Greek police clear broadcaster's HQ

7 November 2013 Last updated at 05:06 ET

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A group of several hundred staff have continued to work at the station, broadcasting online, since it was officially shut in June

Greek riot police have cleared the headquarters of the former state broadcaster ERT, using tear gas to gain entry and arresting several people.

Police formed a cordon round the building in Athens, before going from room to room to evacuate protesters.

Former employees have occupied the building since the government closed ERT and sacked its 2,600 staff in June.

Greece's conservative-led coalition said the state broadcaster cost too much to run in an economic crisis.

The closure of ERT prompted a left-wing party to withdraw from the governing coalition of prime minister Antonis Samaras in protest - a move which almost brought down the government.

The BBC's Mark Lowen, in Athens, says the question is whether the ERT debacle again fuels social unrest here - and how much stomach the Greeks still have for a fight.

Restructured broadcaster

Following the announcement of ERT's closure in June, hundreds of staff refused to leave the building and continued to broadcast their programming via the internet.

But early on Thursday, Greek police arrived to secure the building in Agia Paraskevi, a suburb in the north of Athens.

Riot police used tear gas to disperse about 200 protesters outside the building, and then cleared each room inside.

One ERT journalist, Nikos Kourovilos, told the BBC by phone he had managed to evade police and was still inside.

"They are in the building, they have control, they put everyone out. The good thing is they forgot about me, because I told them I had to take my stuff and I will go," he said.

He said he was hoping to be able to make a broadcast later "because it's for democracy".

"We feel like we are Robin Hood… We are the voice of the people," he said.

Another member of staff told the BBC that once officers entered, it was fairly peaceful. Twenty or so workers were led out but three refused to go and were arrested.

The state-run Athens News Agency reported that Panagiotis Kalfagiannis, a journalist and head of the ERT employees' union, Pospert, was one of those held for public order offences.

ERT was Greece's only TV broadcaster until the advent of private TV channels in 1989.

Despite several major overhauls to keep up with fierce private competition, a fall in ERT's ratings in the mid-1990s triggered a long-running debate about its cost and efficiency.

In June, as Greece attempted to satisfy international creditors that it was fulfilling its debt restructuring and bailout commitments, the prime minister, Antonis Samaras, announced the closure of ERT.

He said the Greek exchequer could no longer afford to pay for a public broadcaster that cost 300 million euros ($406m; £252m) anually, and has refused to reinstate ERT unless it accepts a complete restructuring.

An interim TV station, called Public TV or DT, has been broadcasting in Greece since July while a restructured public broadcaster, called Nerit, is not expected to begin operating before 2014.

On Wednesday authorities in Valencia, a heavily indebted region of Spain, announced that the regional public broadcaster RTVV was being closed down to save money for other services including health and education.

Spanish unions have vowed to fight the closure.

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Olympic torch reaches space station

7 November 2013 Last updated at 05:32 ET

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The Soyuz rocket blasts off

A Soyuz rocket carrying the torch for the Sochi Winter Olympics has docked with the International Space Station, as part of efforts to showcase next year's games in Russia.

On Saturday, two Russian cosmonauts will take it on a historic first spacewalk. The torch will not be lit.

The event is part of a rebranding exercise by Russia, designed to portray it as a strong, modern country, says the BBC's Daniel Sandford in Baikonur.

The rocket left Earth at 04:14:25 GMT.

It blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, crewed by three cosmonauts - Russia's Mikhail Tyurin, American Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata from Japan.

The Olympic symbol will be handed over to fellow cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky, who are already on the orbiting station, when they go on the spacewalk on Saturday.

"Our goal here is to make it look spectacular," Mr Kotov said earlier.

"We'd like to showcase our Olympic torch in space. We will try to do it in a beautiful manner. Millions of people will see it live on TV and they will see the station and see how we work."

The Olympic torch has been carried into space twice before - in 1996 and 2000 - but it has never left a spaceship. It will not be lit aboard the space station as this would consume oxygen and pose a risk to the crew.

The Sochi torch will then be returned to Earth and used to light the Olympic cauldron in February next year.

