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Chinese artist Ai Weiwei says he has been placed under house arrest to prevent him holding a party to mark the destruction of his Shanghai studio.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Joanna Brown, 46, has been missing since Monday A post-mortem examination is due to take place on the body believed to be that of missing Ascot millionairess Joanna Brown.
The body was discovered on Friday evening in dense woodland in Windsor Great Park.
On Friday, Mrs Brown’s husband Robert Brown, 46, appeared in court charged with her murder.
He was remanded in custody until Monday when he will appear at Reading Crown Court for a bail hearing.
A Thames Valley Police spokesman said: “Although a formal identification has not yet taken place, Joanna’s family have been kept fully updated and continue to be supported by specially trained family liaison officers.”
Mrs Brown was reported missing on Monday when a family member became concerned at not being able to contact her.
Mr Brown is also charged with preventing the coroner from holding an inquest by disposing of his wife’s body.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Pope will start his visit with mass in Santiago de Compostela Pope Benedict XVI is preparing to begin a visit to Spain, where social changes have eroded Catholic influence in recent years.
The Pope will visit Santiago de Compostela, and celebrate an open-air mass outside the cathedral.
On Sunday he will continues to Barcelona.
There he is due to consecrate the Sagrada Familia church, still unfinished more than a century after Antoni Gaudi designed it.
This is Benedict’s second visit during his papacy, and a third visit is planned next year for World Youth Day, a sign of how important the Vatican considers the health of the church in Spain.
Only 14.4% of Spaniards regularly attend mass, and legal changes to allow divorce, gay marriage and abortion have caused concern to the Catholic church.
But 73% of Spaniards still define themselves as Catholic.
In Santiago, the Pope will pray at the tomb of St James, the focus of pilgrimage to the city for many centuries. He will then celebrate mass outside the 12th century cathedral.
“We are living in the midst of paganism and indifference”
Fr Miguel Angel San Jose parish priestCatholic Church fights Franco-era image
But some shopkeepers are disappointed by the number of people coming to the city for the Papal visit.
“There are still no people, we’re very surprised,” one souvenir shop owner told the Agence France-Press news agency.
In Barcelona, gay activists are calling for a kiss-in outside the Sagrada Familia when the Pope arrives to consecrate it.
After his visit, the church will hold daily masses for the first time since its construction was begun in 1882, although it is still not expected to be completed before 2026.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Imran Farooq had been living in the UK with his wife and two sons Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, is tense as it prepares for the burial of one of the country’s leading politicians.
Imran Farooq, 50, a senior member of the MQM party who had lived in London since 1999, was stabbed to death outside his home in Edgware in September.
Public gatherings in Karachi have been banned and security heightened amid fears that the funeral procession could be targeted.
Hundreds of people have died in political unrest there since January.
Incidents of violence have been reported across the city and cars and buses have been set on fire.
All markets closed down early on Friday and public transport officials said services would be suspended on Saturday.
To quell potential violence, paramilitary troops and police have been deployed and checkpoints have been set up across the city.
The government has appealed for calm from all political parties.
MQM leaders say the funeral will take place at mid-afternoon in the Azizabad district of the city and they have called on their activists to exercise restraint.
Prayers were said for Dr Farooq at Hendon Mosque in London on Thursday.
The former parliamentarian was one of the founding members of the MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement), an opposition party which is now part of the ruling PPP-led alliance.
He had sought asylum in the UK as he was under “threat” and he was living in London with his wife and two sons.
Dr Farooq died after suffering multiple stab wounds and head injuries. A kitchen knife and brick used in the attack have since been recovered by police.
Dr Farooq’s body will be accompanied by his wife and children on the flight from London’s Heathrow airport.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Mehserle, shown in 2009, said he thought Grant was reaching for a gun A white ex-police officer has been sentenced to the minimum possible jail term of two years for shooting dead an unarmed black man in California.
Johannes Mehserle was convicted in July of involuntary manslaughter in what was seen as one of the most racially divisive US trials in recent years.
He shot Oscar Grant in the back on the subway on 1 January 2009, while attempting to subdue him after a fight.
Mehserle, 28, had faced a possible 14-year maximum term.
The case has previously sparked several incidents of racial unrest, and police in the city of Oakland – where the shooting occurred – were on standby on Friday night after a sentence some perceived as too light.
The Associated Press reported that when Wanda Johnson, Grant’s mother, heard Superior Court Judge Robert Perry issue the two-year sentence she burst out of the courtroom saying, “He got nothing! He got nothing!”
Johnson family attorney John Burris said the sentence was insufficient, adding: “What you take from that is that Oscar Grant’s life was not worth very much.”
But Justice Perry said there was overwhelming evidence the shooting, on New Year’s Day 2009, had been accidental.
‘Gun mistaken for Taser’
On the night of the shooting, police officers identified Grant, a 22-year-old African-American man, as a participant in a fight on a train.
