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Nigeria’s acting President Goodluck Jonathan has been sworn in as head of state following the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua after a long illness.

Mr Jonathan, in charge since February, will appoint a deputy and serve out the rest of the current presidential term until elections due next year.

Mr Yar’Adua died late on Wednesday in the capital Abuja. TV broadcasts were interrupted with the news.

Seven days of national mourning have been announced.

Mr Jonathan took the oath of office in front of government ministers and other officials at the presidential villa in Abuja almost 12 hours after Mr Yar’Adua died. The ceremony was performed by the chief justice of Nigeria, Alloysius Katsina-Alu.

Mr Jonathan put on a sash bearing the green, yellow and white colours of Nigeria, signifying he had formally taken over as president.

Afterwards he made a brief address, saying his administration was committed to pursuing good governance, electoral reform and the fight against corruption "with greater vigour".

"Having taken the oath of office, in line with the Nigerian constitution, under these very sad, unusual circumstances I urge fellow citizens to remain steadfast and committed to the values and aspirations of our nation," he said.

"While this is a major burden on me, and indeed the entire nation, we must – in the midst of such great adversity – continue to gain our collective efforts towards upholding the values which our departed leader represented."

He added: "One of the true tests will be that all votes count, and are counted, in our upcoming presidential election."

Mr Yar’Adua, who was 58, will be buried in a Muslim ceremony later on Thursday in his northern home state of Katsina, officials said.

Condolences paid

Nigerian TV interrupted normal programming to announce the news in a brief statement early on Thursday.

The announcer said: "The president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, died a few hours ago at the presidential villa.

Government spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi said the president’s wife, Turai, was at his side when he died.

Shortly after Mr Yar’Adua’s death was announced, people began arriving at the presidential villa in the capital Abuja to pay their condolences.

A spokesman for Mr Jonathan said he had received the news with "shock and sadness".

"Nigeria has lost the jewel on its crown and even the heavens mourn with our nation tonight," Mr Jonathan said in a statement.

US President Barack Obama has led tributes from world leaders, praising Mr Yar’Adua’s profound personal decency and integrity" and his "passionate belief in the vast potential and bright future of Nigeria’s 150 million people".

Mr Yar’Adua’s election in 2007 marked the first transfer of power from one civilian president to another since Nigeria’s independence in 1960.

He promised a string of reforms in Africa’s most populous nation, including tackling corruption and reforming the inadequate energy sector and flawed electoral system.

Analysts say he made the most progress in tackling unrest in the oil-rich Niger Delta by offering amnesties to rebels.

He had been absent from the political scene since November, when he went to a hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for several months.

Political limbo

During that time he was not heard from, apart from a BBC interview. He returned to Nigeria in February but remained too sick to govern.

A presidential spokesman said at the time that he was being treated for acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining around the heart.

His long absence and the lack of detailed information about his health led to a political limbo in Nigeria, which was only filled when Mr Jonathan was named as acting president.

However, there had been tension between supporters of the pair, and in March, Mr Jonathan dissolved the cabinet and later put his own team in place.

The BBC’s Caroline Duffield, in Jos, central Nigeria, says President Yar’Adua will be fondly remembered as a quiet and softly-spoken man whose integrity was respected.

But in his last months, it was clear he was too ill to take decisions himself.

His family and closest political advisers had faced severe criticism and were accused of using him to hold on to power, says our correspondent.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

The former chief executive of the collapsed Icelandic bank Kaupthing has been arrested, authorities say.

Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson is suspected of embezzlement, trading irregularities, and other breaches of banking laws, the special prosecutor’s office has said.

It is the first high-profile arrest since the country’s financial collapse in 2008.

Mr Sigurdsson is being held by police until a bail hearing on Friday at the Reykjavik District Court.

Kaupthing, once Iceland’s biggest bank, collapsed under a mountain of debt at the height of the country’s banking crisis.

It was taken over by the government in October 2008, along with Iceland’s two other biggest banks, Landsbanki and Glitnir.

Prosecutor Olafur Hauksson said Mr Sigurdsson was suspected of falsifying documents, embezzlement, breach of trading laws, market manipulation, and other laws.

Mr Hauksson was appointed by Iceland’s post-crisis government to investigate any criminal activity in the lead up to the crash that has crippled Iceland’s economy.