It is all part of the elaborate preparations for Russia's first Olympics since the Soviet era. It is also the most expensive one so far, costing around $50bn (£31bn; 1,620bn roubles).

The run-up to the games has been marred by controversy over a new Russian law that restricts the spread of information about homosexuality, as well as allegations by rights groups that authorities have rounded up migrant workers who helped build the Games venues in Sochi.

In yet another minor setback, the flame has gone out several times since the torch relay began last month.

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Syria army retakes key rebel enclave

7 November 2013 Last updated at 05:47 ET

Syrian troops have retaken a key rebel-held town south of Damascus, state media and activists say.

State TV said the army had full control of Sbeineh and that "terrorists" had been driven out.

UK-based activist group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sbeineh was one of the most important rebel positions near Damascus.

Meanwhile, inspectors say they have verified one of Syria's two remaining chemical weapons production sites.

Inspectors had already verified 21 out of 23 sites declared by Syria but two sites were too dangerous to reach.

They said the latest site - near Aleppo - was verified using footage from sealed cameras and that it was dismantled and abandoned.

News of the army's takeover of Sbeineh was broadcast by state TV on Thursday.

"Our brave army has taken control of... the Sbeineh [area]... and [the nearby village] of Ghazalah in Damascus province after crushing the last terrorist positions there," it said. The government refers to rebels as "terrorists".

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the army had been backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and other pro-government militia.

"Rebels in southern Damascus have now had practically all their supply routes cut off," he said.

Nerve agents

Earlier, a statement released by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said photographs and footage provided by Syria showed the building empty near Aleppo with "extensive battle damage".

The exact location and the time that the images were taken were fully authenticated, the statement said.

Syria has agreed to destroy its stockpile of nerve agents and chemical munitions by mid-2014.

It has declared about 1,290 tonnes of chemical weapons and nerve agents as well as 1,230 unfilled chemical munitions - meaning shells, rockets or mortars.

A Syrian delegation is at the OPCW headquarters in The Hague this week to work out where and how to destroy the stockpile.

The deadline to finalise the plan is 15 November.

Damascus has proposed destroying its stockpile outside the country because of the continuing civil war.

Hundreds of people died in a chemical weapons attack on the edge of the capital in August.

The Syrian government denied it was behind the attack. However, following a threat of force by the US it agreed to a joint US-Russian deal to destroy its stockpile.

More than 100,000 people have been killed and about two million people have fled abroad since the uprising against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad began more than two years ago.

Diplomats are still struggling to fix a date for a long-delayed peace conference on the Syrian conflict.

The UN-Arab League envoy on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, had hoped to hold the conference in Geneva this month.

But earlier this week he said he was not able to announce a date, despite a day of meetings first with senior diplomats from the US and Russia, then with the other permanent members of the UN Security Council - the UK, France and China - as well as Syria's neighbours Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey.

Mr Brahimi said he was still "striving" for a summit by the end of the year.

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Cautious optimism at Iran talks

7 November 2013 Last updated at 06:00 ET

Talks between Iran and world powers on Iran's disputed nuclear programme have begun in Geneva, with both sides expressing cautious optimism.

It is the second round of talks since a new Iranian president took office in August with a more conciliatory stance.

A spokesman for the EU's foreign policy envoy Catherine Ashton said she had a "good meeting" with Iran's foreign minister before discussions started.

The West suspects Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons.

Tehran says its programme is for peaceful purposes.

'First step'

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Analysis

The air in Geneva is clear. So is the lake. But, for the next two days, everything else negotiators face in this city may be cloudy, muddy, and uncertain. For years, talks about Iran's nuclear programme were marked by detailed public demands and vague private discussions.

Now, following the election of Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran, the pattern has been reversed - public demands are vague and private discussions detailed.

In previous rounds of talks, the world powers made specific, open demands: Iran should stop uranium enrichment to 20%, shut down its enrichment facility at Fordo, and export its stockpiles of 20%-enriched uranium.

Iran refused to consider these demands - and the talks got nowhere. By contrast, the world powers now return to Geneva with one, much vaguer public demand: Iran should stop its nuclear programme from moving forward. Exactly what this means is unclear - deliberately so. It may give the two sides more room to reach an agreement.