Mehserle and another officer attempted to subdue him, and Mehserle testified that he saw Grant digging in his pocket and feared he had a gun.
He told his trial he had intended to use an electric Taser weapon but mistakenly pulled and fired his duty handgun instead.
The incident, recorded by onlookers on their mobile phones, sparked a period of violence, with protesters clashing with police and rioters setting cars ablaze and damaging businesses.
The case was moved to Los Angeles, because of tensions in Oakland.
After a jury in July rejected charges of murder or voluntary manslaughter a crowd of about 500 people marched in protest in Oakland at the outcome of the trial.
Later sporadic violence broke out in the town with rioters damaging shops, cars and setting fires.
Mobile footage of events leading up to the incident
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Cardenas died after a shoot-out lasting several hours A leader of Mexico’s powerful Gulf drug cartel has been shot dead by security forces in a town near the US border, the Mexican military says.
Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, known as “Tony Tormenta”, was killed in the city of Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville in Texas.
He is the brother of former Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas, who was extradited to the US in 2007.
Residents in Matamoros spoke of a shoot-out lasting for several hours.
Three suspected gunmen and two marines were also killed in the gun battle, according to federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire.
Cardenas, 48, had been indicted in the US on drugs charges, and the US Drug Enforcement Administration was offering a reward of up to $5m for his arrest.
He was accused of smuggling tonnes of drugs across the US/Mexico border in the course of the past decade.
Friday’s operation involved several hundred Mexican soldiers and marines, and local residents were trapped in shops and schools for extended periods.
Bridges across the international border into Texas were closed briefly, as the military used firearms and grenades to tackle suspected cartel members.
The Mexican police and army are struggling to control armed cartels in a number of areas of the country.
Several groups are trying to control lucrative drug smuggling routes into the US.
More than 28,000 people have died in the drugs war since Mexican President Felipe Calderon ordered the army into the fight in 2006.
The policy has had some successes, but that has not led to a decline in the number of killings, or the level of kidnappings, extortion and human trafficking that the gangs also engage in.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
A huge security operation is in place in Mumbai, scene of terror attacks in 2008 US President Barack Obama is due to arrive in India on the first leg of an Asian tour designed to boost US exports and create jobs.
He will pay his respects to the victims of the 2008 Mumbai attacks when he flies into India’s financial centre.
Mr Obama will also meet local business leaders and American executives. US officials say they expect major contracts to be announced.
Mr Obama’s 10-day tour also takes in Indonesia, South Korea and Japan.
It comes in the wake of the Democrats’ heavy losses in the US mid-term elections, widely seen in part as punishment by for the Obama administration’s inability to drive down a stubbornly high unemployment rate.
Warship patrol
The BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder, in Mumbai, says that while residents are celebrating Diwali – the festival of light – celebrations in the city are muted by a huge security operation that has swung into action for the US president’s visit.
Thousands of Indian and US security personnel are deployed and a US naval warship is on patrol in the waters off the coast of the city, where in 2008 Islamic militants killed more than 170 people in a series of co-ordinated attacks.
But while the president will pay his respects to victims, he will also be seeking to drum up business for the United States, our correspondent says.
Before the trip, Mr Obama spoke of the need for greater US access to India markets as part of a drive to double US exports over the next five years and help revive the economy at home.
Trade between India and the US was worth about $40bn in 2008 – still significantly less than US trade with other partners like China and Europe.
‘Range of issues’
India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has said Mr Obama’s visit will expand strategic ties between the two countries leading to a more “productive” partnership.
“We are not at a stage in our relationship perhaps for another big bang but certainly there will be positive outcomes,” Ms Rao said on Wednesday.
“We will see concrete and significant steps in wide range of areas that will expand the long-term strategic framework in a way that we can create productive partnership for the mutual benefit and [will be] equally important to give substantive content and shape to the global strategic partnership,” she said.
White House officials say the administration plans 17 or 18 announcements during the trip on a range of economic, security and political issues.
Later on his trip, Mr Obama will announce a “comprehensive partnership” including economic ties in Indonesia, attend a G20 summit of global economic powers in Seoul and participate in an Asia-Pacific economic forum in Yokohama, Japan.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Iain Duncan Smith: White Paper next week Thousands of people could be pushed into poverty by changes to incapacity benefit, a charity has warned.
But Iain Duncan Smith, Work and Pensions Secretary, says his reforms could be the biggest change to the welfare state since it was founded.
Disability Alliance has said up to a million people with long term sickness or disability could be affected.
The government says getting people back into work is a priority, but there would always be a safety net.
Meanwhile Douglas Alexander, the shadow work and pensions secretary, has said that Labour could support testing the availability for work of incapacity benefit claimants.
Under the plans, claimants face a new 12-month cap on their benefits, if ruled able to work. People who cannot work, for example the terminally ill, would be given support with no time limit.
Mr Duncan Smith, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, said his reforms – which are expected to be outlined in a White Paper next week – were “the biggest change since Beveridge introduced the welfare system”.
