging emergency his organization has ever dealt with. Two months after the earthquake that hit the island, hundreds of thousands of people, possibly more than a million are still without adequate shelter and sanitation. Mark Doyle reports from the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.
As the secretary-general's executive jet flew in over Port-au-Prince, he would have been able to see the great expanses of tents and tarpaulins that a large proportion of the homeless population here are now living under after their houses collapsed. Aid workers are racing against time to try to get hundreds of thousands of other homeless people into camps before the heavy rainy season begins. The UN secretary-general is due to visit one camp that's been established on a former golf course.
The latest results from Iraq's parliamentary election show that the incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is strengthening his lead over his rivals. Andrew North in Baghdad has the details.
Iraq's election commission has now released partial results for all the country's 18 provinces. They show the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki leading in seven, his main challenger Ayad Allawi is ahead in five, including as expected in three predominantly Sunni provinces. There is one surprise that Mr Allawi is also in the lead in the oil-rich province of Kirkuk where the Kurds were expected to be on top. Complete results are not expected for at least another few days, but talks on forming a new coalition government will now get under way in earnest.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, the Cardinal Sean Brady, is facing calls for his resignation after it emerged that in the 1970s he represented the church at a meeting where two abuse victims were asked to swear an oath of silence. The teenagers said they'd been sexually assaulted by Father Brendan Smyth who was later jailed for child abuse. Cardinal Brady insists he did nothing wrong and said he didn't tell the police about the allegations because he wasn't the person designated to do so.
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Initial results of only first round of the French regional elections indicate that President Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right allies are heading for defeat. The results suggest the Socialists are likely to emerge as the largest single party and that the centre-left and the Greens would get more than half the vote. There's also been a strong showing by the far-right National Front.
Tens of thousands of people have held a day of protest in the Thai capital Bangkok, giving the government until noon on Monday to resign and call elections. The government which the protesters say was installed illegally has indicated it'll not bow to their demands. Rachel Harvey in Bangkok was at the rally.
The red-shirt protesters are settled in for the night. They are still here in very large numbers on the streets and they've heard now from the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who called in to the rally from his self-imposed exile. Many of the people here on the streets are of course supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra. He congratulated the protesters on their show of strength and told them that they were a part of Thailand's history, bringing true democracy to the country. He also urged the demonstrators to remain peaceful and patient.
A television station in Georgia has apologized for causing panic with a fake news report about a Russian invasion. The broadcast frightened many people who were reminded of the brief war between Russia and Georgia in 2008. The television station said the aim was to show what it called the real threat of how future events might unfold. A leading Russian parliamentarian has described the broadcast as a provocation.
A funeral has taken place of Nigeria's longest serving traditional ruler Alhaji Aliyu Musdafa who had ruled the Emirate of Adamawa since 1953. He was buried at his palace in the city of Yola. He died on Saturday at the age of 90. Correspondents say Aliyu Musdafa was noted for his religious tolerance and ability to maintain harmony between different religious and ethnic groups.
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