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office is carrying out its own investigation into suspected fraud at Kaupthing, with a focus on the bank’s efforts to attract British investors to its "high yield" deposit account, Kaupthing Edge.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Many people alive today possess some Neanderthal ancestry, according to a landmark scientific study.

The finding has surprised many experts, as previous genetic evidence suggested the Neanderthals made little or no contribution to our inheritance.

The result comes from analysis of the Neanderthal genome – the "instruction manual" describing how these ancient humans were put together.

The genomes of 1% to 4% of people in Eurasia come from Neanderthals.

But the study confirms living humans overwhelmingly trace their ancestry to a small population of Africans who later spread out across the world.

The most widely-accepted theory of modern human origins – known as Out of Africa – holds that the ancestors of living humans (Homo sapiens) originated in Africa some 200,000 years ago.

A relatively small group of people then left the continent to populate the rest of the world between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago.

While the Neanderthal genetic contribution – found in people from Europe, Asia and Oceania – appears to be small, this figure is higher than previous genetic analyses have suggested.

"They are not totally extinct. In some of us they live on, a little bit," said Professor Svante Paabo, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Professor Chris Stringer, of London’s Natural History Museum, said the conclusions had come as a surprise to many experts – including him.

"As one of the architects of ‘Out of Africa’, I have regarded the Neanderthals as representing a separate lineage, and most likely a separate species from Homo sapiens," he explained.

"Although I have never ruled out the possibility of interbreeding, I have considered this to have been small and insignificant in the bigger picture of evolution."

"They’re us. We’re them," said John Hawks, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin in the US.

"It seemed like it was likely to be possible, but I am surprised by the amount. I really was not expecting it to be as high as 4%," he said of the genetic contribution from Neanderthals.

The sequencing of the Neanderthal genome is a landmark scientific achievement, the product of a four-year-long effort led from Germany’s Max Planck Institute but involving many other universities around the world.

The project makes use of efficient "high-throughput" technology which allows many genetic sequences to be processed at the same time.

The draft Neanderthal sequence contains DNA extracted from the bones of three different Neanderthals found at Vindija Cave in Croatia.

Retrieving good quality genetic material from remains tens of thousands of years old presented many hurdles which had to be overcome.

The samples almost always contained only a small amount of Neanderthal DNA amid vast quantities of DNA from bacteria and fungi that colonised the remains after death.

The Neanderthal DNA itself had broken down into very short segments and had changed chemically. Luckily, the chemical changes were of a regular nature, allowing the researchers to write software that corrected for them.

Writing in Science journal, the researchers describe how they compared this draft sequence with the genomes of modern people from around the globe.

"The comparison of these two genetic sequences enables us to find out where our genome differs from that of our closest relative," said Professor Paabo.

The results show that the genomes of non-Africans (from Europe, China and New Guinea) are closer to the Neanderthal sequence than are those from Africa.

The most likely explanation, say the researchers, is that there was limited mating, or "gene flow", between Neanderthals and the ancestors of present-day Eurasians.

This must have taken place just as people were leaving Africa, while they were still part of one pioneering population. This mixing could have taken place either in North Africa, the Levant or the Arabian Peninsula, say the researchers.

The Out of Africa theory contends that modern humans replaced local "archaic" populations like the Neanderthals.

But there are several variations on this idea. The most conservative model proposes that this replacement took place with no interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals.

Unique features

Another version allows for a degree of assimilation, or absorption, of other human types into the Homo sapiens gene pool.

The latest research strongly supports the Out of Africa theory, but it falsifies the most conservative version of events.

The team also identified more than 70 gene changes that were unique to modern humans. These genes are implicated in physiology, the development of the brain, skin and bone.

The researchers also looked for signs of "selective sweeps" – strong natural selection acting to boost traits in modern humans. They found 212 regions where positive selection may have been taking place.

The scientists are interested in discovering genes that distinguish modern humans from Neanderthals because they may have given modern humans certain advantages over the course of evolution.

The most obvious differences were in physique: the muscular, stocky frames of Neanderthals contrast sharply with those of our ancestors. But it is likely there were also more subtle differences, in behaviour, for example.

Dr Hawks commented the amount of Neanderthal DNA in our genomes seemed high: "What it means is that any traits [Neanderthals] had that might have been useful in later populations should still be here.

"So when we see that their anatomies are gone, this isn’t just chance. Those things that made the Neanderthals apparent to us as a population – those things didn’t work. They’re gone because they didn’t work in the context of our population."

