BBC News with John Jason.

Police in the Central African Republic say at least 30 people have been killed and another 10 wounded in fighting between sectarian militias. Officials say most of those who died in the central town of Dekoa were civilians hit by street bullets. Here's B L.

The civilian deaths came as predominantly Christian anti-Balaka militia attacked positions in the central town of Dekoa held by the mainly Muslim Seleka rebels late on Tuesday. Months of communal violence have left thousands of people died. French and African Unions troops are trying to uphold order as Seleka rebels push north from the capital Bangui are attempting to regroup. French military police have begun patrolling the streets of Bangui as the first parts of a new European Union combat force.

The Syrian state news agency SANA says two car bombs have exploded in the city of Homs killing 25 people and more than 100 people have been injured. In a separate development, the rebel-held town of Rankous, north of Damascus, is reported to have fallen to government forces. Jim Muir is in Beirut.

Syrian state TV in a live report from Rankous said the battle to capture the town lasted 18 hours. There are accompanying footage, however, showed little resembling the kind of massive destruction inflicted on other towns and villages that have changed hands after a struggle. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of informants on the ground, said that rebel fighters had already withdrawn from Rankous as the request of residents after local notables had negotiated a truce with the regime.

The South African athlete Oscar Pistorius has faced tough questioning about his version of events, the night he killed his girl Reeva Steenkamp. Mr. Pistorius denies murder, saying he fired the gun accidentally because he thought there was an intruder in the house. Andrew Harding reports.

The cross-examination of Oscar Pistorius has begun aggressively today with the prosecutor Gerrie Nel quick to confront the athlete. For the first time in this trial, a graphic photograph of the victim's head wound was shown to the court. The athlete's relatives appeared destroyed, Reeva Steenkamp's mother June, bowed her head. Mr. Pistorius refused to look at the image.

As I picked Reeva up, my fingers touched her head. I remember. I don't have to look at a picture, I was there.

Later, Mr. Pistorius described the moment he shot through the toilet door, saying it was an accident. If Mr. Pistorius is forced to admit that he deliberately shot the door, even if he thought there were intruders behind it, then the prosecution will argue they've proved it was murder.

A student in the American State of Pennsylvania has stabbed 19 pupils and a security guard during a 30-minute attack in the classroom and hallways of a high school in Murrysville near the city of Pittsburgh. Nine people received serious injuries. Police arrested a 16-year-old male.

World News from the BBC

Negotiations are continuing to try to end an occupation of several Ukrainian government buildings in the east of the country, which have been seized by pro-Russian separatists. Ukraine's Interior Minister, Arsen Avakhov, has told journalists in Kiev that the crisis in eastern Ukraine must be resolved within 48 hours either through talks or by force. His government accuses Moscow of orchestrating unrests.

Two prisoners in Paraguay have been jailed for up to 30 years for sexual abusing two teenage girls in S security jail, where the men were already serving long sentences for homicide. A court heard how the prisoners pretended to be university students and contacted the girls using the prison's internet service. They then blackmailed the teenagers into visiting them inside the jail.

A former President and Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago, Arthur Robinson, has died at the age of 87. Mr. Robinson is credited with helping to establish the International Criminal Court in The Hague, an idea he first proposed United Nations in 1989. Emma Jones assessed his life as one of the Caribbean's most respected statesman.

Arthur NR Robinson was born in a village in Tobago in 1926. He had political ambitions and helped to created the people's national movements, which led Trinidad & Tobago to independence in 1962. However, it wasn't until 1996, as a leader of another political party, that he was appointed the first Prime Minister from Tobago. Four years later, the Prime Minister and his cabinet were taken a hostage in an attempted coup, the following a year, he lost the election honor, but he late to became the president.

Authorities in Puerto Rico are investigating why a renowned lagoon that glows at night with bluish green light has grown dark in recent weeks. A phenomenon of bioluminescent plankton draws large member of tourist in Mosquito Bay on the island of Vieques.

BBC News

 

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