In comments broadcast on Iranian TV on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the nuclear issue was "not insoluble", adding it was his government's policy to "refrain from seeking nuclear weapons".

Ahead of the talks, he met EU foreign policy envoy Catherine Ashton for a working breakfast. Her spokesman described it as a good meeting, while Reuters quoted Mr Zarif as saying an agreement was within reach.

After last month's meeting, international negotiators said they were considering an Iranian proposal. No details have been released.

The latest round of talks bring together Iranian officials and representatives of the "P5+1" - the permanent members of the UN Security Council (Britain, China, France, Russia and the US) plus Germany - also known as the E3+3.

Ahead of the meetings, a senior US administration official told reporters that Washington wanted Tehran to agree on a "first step" to stop advancing its programme further.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the US was hoping for "an initial understanding that stops Iran's nuclear programme from moving forward and rolls it back for the first time in decades".

However, Israel warned against accepting any partial deal.

An official said Israel had learned of a proposal under which Iran would cease all uranium enrichment at 20% - a step away from achieving a nuclear weapons capability - and slow down work on a heavy-water reactor in Arak.

In return, the Israeli official said, sanctions would be eased on Iran.

"Israel thinks this is a bad deal and will oppose it strongly," the official said.

Key demands

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Iran's potential three-phase plan

• Phase 1 (six-month timeframe): Sanctions to be lifted; re-doubled international inspections
• Phase 2: Details sketchy, but involves confidence-building measures about peaceful nature of Iran's efforts
• Phase 3: End state in which Iran's nuclear programme is certified as peaceful by the international community

Last month's talks were the first since Hassan Rouhani - seen as a relative moderate - became Iran's president in August.

International negotiators want Tehran to take specific steps to prevent it from ever being able to make nuclear weapons.

In return, they promise to lift some of the sanctions imposed in recent years.

Key international demands include the acceptance by Iran of a comprehensive verification regime - with unannounced checks - and a reduction in Iran's level of uranium enrichment.

Iran subscribed to a fuller inspection regime under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was known as the additional protocol, until 2006.

Western nations have also been pressing for Tehran to halt the production and stockpiling of uranium enriched to 20%.

They also want Iran to send some of its stockpiles abroad, and shut down the Fordo production site near the city of Qom, where most of the higher-grade enrichment work is done.

Since 2006 the UN Security Council has imposed a series of sanctions - including asset freezes and travel bans - on entities and people involved in Iran's nuclear programme.

Separate US and EU sanctions have targeted Iran's energy and banking sectors, crippling its oil-based economy. Iran wants the sanctions lifted.

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Israel 'conducts Syria air strike'

1 November 2013 Last updated at 05:28 ET

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Jim Muir says there is no official word on the incident from Syria or Israel

Israeli aircraft have carried out a strike near the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, a US official says.

The official said the strike targeted Russian-made missiles intended for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Latakia is a stronghold of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, where his Alawite community is concentrated.

This is believed to be sixth Israeli attack in Syria this year. Israel does not comment on specific operations.

Israeli officials have repeatedly said it would act if it felt Syrian weapons, conventional or chemical, were being transferred to militant groups in the region, especially Hezbollah.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

Israeli air-raids on military targets inside Syria have become one of the strangest sub-plots of the civil war.

This is thought to be the fifth or sixth such attack this year but it is Israeli policy not to offer any public comment on specific operations.

Syria too - for all its decades of hostility towards Israel - hasn't offered any military response and has tended to say little or nothing about the operations.

Israel has said publicly that it won't allow the Assad regime in Damascus to transfer powerful rockets and missiles to its allied Shia militia Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, where they could threaten targets in Israel.

The Syrian government caught in a grinding civil war of attrition within its borders does not have the capacity for any kind of military confrontation with Israel - avoiding public comment may be a way of reducing pressure from its own people and from the wider Arab world for some form of retaliation.

Israel's silence gives it some kind of deniability - even if no-one really doubts it is responsible.

The US, Israel's closest ally, may be a little concerned. The consignment of expensive weapons destroyed is thought to have come from Russia, and Washington won't want to see Russian displeasure provoked at a moment when its co-operation is needed to keep alive any hope of peace talks.

