Pakistan attack on cricket convoy

Several members of the Sri Lankan cricket team have been injured after gunmen fired on a convoy carrying cricketers in Pakistani city of Lahore.

The convoy was carrying Pakistani and Sri Lankan cricketers to a ground, which is hosting a Test match between the two sides.

Reports quoting Sri Lankan authorities say at least two Sri Lankan players were seriously injured in the incident.

Unconfirmed reports say some policemen had been killed by the shooting.

The incident happened on the road from the teams' hotel to the Gadaffi stadium, where a Test match is being held.

"It appears that our team bus was targeted on the way to the match. It appears that four of our cricketers have been injured and taken to the hospital," a Sri Lankan cricket official told an Indian TV channel from Colombo.

---

Were you at the game in Lahore? Did you witness the shooting? Tell us your thoughts by filling in the form below. Do not endanger yourself or others.

Name

Your E-mail address

Town & Country

Phone number (optional):

Comments

The BBC may edit your comments and not all emails will be published. Your comments may be published on any BBC media worldwide.

Terms & Conditions

Cuban shake-up claims key figures

Raul Castro officially took over from his brother a year ago

Cuban leader Raul Castro has announced a major cabinet reshuffle that includes the removal of two of the country's most prominent politicians.

State television said Carlos Lage, a vice-president, and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque were among 10 officials who are stepping down.

It said the move was in line with the president's plan to improve efficiency.

It is the first big reshuffle since Mr Castro took over as president from his ailing older brother, Fidel, last year.

Mr Lage and Mr Perez Roque had both been seen as possible future candidates for the presidency, and were considered close to Fidel Castro.

North Korea holds rare UN talks

The talks, the first since 2002, come amid high tension on the peninsula

North Korea and the US-led United Nations Command in South Korea have held rare military talks on border tensions.

The meeting, which lasted just over 30 minutes, was the first in seven years.

The two sides discussed ways to ease tensions and agreed to further talks, a UN Command statement said.

The meeting of generals, held at the border village of Panmunjom, came two days after the North warned US troops to stop "provocations" on the border.

It also took place amid international concern that North Korea could be planning to test-fire a long-range missile.

Joint exercise

A UNC statement said both sides "discussed measures to reduce tensions and introduce transparency".

"The UNC welcomed this discussion with North Korea which holds the prospect for building trust and preventing misunderstandings between both sides," it quoted delegation chief, US Air Force Major General Johnny Weida, as saying.

North Korea's missile programme

South Korea's Yonhap news agency, meanwhile, said that the North used the talks to criticise a planned US-South Korea military exercise.

The UNC has officially remained in place to help defend the South since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war and the partitioning of the Korean peninsula.

A 4km-wide (2.5 mile) buffer strip known as the demilitarised zone (DMZ) divides the two Koreas, and the US stations 28,500 troops in South Korea to back up the South's 680,000-strong military against the North's 1.1 million troops.

South Korean and North Korean military officials have held talks several times in recent years at Panmunjom, most recently in October 2008, with no result.

The UN Command said Monday's talks were the first at general level between it and the North since 2002.

The Associated Press quoted a UN command spokesman, Kim Yong-kyu, as saying the talks had been hastily arranged after the North's request.

Rising tensions

On Saturday, North Korea sent a statement to South Korea's military accusing US forces of "behaving arrogantly" and threatening "resolute counter-action".

The statement alleged that US forces trespassed across the border line inside the demilitarised zone. South Korea denied those claims.

Fears of a border clash have grown in recent months after the North scrapped all peace accords with the South and warned of war.

Concerns have also risen since the North's leader, Kim Jong-il, suffered what appeared to be a debilitating stroke last year.

He has since returned to active rule, issuing a series of bellicose statements, but fears remain about any plans for a successor.

Recent weeks have also been dominated by reports of preparations by the North for a rocket launch. Pyongyang says it plans to launch a satellite, but its neighbours think it may be planning to test the Taepodong-2 long-range missile.

The new US envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, is due to visit Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul this week to discuss ways to deter the North from the missile launch and persuade it to restart stalled nuclear disarmament talks.

Mass whale stranding in Tasmania

Australian authorities are racing to save dozens of pilot whales and a small pod of dolphins beached on an island.

The mammals have stranded themselves on King Island, in the Bass Strait between the mainland and the southern state of Tasmania.

Reports say about 140 out of nearly 200 whales have already died.

More than 400 whales have died in Tasmanian waters in recent months, in a phenomena for which scientists still have no definitive explanation.

The 194 pilot whales and half a dozen bottlenose dolphins became stranded on Naracoopa Beach on King Island on Sunday evening.

Chris Arthur, of Tasmania's Parks and Wildlife Service, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that 54 whales and seven dolphins were still alive.

"It's amazing, some will some die straight away, some will survive for days," he said.

These sperm whales died off Tasmania in January

"These are fairly robust animals, pilot whales, we experienced that in the past. While they're alive there is a chance," he said.