Researchers had previously thought Europe was the region where Neanderthals and modern humans were most likely to have exchanged genes. The two human types overlapped here for some 10,000 years.

The authors of the paper in Science do not rule out some interbreeding in Europe, but say it was not possible to detect this with present scientific methods.

[email protected]

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Roberto Mancini will remain Manchester City manager for "many years", says club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak.

City’s hopes of finishing fourth in the Premier League ended with Wednesday’s 1-0 defeat by Tottenham, who can now qualify for the Champions League.

But speculation that Mancini’s job was under threat has been dismissed by the City chairman.

"Roberto’s going to do a wonderful job for us for many years," Mubarak told Manchester City’s official website.

"Roberto is our manager. He’s done an excellent job coming in mid-season, organising the team. I’m very happy, and [owner] Sheikh Mansour’s delighted with the way he’s organised the team."

Mubarak added: "We believe he is definitely the right manager for this club for many years. What he needs this summer is time to prepare and really organise ourselves.

"We know the areas that need to be improved within the club. A good pre-season followed with a good start to the season and I’m really excited for next year."

Fifth is not where we would like but it’s a major jump. It’s a major achievement for this club to move from 10th to fifth place

The City chairman insisted that he viewed the season as a success after the club improved on last year’s Premier League finish of 10th place.

"It’s been a wonderful season," reflected Mubarak. "We’ve gone a long way as a team and I feel very good about next year because we’ve crossed an important milestone as a club. Next year’s going to be a very important year for us.

"It’s been an incredible season. We can focus on last night or we can focus on the season as a whole – I prefer to do that.

"Fifth is not where we would like but it’s a major jump. It’s a major achievement for this club to move from 10th to fifth place."

And looking ahead to the summer it seems likely that Manchester City will again be major players in the transfer market.

"Manchester City is now a real force to be reckoned with in this league and the acceleration of investment really has put us in this position maybe a year early," continued Mubarak. "That gives us a much better position this summer to work from."

When asked after Wednesday’s match whether he would remain in charge next season, Mancini told BBC Radio 5 live: "Yes, absolutely."

The former Inter Milan boss succeeded Mark Hughes in December and vowed to qualify for the Champions League, and City looked on course to do so before losing at home to Manchester United and drawing away at Arsenal last month.

Victory over Aston Villa last Saturday kept them in the hunt and they went into Wednesday’s game a point behind Spurs with two matches to play.

But Harry Redknapp’s men deserved their victory at the City of Manchester Stadium – secured by Peter Crouch’s late header – and it moves them four points clear of Mancini’s men going into the final round of games on Sunday.

"We can work together and develop together," added Mancini, whose side will play in the Europa League next season. "I want to win here, I want to be able to win here.

"I think I stay here. Why not? I work here four or five months and I think when you build a house you don’t start from the roof but the basement. We work very well but we are near the roof.

"I am not a magician, I don’t have a magic wand. We wanted this [fourth] place and we tried like Liverpool, Tottenham and Aston Villa.

"When you don’t finish fourth this is football but we did a good job."

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Actor Jake Gyllenhaal says he wants to be taken “a little less seriously” as an actor, and would love the Prince of Persia to become a franchise.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

ICC World Twenty20, 30 April-16 MayVenues: Guyana, St Lucia and BarbadosCoverage:plus live text commentary and reports on all matches on the BBC Sport website & mobiles

England coach Andy Flower is confident his side have the talent to overcome Pakistan in their ICC World Twenty20 Super Eight showdown on Thursday.

Despite recent off-field problems, reigning champions Pakistan remain a force under captain Shahid Afridi.

But after securing progress from Group D via a no result against Ireland on Tuesday, England are ready to kick on.

"Pakistan are a very dangerous side," admitted Flower. "But I think we are pretty dangerous as well."

The 42-year-old added: "Pakistan would be a scalp. They have lots of talent, and a lot of variety in their attack.

"But our guys have shown attacking intent, quite a lot of power and the nous to time the innings properly.

"I thought the guys showed a lot of understanding of the ebbs and flows of the game against West Indies in Monday’s Group D defeat in Guyana."