Reports of the strike came as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said all Syria's declared equipment for making chemical weapons had been destroyed, one day before a deadline.

Action by the OPCW was agreed following allegations, denied by the Syrian government, that its forces had used chemical weapons in civilian areas - and after the US and France threatened military intervention.

Delicate moment

A US official said the Israeli strike took place overnight from Wednesday into Thursday.

Reports circulated on Thursday of explosions near Latakia, but the cause was not clear.

"Several explosions were heard in an air defence base in the Snubar Jableh area," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist network.

Neither Israel nor Syria have commented on the reports. Earlier this year, Mr Assad had promised to respond to any future strikes by Israel.

One unnamed US official told the Associated Press that the missiles targeted by Israel were Russian-made SA-125s.

The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says the reports come at a delicate moment, with the Russians - who apparently made the weapons that Israel is said to have targeted - working closely with the US to get a peace conference on Syria off the ground.

Russia has been a key backer of President Assad's, continuing to supply his government with weapons during the conflict in Syria.

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Lakhdar Brahimi: "We are making progress. Whether that progress will be enough... is not certain"

The UN Joint Special Representative for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, has told the BBC he believes progress was "certainly being made" on preparations for an international peace conference in Switzerland - widely referred to as Geneva 2.

Continue reading the main story

Alleged Israeli strikes on Syria

• July 2013: Reports citing US officials say the Israeli air force struck a missile warehouse in Latakia
• 5 May 2013: Two Israeli air strikes reportedly hit a military complex around Jamraya, north-west of Damascus
• 2 May 2013: Israeli planes launch a strike targeting shipment of ground-to-ground missiles at a warehouse at Damascus airport, according to US intelligence sources
• January 2013: Syrian military says Israeli jets carried out an air strike on a military research centre north-west of Damascus

But he said it was not certain if it was enough for the conference to take place, as planned, on 23 November. He said he hoped to announce a date soon.

Speaking in Damascus, at the end of his first visit to the capital since December, he said "people are realising more and more there is no military solution and don't see any way of getting out of this horrible situation except through Geneva".

'Constructive partner'

On Thursday, the OPCW said in a statement that its teams had inspected 21 of the 23 chemical weapons sites in Syria.

It said two sites were too dangerous to visit, but equipment from those sites had already been moved to places where it could be inspected.

Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told the BBC that his government was co-operating, and was making a contribution to freeing the Middle East of weapons of mass destruction.

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Lyse Doucet reports from Damascus

"I hope those who have always thought of us negatively will change their minds and understand that Syria was, is, and will be always a constructive partner," Mr Mekdad said.

Syria's next deadline is mid-November, by which time the OPCW and the Syrians must agree a detailed plan to destroy the country's chemical weapons stockpile.

Syria has until mid-2014 to destroy the chemical weapons themselves.

Syria's arsenal is believed to include more than 1,000 tonnes of the nerve gas sarin, the blister agent sulphur mustard and other banned chemicals, stored at dozens of sites.

The uprising against Mr Assad began in 2011. More than 100,000 people have been killed and more than two million people have fled the country, according to the UN.

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Kerry admits spying went too far

1 November 2013 Last updated at 07:16 ET

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A summary of US spying allegations brought about by Edward Snowden's leak of classified documents

US Secretary of State John Kerry has said that in some cases, US spying has gone too far.

Mr Kerry is the most senior Obama administration official to have commented directly on an issue that has upset America's European allies.

He said he will work with the president to prevent further inappropriate acts by the National Security Agency.

His comments come as Asian countries have protested at claims that Australia was involved in a US-led spy network.

China has demanded an explanation of the reports, while Indonesia has summoned the Australian ambassador to Jakarta.

In other developments:

• Major technology companies including Google, Apple and Yahoo have called for the US government to do more to rein in the NSA's activities.
• A German MP said ex-US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden is willing to travel to Berlin to help investigations into the alleged surveillance of Angela Merkel's phone.
• Indonesia's foreign minister said reports that the NSA used Australian embassies to eavesdrop on Asian countries would indicate a "serious breach" of diplomatic rules.

In his comments, Mr Kerry also defended the need for increased surveillance, saying it had thwarted terrorist attacks.