Local residents joined rescuers in trying to keep the animals wet and finding ways to move them out to open water. More than 100 King Island residents have volunteered to help the efforts.

More than 150 pilot whales died after beaching themselves on Tasmania's remote west coast in November and 48 sperm whales died in January on a sandbar off Perkins Island.

Mass strandings of whales occur periodically in Australia and New Zealand, as the whales migrate to and from Antarctic waters, for reasons that are not entirely understood.

Theories include disturbance of echo-location, possibly by interference from sound produced by human activities at sea.

Mixed results in Spain elections

Turnout in the Basque Country was similar to that in the last election

Nationalists have won the most votes in regional elections in Spain's Basque Country, but fallen short of a majority in parliament, final results show.

The results mean the nationalists, who have governed the Basque Country for 29 years, could be ousted from power by a coalition of non-nationalist parties.

In the north-western Galicia region, Spain's nationally-governing Socialists lost power to conservative opposition.

The polls were the first political test for Spain since it slid into recession.

Coalition talks

In the Basque vote, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) won 30 seats in the 75-seat parliament, with the Socialists taking 24, final results showed.

The Socialists conceded defeat in the Galicia poll

Three other smaller nationalist parties - Aralar, Eusko Alkartasuna and Ezker Batua - which are expected to join a coalition with the PNV, won a further seven seats.

However, the conservative Popular Party won 13 seats and the small UPD won one seat, meaning a potential non-nationalist coalition would have one more seat than their rivals.

Never has a non-nationalist party led an elected government in the region, the BBC's Steve Kingstone reports from Spain. The PNV has been in power in the region for 29 years.

Much depends now on coalition talks which will take place over the coming days, our correspondent adds.

In Galicia, the governing coalition of the Socialists and the Galician Nationalist Bloc lost power to the Popular Party.

The PP secured a majority of 39 seats in the 75-member regional parliament.

The Socialists came second with 24 seats, while the BNG won 12 seats.

Bomb alert

More than four million people were eligible to elect the regional parliaments in Galicia and the Basque Country.

What kind of unemployment do people prefer, 8%, as we have here, or 14%, as they have in Madrid? Miren AzkarateBasque Nationalist spokeswoman Analysis: Basque race wide open

In the Basque Country, the Socialists had focussed their campaign on the economy rather than issues of national identity.

They had run their election campaign saying that the real issue was jobs, rather than referendums and self-rule, our correspondent says.

The Socialists portrayed the leader of the current Basque government, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, as out of touch with real issues.

The PNV rejected those claims, saying that the Basque economy was doing so much better that the rest of Spain.

Unemployment is lower in the region than the national average, and Basque incomes are among the highest in Spain, our correspondent says.

Hours before polls opened, Basque police arrested a suspected member of the militant group Eta, who was believed to have been planning an imminent attack.

The 24-year-old had been under surveillance.

Officers later found what has been described as "bomb-making equipment" in an apartment in the town of Hernani, our correspondent says.

Eta had called the Basque election "anti-democratic" following a decision by Spain's Supreme Court to ban two separatist parties from fielding candidates.

Eta is blamed for more than 800 deaths in a 40-year campaign for an independent Basque homeland.

US military chief in Iran warning

Iran has enough nuclear material to build a bomb, the US' most senior military commander has said.

"We think they do, quite frankly," Adm Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN.

"And Iran having a nuclear weapon, I've believed for a long time, is a very, very bad outcome for the region and for the world," he said.

Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, but the West suspects it is seeking nuclear weapons.

Iraqis detain al-Qaeda 'minister'

Iraqi security forces say they have captured 11 members of the country's al-Qaeda network, including the group's self-styled "oil minister".

Ali Mahmoud Mohammed and 10 other suspected insurgents were detained on Saturday in a village in Iraq's volatile Diyala province, reports say.

He is suspected of planning attacks on oil tanker trucks.

The US says al-Qaeda has been pushed out of much of Iraq, but is still capable of large-scale attacks.

Reports say al-Qaeda in Iraq used the self-proclaimed ministerial titles to refer to key members of their organisation.

Iraq's interior ministry described Ali Mahmoud Mohammed as the organisation's "oil minister".

Threat diminished

The latest raids come just a week after al-Qaeda in Iraq's self-styled "irrigation minister" and "finance minister" were arrested in another operation on 21 February.

The head of al-Qaeda in Iraq is said to be known as the group's "war minister".

Much of al-Qaeda's support comes from the area around Diyala and in the province of Nineveh.

Although its capacity for staging attacks has been reduced, it is still viewed as a major threat in Diyala and around the northern city of Mosul.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq was responsible for a violent insurgent campaign in the years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, but its influence has lessened because of the success of a US campaign to isolate it from Iraq's tribal leaders and Sunni Muslim communities.

The US military succeeded in winning Sunnis over by striking deals and bringing thousands of potential insurgents onto the US payroll, arming and training them.