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BBC News with Jonathan Izard.
The United States says the
Congolese war crime suspect Bosco Ntaganda has
handed himself in
at the US embassy in
Rwanda and asked to be transferred to the
International Criminal Court, the
ICC,
in The Hague. Our East Africa correspondent
Gabriel Gatehouse reports.
Bosco Ntaganda walked into the US
embassy in Kigali on Monday morning unsolicited
according
to an official statement from
Washington. Neither the United States nor Rwanda
is a signatory to
the
ICC,
but
a
spokeswoman
for
the
state
department
said
the
US
supported
the
work
of
the
court and would aim to
facilitate his transferal to The Hague. The
charges against Gen Ntaganda,
who’s
nicknamed
The
Term
inator,
include
rape,
murder
and
the
recruitment
of
child
soldiers.
They
relate
not
to
the
current
rebellion
in
the
eastern
Congo,
but
to
an
earlier
conflict
in
the
same
region.
A legal
case has begun in New York that challenges the way
the city’s police
conduct a policy of
detaining
and
sometimes
searching
those
they
consider
suspicious.
Critics
say
the
operations
known
as
“stop
and
frisk”
disproportionately
target
black
and
Hispanic
men.
But
the
policy’s
supporters
say
it’s
contributed
to
a
sharp
drop
in
violent
crime.
Here’s
our
North
America
correspondent Jonny Dymond.
More than half a million
people were stopped on the streets of New York
City last year by police.
The
policy
is
legal.
But
now
opponents
want
the
way
that
it’s
put
into
action
examined
and
reformed. More than half of those
stopped are black, only a quarter of the city’s
residents are. A
lawyer for the
organisation that started the case, the Center for
Constitutional Rights, described
the
stops
as
a
frightening
and
degrading
experience
that
were
arbitrary,
unnecessary
and
unconstitutional.
The
jailed Kurdish
separatist
leader Abdullah
Ocalan
says
he’s
to
make
a
historic
statement
on
Thursday, raising hopes that he might
call a ceasefire after decades of conflict with
the Turkish
government. James Reynolds
sent this report from Istanbul.
A delegation of Kurdish MPs
was allowed to go and see Abdullah Ocalan in
prison. The politicians
took back with
them to Istanbul a statement from the PKK’s
leader. Abdullah Ocalan said that he
would
make
a
call,
or
announcement,
during
traditional
Kurdish
New
Year
celebrations
on
Thursday. This call will feature
satisfactory information on the political and
military aspects of the
solution, he
wrote. Most here take this to mean that Mr Ocalan
will call a ceasefire and may also
announce the withdrawal of armed PKK
fighters from Turkey to their main base across the
border
in northern Iraq.
Finance
ministers
from
the
eurozone
have
asked
Cyprus
to
protect
small
investors
from
a
proposed
levy
on
savings.
Plans
for
a
one-off
tax
of
nearly
seven
per
cent
on
savings
up
to
100,000 euros have
outraged Cypriots. Banks in Cyprus are to remain
closed until Thursday as
efforts to
revise an international bailout package continue.
A parliamentary vote on the package
ha
s been repeatedly
postponed. It’s now expected on Tuesday.
World News from the BBC.
The British
Prime
Minister David
Cameron
has
presented
the plan
to
regulate
the
press
in
the
wake of a series of scandals over phone
hacking by journalists. Mr Cameron told parliament
that
the plan agreed overnight by
Britain’s main political parties would set up a
watchdog that could
impose
heavy
fines
on
newspapers
and
force
them
to
publish
corrections.
The
leader
of
the
opposition Labour party
Ed Miliband said the agreement satisfied the
demands of protection for
victims and
freedom of the press.
havoc on the lives of
innocent people. And equally I want to live in a
country that upholds the
right of a
fearless, angry, controversial press that holds
the powerful to account, including in this
House. Today’s agreement protects the
victims and upholds a free press.”
The Argentine
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has made
a direct appeal to Pope Francis
to
intervene
on
the
dispute
between
her
country
and
Britain
over
the
Falkland
Islands.
At
an
audience
with the Pope at the Vatican, the Argentine leader
said she wanted him to get involved.
She
accused
Britain
of
militari
sing
the
islands.
It’s
not
known
how
the
Pope,
who
is
from
Argentina, responded to
the appeal. Argentina claims sovereignty over the
islands.
The
Supreme
Court
in
Colombia
has
revoked
a
presidential
decree
which
allowed abortions
in
cases of rape,
malfor
mation or risk to the mother’s
health. The judge said the decree issued in
2006
was
illegal
because
it
meddled
in
areas
for
which
no
law
had
ever
been
passed.
But
a
separate constitutional
court ruling holds that clinics cannot refuse
abortions in such cases.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board has banned
an international umpire Nadir Shah from the sport
for
10 years after finding him guilty
of corruption. The board launched an inquiry after
a report by an
Indian
television
station
alleged
that
Mr
Shah
and
others
were
willing
to
help
fix
matches
in
return for bribes. Nadir
Shah denies the charges and says he will appeal.