Anyone who can hit the ball as cleanly as he (Eoin Morgan) does, and hit some of the shots he does, obviously has a great combination

Having succumbed to an the eight-wicket Duckworth Lewis defeat to the West Indies, England narrowly secured their place in the Super Eights via a superior run-rate after Tuesday’s game with Ireland in Guyana was rained off, ending in a no result.

"It’s been a funny couple of days, so disjointed," said Flower. "We were nine balls from another Duckworth-Lewis result, so it’s nice to get through."

Having reached this far, Flower is confident that the make-up of the side is the right one to ensure further progress, citing the inclusion of Michael Yardy as an example.

"I think bringing in the left-arm spinning all-rounder helps balance our side – and we’ve got a good variety of type of player," stated Flower.

"That does ask a lot of questions of the opposition attacks. We’re very excited about the potential – but we’ll see how we go."

Flower also praised batsman Eoin Morgan, who followed up a score of 55 against the West Indies with a knock of 45 against his native Ireland.

"He’s got a good brain on him and he’s very talented," admitted Flower.

"Anyone who can hit the ball as cleanly as he does, and hit some of the shots he does, obviously has a great combination.

Should make for interesting viewing!

"He has freedom to express himself, and we don’t want to rein that in. We want him to be free to make his own decisions.

"We’re very thankful to have him."

In contrast, Pakistan have had anything but a settled side of late.

In March, the Pakistan Cricket Board banned Mohammad Yousuf and Younus Khan indefinitely from representing their country, while Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and Shoaib Malik were each given one-year bans and big fines, as a result of "infighting which… brought down the whole team".

Current Twenty20 captain Shahid Afridi, Kamran Akmal and Umar Akmal were also given heavy fines and warned that their conduct will be strictly monitored during a six-month probationary period.

However, they put such problems behind them in their opening game to seal a 21-run victory over Bangladesh in St Lucia on Saturday , and despite a 34-run loss to Australia on Sunday they remain in the hunt to defend their crown.

England and Pakistan have already faced each other twice in Twenty20 this year – drawing a two-match series in the United Arab Emirates almost three months ago.

A stand of 112 between Morgan and Kevin Pietersen saw England take the first match by seven wickets, before a stunning 46 from 18 balls – including five sixes – from Abdul Razzaq saw Pakistan to a four wicket win.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Portsmouth’s administrators have revealed the relegated Premier League club’s debts now stand at £138m.

In February, Pompey became the first Premier League club to enter administration with debts of £60m-£70m.

And in April it was revealed the FA Cup finalists, who have had four different owners this season, were £120m in debt.

The news comes on the day creditors meet to approve the drafting of a debt-repayment plan that will enable the club to emerge from administration.

The club is offering to pay at least 20 pence in the pound over five years, and has said that small creditors and charities will be paid in full.

If approved, that plan, a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), will be drawn up by the club’s joint administrators from UHY Hacker Young and distributed within five business days of Thursday’s meeting.

Another meeting will then be arranged within 14-28 days to approve the CVA. This will require the backing of 75% of the club’s unsecured creditors (based on amounts owed), whereas a straight majority will be enough on Thursday.

Portsmouth’s so-called "football creditors" must be repaid in full under football’s rules.

This group includes clubs still owed over £17m in transfer fees by Portsmouth, and current and former players who are owed almost £5m in bonuses, wages and image rights payments.

Pompey’s current owner Balram Chainrai will also get his outstanding £14.2m loan repaid in full but his three predecessors – Sacha Gaydamak, Sulaiman Al-Fahim and Ali Al-Faraj – will have to accept the same reduced rations on offer to the non-football, unsecured creditors.

Prominent among this group is Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), which is owed £17.1m in taxes and National Insurance contributions.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

The UK Met Office has released a vivid series of images that show the Eyjafjallajokull volcano intensifying.

In the satellite pictures, which use infrared wavelengths, the ash plume appears as bright orange colours spreading out from the volcano.

The plume gradually increased in size over a period of approximately six hours on Thursday morning.

This animation is made up of a series of 13 images captured every 30 minutes from 0600 BST.

The Met Office confirmed that activity from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano had been increasing since Wednesday night, taking the ash plume to a height over 30,000 ft.

But the UK’s air traffic control authority, Nats, said that the high density area of the volcanic ash cloud was now lying "off the west of Ireland" and that, as a result there were currently no restrictions within UK airspace.

A Met Office spokesperson also said that the winds forecast over the next few days were likely "to keep the plume out to the west".

