The al-Azraa church went up in flames during the clashes
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Christians in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, are holding a protest vigil near Tahrir Square following an attack on two churches in which 12 people died.
More than 180 were wounded in clashes on Saturday after conservative Muslims attacked a church in the Imbaba area.
Protesters have gathered outside the country’s state television, accusing the army of failing to protect them.
Egypt’s army says more than 190 people detained after the violence will face military trials.
The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces called the move a “deterrent” against further violence.
Egypt’s justice minister Abdel Aziz al-Gindi has warned that those who threaten the country’s security will face “an iron fist”.
He spoke after an emergency cabinet meeting convened by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, who postponed a visit to the Gulf to hold the talks.
Mr Gindi said the government would “immediately and firmly implement the laws that criminalise attacks against places of worship and freedom of belief”, which would allow for the death penalty to be applied.
At least one church was damaged by fire during the protests
Saturday’s violence started after several hundred conservative Salafist Muslims gathered outside the Coptic Saint Mena Church in Cairo’s Imbaba district.
They were reportedly protesting over a months-old allegation that a Christian woman was being held there against her will because she had married a Muslim man and wanted to convert to Islam.
However, the woman had dismissed the allegations in an interview on a Christian TV channel.
Witnesses said the confrontation began with shouting between protesters, church guards and people living near the church.
Rival groups threw firebombs and stones, and gunfire was heard.
The church and one other, as well as some nearby homes, were set alight, and it took hours for the emergency services and the military to bring the situation under control.
Christian leaders have declared three days of mourning for those who died in Saturday’s violence.
On Sunday, hundreds gathered outside the main state television building, calling for the removal of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who leads Egypt’s ruling military council.
When they were met by a group of Muslims, fights again broke out and the two groups pelted each other with stones.
The Christian mourners have now gathered outside state television for a second day. The BBC’s Jonathan Head, in Cairo, says the protesters are angry with the army for failing to protect them.
Military authorities are promising tougher measures against anyone who attacks a place of worship, but such promise have been made before, to little effect, says our correspondent.
Egypt is experiencing a security vacuum since the departure of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, with the discredited police staying out of communal conflicts.
Hard-line Salafi Muslim groups were rarely seen in the days of Mubarak, but now they are now able to mount aggressive demonstrations against perceived threats to Islam, straining community relations, our correspondent says.
On its Facebook page, the Egyptian army announced: “The Supreme Military Council decided to send all those who were arrested in yesterday’s events, that is 190 people, to the Supreme Military Court.”
It added that it should act as a “deterrent to all those who think of toying with the potential of this nation”.
The statement also said that a committee would be set up to assess the damage caused by the clashes and “restore all property and places of worship to how they were”.
Saturday’s clashes were not the first outbreak of communal violence since President Mubarak left office in February following weeks of popular protests.
During the protests in Cairo, many Christians and Muslims had protested alongside each other and protected each other during prayer times.
But in March, 13 people died in sectarian clashes in another neighbourhood. Last month, demonstrators in the southern city of Qena cut all transport links with Cairo for a week in protest over the appointment of a Christian governor.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
March was a very good month for German exporters
German exports surged in March to their highest level since records began, as the growing global economy lifted demand for its products and services.
The country’s exports for the month totalled 98.3bn euros ($142bn; £87bn), 7.3% higher than February.
Its imports also reached an all-time high, up 3.1% to 79.4bn euros. Both imports and exports are the most since data started to be collected in 1950.
Germany is the world’s second-largest exporter.
Only China exports more than the European nation, and the latest monthly figure for German exports was much higher than market expectations.
“Germany is on the verge of a ‘golden decade’,” said Christian Schulz of Berenberg Bank.
Fellow analyst, Carsten Brzeski at ING, said the German economy was now “cruising along smoothly”.
The latest German export figures provide yet more evidence of a “two speed” eurozone, with the German and French economies continuing to grow strongly, while others, such as Greece and Portugal are struggling against a backdrop of high national debt levels.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Babri Mosque was torn down by Hindu zealots in 1992
India’s Supreme Court has suspended a ruling over the fate of the Ayodhya holy site, where Hindu zealots destroyed a mosque in 1992.
Last December the Allahabad High Court said the land should be divided and that the razed 16th Century Babri Masjid should not be rebuilt.
Hindu and Muslim groups appealed against that verdict, which the court on Monday described as “strange”.
This case was launched well before 1992 and centres around who owns the land.
But the destruction of the mosque sparked off some of the worst communal violence in recent Indian history – nearly 2,000 people died in subsequent religious riots across the country.
In December’s ruling the Allahabad court said that the site should be split, with the Muslim community getting control of a third, Hindus gaining control of another third and the remainder going to a minority Hindu sect, Nirmohi Akhara, which was one of the early groups to pursue a share of the land in the case.
On Monday, the Supreme Court put the judgement on hold, saying it was “strange”. It also said that the division of the disputed land has “opened a litany of litigation”.
Hindus claim the site of the Babri Masjid is the birthplace of their deity, Ram, and want to build a temple there.
Muslim groups have argued that the Allahabad court’s ruling appeared to be based not on evidence but on the professed beliefs of Hindus.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Downton Abbey stars Dame Maggie Smith and Hugh Bonneville
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ITV1 period drama Downton Abbey and BBC One documentary series Human Planet won two prizes each at this year’s British Academy Television Craft Awards.
