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Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem goes on state TV to attack the EU for extending sanctions, imposed over the suppression of dissent.
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Staff at London Metropolitan University protest over the university’s decision to cut two thirds of its courses.
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The council has apologised and asked its contractors to resolve the issue urgently Council bosses have admitted scoring an “own goal” after a fence was built through the middle of football goalposts in a park in York.
The new fencing was installed at a cost of £6,000 on playing fields in Heworth.
It was erected before £37,000 worth of new play equipment is phased in at the park over the next few weeks.
Dave Meigh, City of York Council’s head of parks and open spaces, said: “We recognise that the failure to relocate the goalposts is a real own goal.”
It has left local people who use the park to play football confused.
Mr Meigh said the council had asked the contractors to “resolve the issue as a matter of urgency and can only apologise for the error”.
The new play area will be for children aged eight to 13.
It includes an aerial runway, a mega-basket swing, outdoor fitness equipment, a jungle climber and web traverse/balance equipment.
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Rebecca Aylward was reported missing after failing to return home A Bridgend schoolgirl was killed after being hit several times on the head with a stone and her face left in the mud, Swansea Crown Court has heard.
The body of Rebecca Aylward, 15, was found in woodland just outside Aberkenfig near Bridgend at about 0900 BST on Sunday, 24 October 2010.
A 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denies murder.
The prosecution told jurors his defence will be that his best friend killed Miss Aylward. The trial continues.
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John Galliano worked for fashion house Dior for 15 years British fashion designer John Galliano is set to stand trial on charges that he hurled anti-Semitic slurs at customers in a Paris cafe.
The trial focuses on two alleged incidents in October and February. A video of a third incident led to Mr Galliano losing his job at Dior.
If convicted, Mr Galliano could face six months in prison and a fine of 22,500 euros (£20,000).
He is expected to argue that he lost control due to substance abuse.
Mr Galliano has repeatedly apologised “unreservedly” for his behaviour and has sought treatment for his addictions.
The 50-year-old was briefly arrested in March after a couple accused him of making anti-Semitic remarks.
Geraldine Bloch, a museum curator, is suing Mr Galliano over what she said was a tirade of anti-Semitic abuse that lasted 45 minutes.
Another woman has made similar accusations about an incident in October.
Galliano is charged with “public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity”.
The designer was sacked by fashion house Dior after footage emerged of a third incident, in which he was shown saying to two women in a cafe, “I love Hitler”, and telling them that their parents could have been gassed by the Nazis.
The footage is reportedly to be used as evidence in Monday’s one-day trial.
All incidents are alleged to have taken place at La Perle cafe in the Marais district of Paris.
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About 1.2 million applicants missed out on London 2012 tickets in the first ballot Successful applicants for London 2012 Olympics tickets will be able to find out on Wednesday which events they will be attending, organisers say.
Money was taken from accounts between 10 May and 10 June, but people were not told which events they had received tickets for.
However, from Wednesday people will be able log into their account at the London 2012 booking site to see.
About 700,000 applicants got tickets, but 1.2 million missed out.
The average successful buyer would have got about four tickets for about £275, organisers say.
There will be a second round of ticket sales starting at 0600 BST on Friday.
Some 2.3 million tickets will be on sale on a first come, first served basis to people who were unsuccessful in the initial ballot.
Of these, 1.7 million tickets are for football matches and 600,000 for other sports, including archery and hockey.
Tickets are still available for 310 sessions, 44 of which are medal events including archery, basketball, fencing, judo, synchronised swimming and table tennis.
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Some half a million tickets will be priced at £20 or less, with a further one million priced between £20 and £50.
Applicants will find out whether they have been successful within 24 to 48 hours of applying. Payment will be taken once the sale closes at 1800 BST on 3 July.
Those who were successful in the first ballot will then get another chance to buy from 0600 BST on 8 July to 1800 BST on 17 July.
People will be able to apply for up to three sessions and six tickets per session for most sports, although football, volleyball and race walk will have larger limits.
The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games has also said its predictions indicated more than a million tickets would become available between December 2011 and the start of the games.
These will come through returns and as the final seating plans for the venues are finalised.
Organisers expect that the 2.3 million tickets going on sale in the second round will put them on track to hit £400m of its total £500m target of revenue from ticket sales.
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Afghan forces are due to take over all security operations by 2014 US President Barack Obama is close to a decision on the size of his planned withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and is expected to speak on the issue on Wednesday.
“He’s finalising his decision. He’s reviewing his options,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
The US has about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and Mr Obama has said troop withdrawals will start in July.
But there are deep divisions in the US over the size and speed of the pullout.
News of Mr Obama’s deliberations comes a day after departing US Defence Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that the US was holding “outreach” talks with members of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
It was the first time the US had acknowledged such contact.
Mr Obama is expected to make a public speech on Afghanistan on Wednesday, unnamed senior White House officials told US media.