He plans to introduce a simplified benefits system, where as many as 30 different schemes are replaced with a single universal credit.
It is changes to Housing Benefit which are among the most controversial, though. Mr Alexander, in comments given to the Guardian, said Labour “could consider” a proposal to reduce housing benefit payments, if the changes were phased in and reduced in scope.
He said housing benefit had been used to take too much of the strain “for generation-long failures in the housing market, principally the the lack of affordable homes to rent and buy”.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Dawn French on comedy, being bossy and her life philosophy
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Members of the National Union of Journalists working for BBC News take industrial action in a dispute over proposed changes to staff pensions.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Olbermann played a key role in election coverage The US broadcasting network MSNBC has suspended prime-time host Keith Olbermann for making political contributions.
The Politico news website said he had contributed to the campaigns of three Democratic candidates.
MSNBC President Phil Griffin said Olbermann had been suspended without pay.
During coverage of the US mid-term elections, Olbermann was one of the network’s key presenters.
“Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay,” Mr Griffin said, according to a statement quoted by the Huffington Post.
With Rachel Maddow, Olbermann has been one of the most prominent hosts on the network, which analysts say has come to be seen as liberal-aligned.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Liverpool co-owner Tom Werner is keen on exploring the concept of playing a competitive Premier League game abroad.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula says it sent two parcel bombs on planes bound for the US last week, in messages on Islamist websites.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Gail and Tommy Sheridan are accused of lying during his successful defamation case in 2006 Former politician Tommy Sheridan was secretly recorded discussing allegations about his private life, a court has heard.
George McNeilage, who went to school with Mr Sheridan and was his best man, said he made the tape in November 2004.
Mr McNeilage said he did so because of the way Mr Sheridan had spoken about some “good, good people”.
Mr Sheridan denies lying during his action against the News of the World, which claimed he committed adultery.
He and his wife Gail are on trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
Mr McNeilage, 46, told the High Court in Glasgow that Mr Sheridan had called to ask him to meet for a discussion.
Hidden camera
He set up a video camera and hid it among building debris at a house he was renovating. Mobile phone records indicated the meeting took place on 18 November 2004.
Mr McNeilage said he had not felt as if he was betraying Mr Sheridan but that he had felt nervous.
He had decided to make the recording because of “events” and the way Mr Sheridan had previously spoken to him about “people I knew were good, good people”.
No-one had asked him to film Mr Sheridan, Mr McNeilage told the court, but he had said in the media that he had been asked to do so, “probably to sound a bit better”.
Mr Sheridan won £200,000 damages in 2006 after the newspaper printed the allegations about his private life.
The perjury trial, before Lord Bracadale, continues.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Discovery will have a crew of six for its final voyage The planned launch of the space shuttle Discovery for its final mission has been postponed again after a fuel leak.
After 26 years of service, the vehicle is due to make one last flight to the International Space Station (ISS) before being retired to a museum.
Nasa has struggled all week to get Discovery off the ground, frustrated by poor weather and technical problems.
Escaping hydrogen detected midway through fuelling left Nasa no choice but to stand Discovery down once more.
The earliest another launch can be made is Monday.
US politicians have confirmed that the reusable orbiters should give way to a new era of spaceflight, and one by one these remarkable vehicles are taking a final bow.
Discovery is the oldest of the surviving ships. First launched in 1984, it has since completed 38 missions, travelling some 230 million kilometres in the process. Its commander on the final mission, Steve Lindsey, says Discovery is probably the most important of three remaining shuttles.
“It is obviously a very historical vehicle, having flown the ‘return to flight’ test missions after both the Challenger and Columbia accidents,” he said.
“It deployed Hubble (and) it’s the fleet leader in terms of number of flights – it’ll have flown about a year on orbit by the time we’re done with it, which is pretty remarkable for a space shuttle.”
After Discovery returns, only the Endeavour shuttle has a firm date to launch, in February next year.
Atlantis could fly in June if the budget allows. Beyond that, American astronauts will use Russian Soyuz rockets to get into space until a range of commercial US launch systems are introduced in the middle of the decade.
The hydrogen leak dicovered two hours into the fuelling operation is considered very serious by Nasa managers because of the potential flamability of the gas.
A similar issue delayed two shuttle launches last year.
Engineers now have to wait until the fuel that had been loaded in the giant external tank is drained before they can get on site to find the source of the problem and fix it.
This means the earliest Discovery can now lift off is in three days’ time, although managers conceded even this would be difficult to make.
Monday is actually the last opportunity to fly this particular shuttle before a period of unfavourable sun angles begins at the orbiting platform, making a docking very difficult.
A new launch window would not open until 30 November.
Discovery’s six astronauts had yet to board the spaceplane when the leak was detected.
When the ship does get up, she will deliver a storeroom to be attached to the ISS, along with much needed supplies and spares.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.