Protests continue on Sharif ban

The ruling fuelled intense anger among Sharif loyalists

Protests against a court decision to ban Pakistan's ex-PM Nawaz Sharif and his brother from elected office have entered a third day.

In Karachi and Lahore, lawyers boycotted court proceedings to express solidarity with the Sharifs.

Authorities have filed cases against 300 leaders and activists of the Sharifs' PML-N party over the protests.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has held a cabinet meeting to discuss the worsening political situation.

Mr Sharif accuses President Asif Ali Zardari of influencing Wednesday's Supreme Court decision in order to remove him from politics, raising fears of renewed political turmoil.

The Supreme Court upheld an earlier ban on Mr Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz, from elected office.

Mr Sharif's PML-N holds power in Punjab province, where his brother was chief minister but has now been ordered to step down.

The court order has deepened the rift between the Sharifs and the federal government led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

Clashes

About 100 protesters tried to block the main highway into the capital, Islamabad, on Friday by placing bricks and rocks on the road.

Mr Sharif has accused President Zardari of being behind the ban

Police confronted the protesters and fired several rounds of tear gas shells, forcing the crowd to disperse.

In Punjab province, the stronghold of the Sharifs, paramilitary troops have been put on high alert.

Meanwhile, police have filed complaints against hundreds of PML-N workers in connection with Thursday's protests.

Incidents of violence were reported from all over Punjab province and there were smaller anti-government protests in Islamabad too.

Thousands of protesters, waving the green flags of the PML-N, burned tyres in the many demonstrations.

The most serious clashes took place on the outskirts of the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Protesters attacked banks and shops, set vehicles alight and blocked roads.

Police baton charged the demonstrators and lobbed tear gas shells. Crowds pelted security forces with stones.

'Let down'

Nawaz Sharif has urged his supporters not to break the law or wreck public property.

Who was behind ban?

He said he had been "let down" by Mr Zardari, who he had forged an alliance with to win elections a year ago.

President Zardari has dismissed the Punjab government and given control to the governor who is one of his loyalists.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says there are fears of a return to the see-saw political turmoil between the PPP and PML-N of the 1990s.

He says the government may try to contain protests through administrative measures and mobilising PPP workers.

But the "long march" protest planned by the Sharifs in the next two weeks could lead to violent confrontation and further instability, he says.

Second bird flu death in Vietnam

The public in Vietnam is warned to beware the risk of bird flu

A man in Vietnam has died from bird flu, becoming the second fatality from the virus in the country this year.

"The patient, 32, died on 25 February," said Nguyen Van Thai, head of the intensive care unit at Hanoi's tropical diseases institute.

A 23-year-old woman died from avian influenza earlier this month.

Vietnam has the world's second-highest bird flu death toll after Indonesia; three people in China have died from bird flu so far this year.

Vietnam's latest victim battled the disease for two weeks.

He had become ill after slaughtering and eating ducks his family raised in Ninh Binh, about 100 km (60 miles) south of Hanoi.

Bird flu outbreaks among poultry have spread to 13 provinces in Vietnam this year, killing or forcing the cull of more than 50,000 birds, the Department of Animal Health has said.

Bird flu has killed 54 people in Vietnam, including five last year, since it began sweeping through Asian poultry stocks in late 2003.

The H5N1 virus, which has killed at least 255 people worldwide since 2003, has the potential to mutate into a new human influenza virus.

A Chinese health expert has said that the country is likely to experience an upsurge in the number of human bird flu cases in the next month or two.

Brazil priest suspended for views

By Gary Duffy BBC News, Sao Paulo

A Roman Catholic priest in Brazil who defended the use of contraceptives and the rights of homosexuals has been suspended by his local archbishop.

Father Luiz Couto has been told he can resume his priestly duties in the north-eastern state of Paraiba if he publicly renounces his views.

The priest is also a member of Congress for the Workers' Party of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

He says he will continue to celebrate Mass at home with friends.

It appears that Father Couto landed in trouble with the Church authorities because of an interview that he gave to a local newspaper defending the use of condoms as a matter of public health.

He also spoke out against discrimination against homosexuals and said he was opposed to celibacy for priests.

Death threats

The archbishop in the state of Paraiba, Aldo Pagotto, said the ambiguous views expressed in the interview over gay marriage and contraceptives were diametrically opposed to the official teaching of the Church.

"This is intolerable," the archbishop said in an interview with Brazil's TV Globo.

Father Couto says he has not been officially notified of the decision and will continue to celebrate Mass at home with friends. Archbishop Pagotto is reported as saying the suspension will be lifted if the priest publicly renounces the views expressed in the interview.

A spokesman for the suspended clergyman said he was not an advocate of gay marriage, but an opponent of discrimination.

As an elected member of Congress for President Lula's Workers' Party, Father Couto has been a high profile advocate for human rights.

He has received threats to his life in the past for his opposition to death squads that operate in the north east of Brazil.

Holland crash victims identified

The Turkish Airlines flight came down short of the runway on landing

A Dutch official has identified those killed in a plane crash at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on Wednesday as five Turks and four Americans.

Nine people died and 86 were injured when the Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800 crashed short of the runway.

The chief investigator has said engine failure may have been a factor.

Pieter van Vollenhoven told Dutch state television that the way the aircraft fell directly from the sky suggested that its engines might have stalled.

