BBC News with Jonathan Izzard.
The authorities in Pakistan have lifted the seven-day house arrest order imposed on the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Tuesday. Her release came just hours before the arrival of a senior United States official, the Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, for talks on the deepening political crisis. The former prime minister said she's been talking to other opposition groups about forming a government of national consensus. Barbara Plett reports from Islamabad.
Until recently, she was ready to work with General Musharraf if he lifted the state of emergency. He hasn't. So now, she says he must go. And she is demanding that he hand over the running of elections to a government of national unity. This is a big problem for the Americans. They want free and fair elections and a partnership between General Musharraf and Ms.Bhutto. They see the two as moderates who can fight extremism together. John Negroponte is coming out to consult all the players. But it will be difficult to bridge the gaps among them.
A coroner in Sydney has ruled that five Australian-based journalists were deliberately shot or stabbed to death by Indonesian special forces in East Timor in 1975 in what may be a war crime. Dorelle Pinch said the journalists were killed to prevent them exposing the role of Indonesia's special forces during the invasion of East Timor. Indonesia says the coroner's ruling won't change its official account of the event. As Lucy Williamson reports from Jakarta.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Indonesia had not received any request from Australia over the court's decision and the findings would not prompt Indonesia to re-examine the case. A spokesman for army headquarters here told the BBC the case had already been settled in Indonesia and that question should be asked over whether the evidence given in the Australian inquest was valid. Indonesia, like the Australian government, has maintained that the journalists, known as the Balibo Five, were killed in crossfire during Indonesia's invasion of East Timor.
North Korea and South Korea have agreed to begin a cross-border freight train service next month, the first such service between the two Koreas in half a century. Both sides will also set up a joint fishing area around their disputed western sea border.
A United Nations General Assembly panel has voted for a global suspension of the death penalty. Countries that have capital punishment, such as Singapore, said the death penalty was a law enforcement issue which should be dealt with by individual countries. But other nations said it went against basic human rights. The resolution is non-binding. But Yvonne Terlingen, who is the head of human rights organization Amnesty International at the UN, welcomed the vote.
Resolution by the General Assembly carries a lot of weight. What we hope will happen is that countries that are thinking about imposing a moratorium on executions, with this resolution, will be encouraged to do so. Open the national debate and review their laws, so that the death penalty ultimately will be abolished.
You are listening to the World News from the BBC.
Japan's new Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has arrived in the United States to meet President Bush on his first foreign trip since taking office. The BBC correspondent in Tokyo says the fact that Mr.Fukuda has made the US his first foreign trip is a reflection of the significance he attaches to Japan's ties with America.
More than fifty people are reported to have been killed. Many more are missing and hundreds of thousands have moved to shelters in Bangladesh, where Cyclone Sidr has battered the southwest coast. Authorities say the number of casualties is likely to rise as the scale of the devastation becomes clearer. From Dhaka, Mark Deven reports.
Southern Bangladesh woke up this morning to uprooted trees and destroyed houses, a power and telephone blackout and worrying reports of casualties. There hasn't been communication with many towns since midnight. Dhaka's international airport remains closed, and river ferries aren't running. At least three villages are reported to have been completely flattened by the storm. The combination of strong winds and a tidal surge of up to 3 meters is more than enough to destroy the timberwood and thatch homes of the fishermen and farmers living along the coast.
One of America's biggest sports stars, the baseball player Barry Bonds, has been indicted by a grand jury in the United States on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with allegations of steroid use. Bonds, who broke the world home run record three months ago, has been under federal investigation on suspicion of falsely testifying that he had never knowingly taken performance-enhancing drugs.
A leading Olympic anti-doping official has told the BBC that a lack of funds is hindering the fight against drugs in sport. The official, Professor Arne Ljungqvist , who heads the International Olympic Committee's Medical Commission, described the annual budget of 25 million dollars as "ridiculously low", comparing it unfavorably with the amount of money generally available in sport. He said that stakeholders needed to raise more money quickly.
BBC News.