"We have actually prevented airplanes from going down, buildings from being blown up, and people from being assassinated because we've been able to learn ahead of time of the plans," Mr Kerry told a conference in London via video link.

"I assure you, innocent people are not being abused in this process, but there's an effort to try to gather information. And yes, in some cases, it has reached too far inappropriately.

"And the president, our president, is determined to try to clarify and make clear for people, and is now doing a thorough review in order that nobody will have the sense of abuse... we are going to make sure that does not happen in the future." he said.

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Indonesia's foreign minister said the allegations were an issue of trust

Mr Kerry, in his remarks to a conference organised by the Open Government Partnership, said that while some surveillance may have been excessive, claims that up to 70 million were being monitored were an "exaggeration".

Claims about the extent of US surveillance of targets such as European leaders have strained Washington's diplomatic relations with some of its key allies.

'Serious breach'

Last week it was alleged that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone had been tapped for up to 10 years.

More recently there have been claims that the NSA hacked links connecting data centres operated by Google and Yahoo.

Continue reading the main story

• Accessing internet company data
• Tapping fibre optic cables
• Eavesdropping on phones
• Targeted spying

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia embassies in Asia had been used to spy on Asian countries such as China, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

"If confirmed, such action is not only a breach of security, but also a serious breach of diplomatic norms and ethics," Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said.

The report describes a signals intelligence programme called Stateroom which involves the interception of radio, telecommunications and internet traffic using equipment in US, British, Australian and Canadian diplomatic missions.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined to comment on the latest reports.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said: "Every Australian governmental agency, every Australian official... operates in accordance with the law."

The claims are the latest to emerge from documents leaked by ex-US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and is wanted in the US in connection with the unauthorised disclosures.

Technology firms appeal

In Germany, a member of parliament has said Mr Snowden is willing to travel to Berlin to help investigate allegations about the tapping of Mrs Merkel's phone.

Hans-Christian Stroeble, who represents the opposition Green party, said there would need to be safeguards against Mr Snowden, who he recently visited in Moscow, being deported to the United States.

The BBC's Steve Evans, in Berlin, said Germany's Christian-Democrat-led government may be unwilling to invite Mr Snowden to the country, particularly as his presence would raise issues over extradition agreements with the United States.

In the wake of the claims about surveillance of online data centres, six major technology companies have called for the US government to do more to control the NSA's activities.

The six called for "appropriate oversight and accountability" in a letter sent to a US Senate committee sponsoring a bill designed to rein in the NSA.

AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo signed the letter to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, saying the greater control would help to rebuild trust in government surveillance programs.

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SA gang-rapist jailed for life

1 November 2013 Last updated at 07:02 ET

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Johannes Kana, 21, admitted raping Anene Booysen but not killing her

A South African man found guilty of the rape and brutal murder of a 17-year-old girl has been sentenced to two life terms in prison by a court near Cape Town.

State prosecutors had requested this sentence - without parole - for 21-year-old Johannes Kana.

Anene Booysen died in February, hours after she was mutilated in a gang-rape and attack that shocked the country.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of sexual violence in the world.

'Shocking and inhumane'

The BBC's Nomsa Maseko at the court in Swellendam, 220km (136 miles) from Cape Town, says Kana's uncle clapped his hands and laughed as the judge announced the sentence.

"This is a joke," he said, adding that the system was unjust.

But many of those attending the trial feel justice has been served, our correspondent says.

Ms Booysen was left for dead at a construction site near her house in Bredasdorp and later died in a Cape Town hospital after she had been raped and disembowelled.

At the time President Jacob Zuma described the attack as "shocking, cruel and most inhumane".

He called for courts to impose the "harshest sentences" for sexual crimes.

During the trial, doctors who treated Ms Booysen described her horrific injuries - one said they were the worst injuries she had ever seen.

Just before she died, she reportedly said that five or six men had been involved in the attack.

Three suspects were initially arrested but only Kana stood trial.

He confessed to raping Ms Booysen but denied killing her.

Meanwhile, charges against four of five men accused of kidnapping, raping and killing two young girls in Diepsloot, a shanty town north of Johannesburg, were withdrawn at the Pretoria Magistrate's Court on Friday.

