BBC News with Ian Perdon.



Reports from Zimbabwe say police have raided a hotel in the capital Harare that was being used as offices by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The MDC said President Mugabe had unleashed a war and said that his leader Morgan Tsvangirai was safe. In another development, police in Harare have arrested two foreign journalists. Our Southern Africa correspondent Peter Biles reports from Johannesburg.



According to the MDC opposition, a number of rooms at a hotel in the centre of Harare were searched by the police, although party officials were not there at the time. An opposition spokesman said he thought the police were looking for the entire MDC leadership. He described the raid as a challenge to democracy and called on the international community to help. In a separate incident, police in riot gear surrounded another hotel in the capital where a number of foreign journalists are known to have been staying. The police said two journalists were arrested for allegedly working in the country illegally.



NATO leaders at the summit in Romania have stated their long-term commitment to the operation in Afghanistan. They stressed the importance of Afghans taking the lead in the fight against the Taliban and pledged to provide training and equipment for a big increase in Afghan troop numbers to 80,000 by 2010. Earlier, France had formally offered 700 extra troops to the mission.



Eight men have gone on trial in London accused of planning to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners using explosives hidden in drinks bottles. Jane Peel reports.



All eight defendants deny conspiracy to murder and planning to endanger the safety of aircraft. The prosecution claimed they were involved in a plan to inflict heavy casualties in the name of Islam. They were to make improvised explosive devices disguised as soft drinks. These were to have been detonated in a series of coordinated mid-air explosions. The prosecution say the man targeted seven flights from Heathrow to the US and Canada. Each would have had hundreds of passengers and crew on board.



A man accused of being a leader of a Moroccan Islamist organization linked to al-Qaeda has gone on trial in the Moroccan town of Sale. The authorities say Saad Houssaini has links to bombings in Casablanca and Madrid. More than 200 people were killed in the attacks. From Morocco, here is James Copnall.



Dressed in a cream jumper, and with his hair and beard closely cropped, Saad Houssaini listened impassively as his trial opened. The Moroccan state believes Mr. Houssaini, an engineer, equipped suicide bombers who struck in Casablanca in 2003 and 2007. The authorities also believe he is the Emir of the Moroccan wing of al-Qaeda. Mr. Houssaini's lawyer told the court there was no proof against his client. He also said Mr. Houssaini had been kept in solitary confinement in breach of Moroccan law and asked for bail. The prosecution said the accused man should not be let out as he was a real threat to society.



World News from the BBC.



A senior rebel leader in Colombia says the FARC will not release its hostages unless there is a deal to free rebels held in Colombian jails. Early this week, France sent a plane to Colombia in case the FARC release their most prominent hostage, the French Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, who is believed to be seriously ill.



A statue of the Virgin Mary has been removed from Sri Lanka's most revered Catholic shrine for the first time in over four centuries because of intensifying fighting in the area. The shrine is in the island’s northwest where government forces are battling Timor Tiger separatists. Roland Buerk reports from Sri Lanka.



The shrine at Madhu is a pilgrimage site for Sri Lanka's Catholics. But now the statue of the Virgin Mary, they traveled there to venerate, has been taken away for the first time in more than 400 years. The Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph, said there had been intense shelling in the area and that priests had spent the day in bunkers. He said he had appealed to both sides to respect it as a place of peace, but the Timor Tiger has set up positions in front of the shrine. Government forces who are trying to crush the rebels in their northern stronghold are two kilometers away.



A court in Nigeria has formally charged the leader of a militant group in the oil-producing Niger Delta region with treason and gun-running. The defendant Henry Okah is accused of being the main arms supplier to several armed groups and ethnic militias in the region, many of which are involved in the theft of crude oil.



BBC News.