Mr Van Vollenhoven, chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, said a reason for the apparent engine failure had not yet been established.

That so many people were able to walk out was truly remarkable Fred SandersDutch Safety Board Making plane crashes less deadly

"If you then lose speed, you then literally fall out of the sky," he was quoted as saying.

Dutch officials have taken the flight data and voice recorders to Paris, where French authorities are providing technical assistance.

Mr Van Vollenhoven said analysis of the recorders might be completed as early as Friday, but that the Dutch Safety Board would probably not announce any preliminary findings until next week.

"We hope to have a firmer grip as soon as possible," he told NOS television, adding that the information retrieved from the recorders was of high quality and would aid reconstruction of the accident.

Data analysis

The aircraft had been carrying 127 passengers and seven crew when it came down several hundred yards short of Schiphol airport's runway, about three hours after it left Istanbul's Ataturk airport.

It broke into three pieces on impact. Fire did not break out and within minutes those capable of walking began staggering out of the wreck.

Three of those killed were members of the crew. The Turkish transport ministry said 78 Turkish nationals and 56 people of other nationalities had been on board the plane.

How the Schiphol crash happened

Theo Weterings, the mayor of the Haarlemmermeer district which includes Schiphol, confirmed that five of the dead were Turkish and four American at a news conference on Thursday evening.

He said investigators now believed that 135 people were on the flight, not 134 as previously reported.

Earlier in the day, he told reporters that 63 injured passengers were still in care, six in a critical condition.

"Four of them are in such a severe condition that we have not been able to communicate with them," he said.

He said the priority was to identity the victims and inform their relatives.

Fred Sanders, a spokesman for the Dutch Safety Board, said it was remarkable that so many people had been able to walk out of the crash.

"Some have called it a miracle," he added.

Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim also described the low death toll as a miraculous.

"The fact that the plane landed on a soft surface and that there was no fire helped keep the number of fatalities low," he said.

Mr Sanders said the investigation at the scene of the crash would take a few days, after which the wreckage would be removed.

SCHIPHOL ACCIDENTS 27 October 2005: A fire at the airport's detention centre killed 11 people and injured 15 4 April 1994: Three people were killed and 13 seriously injured when a KLM flight carrying 24 people crashed on landing 4 October 1992: An El Al Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed into an apartment block after takeoff, killing 43 people In pictures: Schiphol plane crash Turkish plane crash: witnesses

Candan Karlitekin, head of Turkish Airlines' board of directors, said records showed the plane had been properly maintained. The pilot, a former Turkish air force officer, was highly experienced, he added.

Survivor Jihad Alariachi said there had been no warning from the cockpit to brace for landing before the ground loomed up through the mist.

"We braked really hard, but that's normal in a landing. Then the nose went up. And then we bounced... with the nose aloft," she said.

Witnesses on the ground described seeing the plane appear to glide through the air, having lost all propulsion, before hitting the ground and breaking into three pieces.

Fifa agents held in cocaine case

By Danny Wood BBC News, Madrid

Spanish police found 600kg of cocaine in a shipping container in Madrid

Spanish police have arrested 11 people, including professional footballers and agents from Fifa, over alleged involvement in drugs smuggling.

Six hundred kilogrammes (1,320lb) of cocaine have been seized.

The Spanish authorities believe the suspects were using their football connections as a cover for drugs trafficking.

Spanish news reports claim one of the former players detained was with first division club Atletico Madrid.

The same reports allege the leader of the drug smugglers is an ex-manager with a French first division team.

The police say two recruiting agents from Fifa (the International Football Federation), together with former and current professional footballers, are among the 11 people arrested in cities across Spain.

The police found the cocaine hidden in packets among machine parts for wind farms inside a shipping container in Madrid.

The drugs had been transported to Spain by boat from Argentina.

The authorities alleged the Fifa agents organised this smuggling operation while on a trip to Latin America recruiting professional footballers.

Last year Spanish police arrested more than 8,000 people for cocaine-related offences.

According to studies by the European Union, Spaniards consume more of the drug than any other nation in Europe.

Bangladesh guard mutiny is over

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Military presence on the streets of Dhaka

Bangladeshi border guards have ended their two-day mutiny, surrendering their weapons and freeing all hostages.

A government spokesman said the crisis in Dhaka was over, as the toll stood at 20 dead and dozens injured, lower than a previous estimate of 50 dead.

The statement came after tanks surrounded the guards' barracks and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina threatened tough action unless they surrendered.

It is unclear if mutineers at bases outside Dhaka have also surrendered.

"All the rebel troops have surrendered with their arms and the process has been completed," Sheikh Hasina's spokesman Abul Kalam Azad said of the Dhaka mutineers.

He urged rebel troops from the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) outside the capital to lay down their arms as well.

The bodies of nine army officers have been recovered from the BDR complex, apparently killed by the mutineers.

Military officials said they are searching the complex for more than 100 missing officers. Some are thought to have hidden in manholes.

Seven BDR troopers were also killed in the clashes, along with four civilians, including one boy.

Negotiations

Army tanks had been positioned around the border force's headquarters in Dhaka where the rank-and-file guards had mutinied over pay and conditions.

In pictures: Bangladesh violence Q&A: Border guards mutiny Eyewitness: Bangladesh mutiny

The average BDR trooper earns about $70 (