Downton Abbey won best fiction director and a sound award. Human Planet’s Arctic episode won the factual editing and photography prizes.
Peter Bowker won best writer for BBC Two show Eric and Ernie.
Coronation Street director Tony Prescott was rewarded for his work on the show’s hour-long live episode.
He won the multi-camera director award for the 9 December programme which featured a spectacular tram crash in Weatherfield, marking the soap’s 50th anniversary.
This year’s special award went to BBC Two’s Springwatch nature show in recognition of its “outstanding creative and technical teamwork”.
Dan Reed won the factual director award for Channel 4′ Dispatches: The Battle for Haiti while E4 show Misfits won best production design.
And game shows The Cube and The Million Pound Drop Live were also among the winners.
BBC One’s South Riding won a photography and lighting prize while writer Joe Brown won the breakthrough talent prize for BBC Three adult puppet comedy Mongrels.
BBC Two’s new romantic drama, about the early days of Culture Club, won best costume design for Annie Symons.
And Catherine Scoble won the make-up and hair design prize for Channel 4’s This Is England ’86, co-written and directed by Shane Meadows.
Other winners at the awards, which recognise the people who work behind the screens in TV, included Channel 4 four-parter Any Human Heart, starring Matthew Macfadyen and Jim Broadbent, and BBC One’s Merlin.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Children across northeast Japan have returned to new faces and the absence of old ones at school
It is early morning and the children of Ishinomaki are on their way to school. Small groups walking on foot, leather knapsacks on their backs.
A teacher is waiting to help them across the road outside the gate – a reassuringly normal scene. But there is no escape from the reminders of the earthquake and tsunami which battered this town.
The roads are lined with piles of wreckage. The entire area was left covered by a thick layer of mud, and the children wear face masks to protect themselves from the smell and dust.
Nothing will be again how it was in Ishinomaki for a very long time, but at least the children are seeing their friends again now, and getting back to lessons.
Inside the Okaido Elementary School, the classrooms are crowded and the children are chatting excitedly.
Across the northeast of Japan, 7,735 school buildings were damaged or destroyed, and students have to crowd in to those that remain.
Teacher Noriyoshi Kiumi has to raise his voice to get their attention. Today’s first lesson is maths. Not everyone’s favourite, perhaps, but better than thinking about what happened to their town.
“Everybody here has suffered,” he says. “We’ve seen parents, family, homes washed away. I believe what we teachers can do is support the children when they are ready to talk about it.”
Mr Kiumi says they are looking out for children whose behaviour has changed since the disaster, trying to identify those who need more help to cope with the trauma the entire school has been through.
But most of all, they see their role as providing stability and a return to the old routine.
Teams of psychologists have been sent to the region, including by the charity Medicins sans Frontieres, to provide professional help and counselling.
BBC’s Roland Buerk: “The children have to pack in to the schools that remain”
“Many people have fear, especially as aftershocks are still persisting here,” says Dr Akiko Kono. “For example, some children always wear their clothes, or even helmets, at night time because they fear they may have to evacuate immediately after an aftershock.”
In Ishinomaki, MSF has set up a coffee shop in a tent which families visit. The psychologists want it to be unthreatening, an easy place to go to talk things over.
Admitting to suffering from any problems with mental health is difficult in Japan, where the people are reserved and take pride in their self-reliance.
“Of course, usually Japanese people don’t want to show negative feelings,” says Dr Kono. “They want to keep negative feelings inside. But inside they are suffering a lot.”
Until the new term started, the teachers at Okaido Elementary School had little idea how many children would turn up.
The disaster has scattered people from the northeast around the country, as those who have lost homes have moved away. Others have arrived in evacuation centres in the school’s catchment area.
Ishinomaki, in Miyagi prefecture, suffered severe damage in the 11 March tsunami
This year the school has 50 students fewer than last year. In all 9,433 children have left the badly-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, according to the Ministry of Education.
But the staff at the school did know that all but two of the children survived the disaster because it was the teachers who saved them.
When the earthquake hit at 1426, it was towards the end of the school day and the children were still in the building preparing to go home.
The teachers shepherded them first into the gym, the strongest part of the building. Then, when the tsunami warnings sounded, they led everyone up on to the roof.
The two who died were picked up by their parents right after the earthquake and were out on the streets when the waves swept in.
After their escape, it was emotional for children arriving on the first day back of the new school year in April.
“It was full of smiles, it was wonderful,” says Osamu Kitamura, the deputy headmaster. “They hadn’t seen each other for a very long time so it was great to be reunited. It was such a happy moment.
“We teachers were cheered up by seeing them smiling. But the very first thing we had to do was tell them about the children who had passed away. So I am sure that was a shocking moment for them.”
Some children have not left the school since the disaster – instead, their families have moved in. Okaido Elementary was used as an evacuation centre, like many schools in north eastern Japan.
Ena Ueki has been living at her school since her house was destroyed by the tsunami
Around 200 people are still living in the classrooms on the third floor. The desks have been cleared away and blankets laid out.
Hibiki Otsuka, aged 11, and Ena Ueki, who is 10, have been here now for nearly two months.
“I always used to sleep in the bed; now we sleep on the floor. It’s uncomfortable,” says Hibiki. “It’s good that class is very close by. But home, of course, would be better.”
“It’s a bit strange that I just come and go in the same building,” adds Ena. “During the time when school was closed, I couldn’t play with my friends, so I am happy that it has started again.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