New clarity

Dr Jim Haywood, an aerosol research scientist from the Met Office explained that it had previously not been possible to capture such clear pictures.

"This is the best set of images of the plume that I’ve seen," said Dr Haywood, who has been monitoring the ash plume since the volcanic eruption entered its explosive phase on 14 April, and began to release the plume of ash that has caused so many problems in the UK.

"The reason it’s so clear is that there’s no cloud around at the moment," he explained.

"If there is any cloud above or below the plume, it’s much more difficult to see."

Because it was exploding through a glacier, the Eyjafjallajokull eruption had been creating its own cirrus cloud.

"It appears now there’s a clean clear signal because all of the ice above the volcano has melted," said Dr Haywood.

In the rest of the image, low clouds appear predominantly yellow, while high ice clouds appear dark red, brown or black.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

The full environmental impact of the oil spill deep under water in the Gulf of Mexico has yet to emerge. But there has already been a sizeable political fallout.

Two Republican governors, in California and Florida, have withdrawn their support for the idea of expanded offshore drilling and a number of Democrats in Congress have warned that they can no longer support energy reform legislation if it includes such provisions.

President Barack Obama recently announced that he was willing to lift a decades-long moratorium on drilling in new areas of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coastline.

At the time, he said any new exploration would "balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources".

The president clearly hoped to win support for his wider energy policies among Republicans who are sceptical about his efforts to combat climate change and believe that America should make the most of its own energy resources.

Win over some of the "drill, baby, drill" crowd, the thinking went, and you can persuade them to contemplate legislation that tackles climate change.

But along came a spill, and look what happened.

Less appetising

"You turn on television and you see this enormous disaster," said California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, "and you say to yourself, why would we want to take that risk?"

The governor promptly announced that he was no longer in favour of expanded drilling off the California coast, despite that fact that the state’s empty coffers could badly use some extra cash.

Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist also withdrew his support.

But if the thought of renewed offshore drilling seems rather less appetising now, where does that leave the sort of wider energy legislation the president wants to see passed?

Another Floridian, Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, bluntly suggested that the sop to conservatives was no longer an option.

"If offshore drilling off the continental coast of the United States is part of it, this legislation’s not going anywhere," he told reporters on Tuesday.

Of course, not everyone agrees. Mary Landrieu, Democratic senator for Louisiana, told the Senate last week the US could not afford to bury its head in the sand over its energy needs and "must continue to drill".

Speaking to a New Orleans TV station on Sunday, she said: "Our country needs this oil, there is no question about that.

"We have to produce this oil at home unless we want to be completely reliant. We’ve got to investigate, fine, clean up and do the research necessary to make sure this will never happen again. We have to continue to go forward."

And in a statement on Monday, Republican House leader John Boehner insisted that the US needed a "real, comprehensive energy plan" – one that would include drilling.

Democratic leaders are still hopeful the bill will go through. "I don’t think this is something that will stop" the bill, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Tuesday.

But the fate of the bill, and its offshore drilling provisions, remain open questions.

‘Game-changer’

Among the ranks of environmental activists, meanwhile, there is a feeling that this is a decisive opportunity.

"There have been two game-changing developments," says Damon Moglen, global warming campaign director for the environmental group Greenpeace.

"This terrible accident in the coal mine in West Virginia [which killed 29 workers] has really called into question the notion of more funding for coal," he says. "At the same time, this horrific oil spill… has really changed the dynamics."

Greenpeace was already highly critical of the energy reform bill working its way, very slowly, through the Senate. The bill would reduce carbon emissions, but, says Damon Moglen, offers far too many concessions to oil, coal and nuclear energy.

"This is a terrible, terrible tragedy and it is a historic, teachable moment for this president," he says.

"This is an opportunity where we can say… the cost of using petroleum and other fossil fuels should be deadly clear."

And if lifting the moratorium on new offshore drilling is no longer on the table, he says, then this will be more than made up for by renewed pressure for better legislation.

"In the political calculations of a month ago, it looked like success on the climate change legislation might lie in wooing a few Republicans over and taking Democrats for granted. That dynamic has changed entirely."

Blame game

But with the true consequences of the spill yet to be determined, this is perhaps a little premature. What is more clear is that making history seems less of a priority right now than establishing blame.

Last week, it was Wall Street "fat cats" who were being roasted by members of Congress. This week, it’s been representatives of BP and Transocean Ltd.