The state prosecutor said evidence showed the men were not in Diepsloot at the time of the crime earlier this month.

A fifth man remains in custody and the case was postponed until 27 November to allow for further investigation.

Last year, South African police figures show that 64,000 incidents of rape were reported last year.

Police say that a child is raped every three minutes in the country.

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Germany 'third' gender becomes law

1 November 2013 Last updated at 07:03 ET

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The BBC's Stephen Evans in Berlin says that it's not clear yet what this will mean for things like marriage and schools

Germany has become Europe's first country to allow babies with characteristics of both sexes to be registered as neither male nor female.

Parents are now allowed to leave the gender blank on birth certificates, in effect creating a new category of "indeterminate sex".

The move is aimed at removing pressure on parents to make quick decisions on sex assignment surgery for newborns.

As many as one in 2,000 people have characteristics of both sexes.

'Bruised and scarred'

They are known as "intersex" people because they have a mixture of male and female chromosomes or even genitalia which have characteristics of both genders.

The intense difficulty for parents is often that a gender has to be chosen very quickly so that the new child can be registered with the authorities, the BBC's Steve Evans in Berlin reports.

Sometimes surgery is done on the baby to turn its physical characteristics as far as possible in one direction or the other, our correspondent says.

The law in Germany has been following a review of cases which revealed great unhappiness.

In one case, a person with no clear gender-defining genitalia was subjected to surgery. The person said many years later: "I am neither a man nor a woman. I will remain the patchwork created by doctors, bruised and scarred."

German passports, which currently list the holder's sex as M for male or F for female, will have a third designation, X, for intersex holders, according to the interior ministry.

It remains unclear what impact the change will have on marriage and partnership laws in Germany.

Current laws define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and civil partnerships are reserved for same-sex couples.

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Polio outbreak in Syria confirmed

29 October 2013 Last updated at 06:49 ET

The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 10 cases of polio in Syria - the first outbreak in the country in 14 years.

The UN body says a further 12 cases are still being investigated. Most of the 22 people who have been tested are babies and toddlers.

Before Syria's civil war began in 2011, some 95% of children were vaccinated against the disease.

The UN now estimates 500,000 children have not been immunised.

'Regional risk'

Continue reading the main story

• Polio (poliomyelitis) mainly affects children aged under five
• It is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus which invades the nervous system
• Symptoms include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck, and limb pain
• One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis
• Between 5-10% of those who suffer paralysis die because their breathing muscles are immobilised
• Cases have fallen by over 99% since 1988, from around 350,000 then to 223 in 2012
• However polio remains endemic in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan

Source: World Health Organization

The WHO said the suspected outbreak centres on the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

The highly contagious disease is most often spread by consuming food or liquid contaminated with faeces.

"Of course this is a communicable disease, with population movements it can travel to other areas. So the risk is high for [its] spread across the region," the Reuters news agency quotes WHO spokesman Oliver Rosenbauer as saying in Geneva.

"Immunisations have started in that area," he said.

There are more than 100,000 children, all under age five, now at risk of polio in Deir Ezzor province alone, which has been caught in fierce battles between Syrian government forces and opposition fighters.

The city of Deir Ezzor remains partially controlled by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, while the countryside is in the hands of the opposition.

More than four million Syrians have been displaced internally by the conflict and generally live in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions.

A further two millions have fled the country, many of them living in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon , Turkey and Egypt.

The WHO has already reported increases in cases of measles, typhoid and hepatitis A.

Since the first suspected case was reported 10 days ago, the Syria's Health Ministry has begun an immunisation drive and aid agencies have begun developing emergency immunisation plans at Syrian refugee camps.

Mr Rosenbauer said most victims were under two years old and were thought never to have been vaccinated against polio, Reuters reports.

"The next step will be to look genetically at these isolated viruses and where they came from. That should give some clarity on the origin," he said.

Polio has been largely eradicated in developed countries but remains endemic in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

There is no known cure, though a series of vaccinations can confer immunity.

Young children are particularly susceptible to paralytic polio, the most serious form of the disease.

