Venezuelas Supreme Court has released 22 prisoners, including a high profile judge. Maria afiuni is one of many people the opposition says are political prisoners. She was first arrested ten years ago, and had been sentenced again in march for corruption. The move has been welcomed by the un, which published a highly critical report on thursday accusing president maduros government of widespread human rights abuses against the opposition and minority groups. But maria afiunis brother says his sister still has restrictions on her freedom. Translation she cant speak to the media. She cant use social media. She cant leave the country. She has to present herself every 30 days. The logical thing would be to get rid of all the cautionary measures and respect what the un says, which is complete freedom, but that has not happened. We continue to wait. The un says one thing, the maduro government does another. Theyre never serious about what International Organisations say, so were in the same
Good morning. Murderers who refuse to reveal the location of a victims body could be forced to spend longer in prison. Thejustice secretary david gauke has announced plans to introduce whats known as helens law. It follows a campaign by the mother of helen mccourt, who was murdered in 1988. Helens body was never found. Ben ando reports. For 31 years, Marie Mccourt has been fighting for helens law, named after her daughter who was just 22 when she was abducted and murdered in 1988. Her killer, pub landlord ian simms. He has never revealed the whereabouts of helens body. To take a life is horrendous, but then to take the lives of the family of that loved one and not let them know where their loved ones body is, there is no torture worse than that. I could say ive had a dripping tap on my head for the last 31 years. Its far worse than that. Its a pain in your heart that will never go. Marie led a campaign demanding that murderers who refused to disclose the whereabouts of a victims remain
Online have their sentences increased. Russia bans flights to georgia after clashes in the capital, thousands of protesters have gathered outside parliament for a second night. Eltonjohn receives frances highest civilian honour, the legion dhonneure from president macron. Welcome to bbc news. President trump has confirmed that he called off a military strike against iran with minutes to spare after deciding to many human lives would be lost. Mr trump tweeted that the us had been cocked and loaded, but he is now facing criticism from democrats or revealing details of the plan. The attack had been planned in response to the shooting down of an unmanned us drone by iran earlier this week. That happened in the volatile region which is a major supply route for one third of the worlds oil. Tehran says the drone entered iranian airspace the us maintains it was shot down in International Airspace over the straight of hormuz. Here is our north america editorjohn sopel. In iran they are celebrat
Online have their sentences increased. Russia bans flights to georgia after clashes in tbilisi. Thousands of protesters have gathered outside parliament for a second night. And, eltonjohn receives frances highest civilian honour, the legion dhonneur, from president macron. President trump has confirmed that he called off a military strike against iran with minutes to spare after deciding that too many human lives would be lost. Mr trump tweeted that the us had been cocked and loaded, but hes now facing criticism from democrats for revealing details of the plan. The attack was to be a response to the shooting down of an unmanned us drone by iran earlier this week. It happened in a volatile region that is a major supply route for a third of the worlds oil. Tehran says the drone entered iranian airspace, but the us maintains it was shot down in International Airspace over the strait of hormuz. Heres our north america editorjon sopel. In iran they are celebrating taking out of the sky a 13
Against iran last night with minutes to spare after deciding that too many human lives would be lost. The attack had been planned in response to the shooting down of an unmanned us drone by iran earlier this week. Our north america editor jon sopel reports. In iran they are celebrating taking out of the sky a 130 million us drone the latest escalation in tensions between washington and tehran. Today, on iranian tv, the results of their handiwork were being shown off. America has no shortage of military assets in the region but the anticipated retaliation never came. It turns out military strikes had been ordered. But at the last moment donald trump had a change of mind. He confirmed this on twitter this morning but now a rather different account from the president. The planes werent even in the air, so weapons couldnt have been locked and loaded. Were planes in the air . We were about ready to go. No, but they would have been pretty soon, and things would have happened to a point where