But while venting anger and debating when and how to reintroduce a moratorium might make people feel good, what does it actually achieve?

"That’s what’s sad about this opportunity," says Lisa Margonelli of the New America Foundation.

"We’re going to expend a lot of energy towards these moratoriums when we could be addressing the underlying problem, which is the oil consumption itself."

Perhaps, if the worst fears are realised, something will emerge that addresses such fundamental issues. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time a disaster spawned a piece of legislation.

"After the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, that helped to create a political environment that was more favourable to restricting pollution and making polluters pay," says Daniel Weiss, director of climate strategy at the liberal Centre for American Progress.

One indirect result, Mr Weiss says, was passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments in 1990, even though the act and the spill were completely unrelated.

"The same is possible here," he suggests.

Of course all of this depends on a disaster which hasn’t quite materialised yet. But it seems clear that the fate of energy legislation, just like the fate of beaches, wildlife and livelihoods along the Gulf Coast, rests to great extent on the wind, the tide and human ingenuity.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak has challenged opposition groups to spell out their ideas for reform in his first public speech in months.

The government of Mr Mubarak, who has ruled since 1981, has used emergency laws to severely restrict political activity and protest.

Protests calling for democratic reform have increased recently.

Mr Mubarak, 82, has not indicated if he will stand for election next year, but in March returned from surgery abroad.

Egyptians are also complaining about high food prices and calling for better pay.

Food prices in Egypt are on the rise, pushing meat out of the reach of most people.

Speaking in Cairo on his return from Sharm al-Sheikh where he has been convalescing, he warned against stirring up "chaos" in the country.

"I say to those who raise slogans and content themselves with posturing: this is not enough to gain the trust of the people," he said.

"They must respond to the questions of the poor, what can they offer them?

"In this delicate period there can be no room for those who confuse change with chaos," he said.

He also promised the elections would be free and fair.

Polls

Mohammed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, recently returned to Egypt from years of living abroad.

He has said if the constitution was changed to ensure fair elections he would consider standing for president in an election due next year.

He launched a new "forum for change" but has not said he will try to register it as a political party.

The main opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, is a banned organisation. It does have members of parliament, but they are elected as independents.

Muslim Brotherhood leaders are often arrested and their houses searched.

Mr Mubarak has just returned from Germany where he underwent surgery to remove his gall bladder.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A Pakistani man convicted over the 2008 attacks in Mumbai (Bombay) has been sentenced to death by a court in India.

Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasab – the only gunman who survived the attacks – was found guilty on Monday.

He was convicted on charges including murder, waging war on India and possessing explosives.

The attacks left 174 people dead, nine of them gunmen, and soured India’s ties with Pakistan. India blamed Pakistan-based militants for the attack.

Judge ML Tahaliyani said he had awarded the death penalty because there was no chance Qasab could be rehabilitated.

"He should be hanged by the neck until he is dead," he said.

The BBC’s Prachi Pinglay in the courtroom in Mumbai says that Qasab shook his head when he was asked if he wanted to make a statement. He was later seen wiping his face and talking to a policeman.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

The pro-democracy party of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to disband when a registration deadline for elections expires at midnight.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) is boycotting the polls because it says the laws under which they will be held are unfair.

Burma’s military leaders say any existing party that fails to register must disband.

The NLD overwhelmingly won elections in 1990 but was never allowed to govern.

The forthcoming polls – for which no date has yet been set – will be Burma’s first in 20 years.

International observers have roundly criticised the newly enacted election laws – and critics say the military will use the election to strengthen its grip on power.

Senior NLD leader and co-founder Win Tin told the BBC that the mood at NLD headquarters in Rangoon was sad but defiant.

"It is a great moment for us, it is a great message to the military that our party is sound and has decided not to register because the laws are really untrue to us and oppressive and subjective," he said.

New party?

The election laws, announced in March, ban anyone with a criminal conviction from being a member of a political party.

That meant that the NLD would have to expel Ms Suu Kyi and other key leaders if it wanted to take part in the polls. The laws also nullified the NLD’s 1990 victory.

Under the military-drafted constitution, 25% of seats in parliament are reserved for the military.

Several top military officials are also reported to have stepped down to run as civilian candidates, potentially further strengthening military numbers in the chamber.