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Tiananmen crash 'suspects' sought

29 October 2013 Last updated at 05:56 ET

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Police have named two suspects linked to a "major incident"

Police in China have named two suspects linked to a "major incident" in Beijing, after a deadly car crash in Tiananmen Square, state media report.

The vehicle crashed into a crowd and burst into flames, killing five people.

Police subsequently issued a notice to hotels in Beijing seeking information about two people from Xinjiang province, Chinese media said.

The note also described a vehicle and four number plates from Xinjiang, the scene of sporadic violent incidents.

State-run Xinhua news agency said of the five people who died on Monday, three people died inside the car.

A tourist from the Philippines and a tourist from Guangdong province were also killed. Another 38 people were injured, including three tourists from the Philippines and one from Japan, police said.

"We thought the jeep was heading for us, and my mother and I had no way to run from it. So we didn't move," said eyewitness Wang Dake, who was sent to hospital with shock and a knee injury.

"I thought that if the car was going to hit us, then we would die right there. But it hit the marble railing and didn't hit us," he added.

An unnamed tourist from Zhejiang province told China's state-controlled Global Times: "The vehicle ran very fast. I could hear people screaming all the way while the vehicle ploughed through the crowds."

Police cars were chasing the car before it crashed, she added.

Police shut down the scene of the incident - at the north end of the square at an entrance to the Forbidden City - shortly after it occurred, temporarily closing a subway station and a road.

A BBC crew attempting to record footage at the location were briefly detained, while on Chinese social media some pictures of the scene appeared to be quickly deleted and comments were heavily censored.

There has been no official statement on the cause of the incident.

Hotel notice

"A major incident has taken place on Monday," the police notice said, without specifying what. It named two residents from Xinjiang's Pishan and Shanshan counties as suspects.

The notice, unconfirmed images of which have been widely circulated on Chinese social media, also asked hotels to look out for "suspicious guests" and vehicles.

Global Times said it had confirmation from the Beijing police that the notice was genuine, although police did not comment on the "major incident" itself.

Zhao Fuzhou, a security official at Beijing's Xinjiang Dasha hotel, said that police had circulated a notice to hotels searching for information about two suspects with Uighur names, AP news agency reported.

Continue reading the main story

• Uighurs are ethnically Turkic Muslims
• They make up about 45% of the region's population; 40% are Han Chinese
• China re-established control in 1949 after crushing short-lived state of East Turkestan
• Since then, there was large-scale immigration of Han Chinese
• Uighurs fear erosion of traditional culture

Xinjiang is home to the minority Muslim Uighur group, some of whom complain of cultural and religious repression under Beijing's rule. There have been sporadic outbreaks of violence in Xinjiang, including in both Pishan and Shanshan counties. China says it grants the Uighurs wide-ranging freedoms.

In June, riots in Xingjian's Turpan prefecture, which is in Shanshan county, killed 27 people. State media said police opened fire after a mob armed with knives attacked police stations and a local government building.

In April another incident in the city of Kashgar left 21 people dead. The government said the violence was linked to terrorist activity, but local people told the BBC it involved a local family who had a longstanding dispute with officials over religious freedom.

One unconfirmed report said that the authorities suspected that Monday's incident was a suicide attack. Reuters news agency reported that an unnamed source with ties to the leadership had said that the crash looked "like a premeditated suicide attack".

On Tuesday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman declined to say whether the incident was a suicide attack. "The relevant Chinese departments and authorities are carrying out an investigation into the incident," she said.

"At the same time, we admit that there are cases of violence and terror in some specific areas of Xinjiang," she said, adding that the government was resolutely opposed to acts of violence and terror.

If evidence of a Uighur link to the car blaze is confirmed, it would be the first time that such groups have carried out an attack in Beijing, correspondents say.

The BBC's Damian Grammaticas in Beijing says this would have serious repercussions for Xinjiang and the Chinese state, and would add to a sense that there really are serious troubles beneath the surface there.

Tiananmen Square is a highly sensitive site due to its link to China's 1989 pro-democracy protests, which were ended by a military crackdown.

The square is generally kept under very tight security both because of its proximity to key political institutions and so that is does not serve as a hub for protesters and petitioners, although incidents have nonetheless occurred there before.

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