US military leaders are thought to favour a very gradual reduction in troops but other advisers advocate a more significant decrease in the coming months.
Attention is expected to focus on how many troops will leave Afghanistan in July, but analysts say Mr Obama’s plans for the future of the 30,000 surge forces he sent in 2009 in the country will also be closely scrutinised.
Earlier this month, Mr Gates said at Nato headquarters that “substantial progress” was being made on the ground in Afghanistan.
But he argued that “these gains could be threatened if we do not proceed with the transition to Afghan security lead in a deliberate, organised and co-ordinated manner”.
“Even as the United States begins to draw down in the next month, I assured my fellow ministers there will be no rush to the exits on our part.”
But some believe security gains mean a more rapid withdrawal of US forces is practical.
There is also growing political pressure for a significant withdrawal.
A bipartisan group of 27 US senators sent Mr Obama a letter last week pressing for a shift in strategy.
“Given our successes, it is the right moment to initiate a sizable and sustained reduction in forces, with the goal of steadily redeploying all regular combat troops,” the senators wrote. “The costs of prolonging the war far outweigh the benefits.”
While many Afghans accept that American troops are needed to defeat the Taliban, correspondents say that they resent their presence in the country.
The war is in its 10th year, civilian casualties are at an all-time high, and correspondents say the population has grown weary of the fighting. Insurgents are to blame for most of the deaths, but killings by foreign troops generate widespread outrage.
The US is due to start withdrawing its 97,000 troops from Afghanistan in July.
It aims to gradually hand over all security operations to Afghan security forces by 2014.
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A Tube driver at the centre of a series of strikes has won his claim for unfair dismissal, the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union says.
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A Fifa report says there is strong evidence member Mohamed bin Hammam tried to bribe officials during his presidential campaign.
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A six-year-old boy who was pulled unconscious from an Angus swimming pool on Saturday has died, police say.
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Police say dissident republicans were responsible for shooting a photographer during trouble in east Belfast on Tuesday night.
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Greek PM George Papandreou tries to persuade MPs to pass further austerity measures that have sparked nationwide strikes and riots.
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Errors this year have included impossible questions A series of at least nine errors in this year’s GCSE, A-level and AS-level exam papers is “not an acceptable situation”, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.
He said England’s exams watchdog Ofqual would take the “toughest possible action” to stop further errors.
Ofqual said it was meeting with exam board heads and would launch an inquiry this summer.
Three more mistakes emerged on Tuesday, in AQA and OCR exam papers.
Both exam boards apologised for the mistakes, which affected OCR’s A-level physics and GCSE Latin papers, and AQA’s GCSE maths foundation paper.
Speaking at prime minister’s questions, Mr Cameron said he had discussed the issue with Education Secretary Michael Gove, who had spoken to Ofqual.
The qualifications regulator was “taking the toughest possible action to root out this failure and make sure it doesn’t happen again”, he said.
In a statement on Wednesday morning, Ofqual said it was “unacceptable” that candidates had faced fresh errors after exam boards had provided written promises that additional quality checks would take place after the first wave of errors.
“Our concerns are serious enough that our director of regulation is meeting with the chief executive of OCR today to understand how these recent errors occurred and to make sure, so far as possible, that there will be no more avoidable errors,” the statement said.
Regulators would be meeting on Thursday with heads of other exam boards and would “again ask for confirmation that there will be no more avoidable errors”, Ofqual said.
When the exams are over, full details of an inquiry will be announced, it said.
“We want to understand how this pattern of errors occurred, how errors remained after additional checks had been made and what needs to be done to prevent any recurrence of such avoidable errors.”
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Department for Education said the latest errors were “completely unacceptable” and that Mr Gove was “angry”.
“He has said repeatedly that the exam system is discredited and action must be taken,” the spokesman said.
In the Latin GCSE error, a paper taken by up to 8,000 pupils contained three errors, representing 14 out of 50 marks.
An error in a question in the A-level physics paper, taken on Tuesday morning, meant that pupils were asked to answer a question which included incorrect units of measurement.
And a printing error on a maths GCSE foundation paper, also taken by pupils on Tuesday morning, had questions from a previous paper accidentally printed in the middle of it.
An OCR spokesman said the exam board was “deeply unhappy” about the latest errors. It said there would be an investigation, and jobs could be lost as a result.
AQA said it was sorry that the error had caused some students distress. It said the batches of papers that were checked were all fine, and it was investigating with its printer how the problem had arisen.
Six other errors in previous papers taken this year have included a multiple-choice question where all the answers were incorrect, and a question where the information needed to make a calculation was missing from the paper.
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BBC Radio 5 live Breakfast hears from a squatter and a member of the Residential Landlords Association to find out if squatting can ever be justified.
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A Vincent van Gogh painting, which had always been believed to be a self-portrait, is actually a depiction of his brother, experts have concluded.
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