The NLD was founded in 1988, in the wake of the 8/8/88 anti-government violence. Since the party’s 1990 election win, Ms Suu Kyi has spent much of her time in some form of detention.

The registration for new political parties begins on Friday and reports suggest that some ex-NLD members could regroup to form a new party that can contest the polls.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

For Win Tin, a veteran leader of Burma’s main opposition party, 6 May should mark a day of disappointment, to say the least.

At midnight the National League for Democracy will be forced to disband, having decided not to register for elections this year because of laws it considers unfair.

The party won Burma’s last elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power. Since then it has worked without success for democracy, many of its top leaders serving long jail sentences for their activism.

Win Tin, 79, co-founded the NLD and has spent 19 years as a political prisoner in the country’s notorious Insein prison.

But he told the BBC he had no regrets about his party’s decision to boycott the elections – even though the NLD will cease to exist.

"These are terrible laws which we do not accept," he said. "How can we accept it?"

The laws require parties to expel any member with a criminal conviction. Many NLD members, not least detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi, have been or still are political detainees.

The laws also nullify the NLD’s 1990 poll win.

"The laws are really untrue to us and oppressive and subjective," he said.

"We decided as a party, as a whole [to boycott the election]. It it is a great moment for us, it is a great message to the military that our party is sound."

He said the mood at the NLD’s headquarters in Rangoon was sad but defiant.

Some of the party faithful were in tears while others were singing and dancing, or giving speeches.

"One of the parents of a young man who is in jail came to the office to bring food for the people," he said.

‘Can’t win’

The veteran leader said the NLD’s boycott – along with that of several parties representing Burma’s ethnic groups – would make it clear to the international community that the elections were "not legitimate and not credible".

"[Even] if people vote for us, we cannot win, according to the law and the situation," he said.

"For any political party to win is impossible. And according to the constitution, even if we win we cannot form the government, can do nothing."

Under Burma’s constitution, 25% of the seats in parliament will be allocated to the military. Any constitutional change would require more than 75% approval, meaning that the military endorsement would be needed.

There are also reports that several senior members of Burma’s ruling junta recently resigned their military posts in order to run as civilians, potentially significantly increasing the number of military allies in the chamber.

Win Tin said NLD supporters should boycott the election.

"They may want to vote for the NLD or somebody, but such people are not in the election, so they have to refuse to vote," he said.

"That will amount to a boycott of the election and if the people boycott the election it will be a great help for the democratic cause."

Some members of the NLD are reported to have disagreed with the decision to boycott and disband.

Win Tin said they could try to form their own parties and contest the polls. But he insisted that 6 May was not the end of the NLD.

"We still have the support of the people, we cannot just put our hands up," he said.

"We cannot work as a political party, so we cannot make mass meetings, and put out statements and so on, but we will work among the people.

"All over the country we have about 300 offices, so in almost every town we have our offices. We don’t mind working for the people as a group not as a party.

"Maybe tomorrow the authorities will come and clean our office and order us to disband," he said.

"We don’t know about tomorrow but we will be here."

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A colossal star many times the mass of our own Sun is seen growing in a bubble of gas and dust just pictured by the Herschel space observatory.

The image of the bubble, known as RCW 120, has been released a few days ahead of the European telescope’s first birthday in orbit on 14 May.

Herschel’s infrared detectors are tuned to see the cold materials that give birth to stars.

Pictures like RCW 120 will help explain how really giant ones are made.

The monster in this picture is seen as the white blob on the bottom edge of the bubble.

The "baby" star is already some eight to 10 times the mass of our Sun but is surrounded by about 200 times as much material.

If more of that gas and dust continues to fall in on the star, the object has the potential to become one of the Milky Way Galaxy’s true giants.

Present theories of star formation struggle to explain how objects larger than about 10 solar masses can exist. The fierce light they emit should blast away their birth clouds, limiting their growth.

And yet, astronomers know of stars that are 150 times the mass of our Sun.

The unique capabilities of Herschel – it works in the far-infrared and sub-millimetre range (55 to 672 microns) – mean it can see physical processes that are beyond the vision of other telescopes.

Hubble, for example, which senses visible and near-infrared light, is blind to the details in this picture.

Scientists hope Herschel’s vision can give them the information they need to correct their models.

The European Space Agency’s billion-euro observatory was sent into orbit a year ago on an Ariane rocket.

It is positioned far from Earth to give it an unobstructed view of deep space.

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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.