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BBC news 2012-02-01

BBC News with David Austin

The United Nations Security Council has begun to debate a resolution on Syria which is being promoted by the Arab League. The discussion was opened by the Qatari prime minister, who urged council members to take action against what he called President Bashar al-Assad's "killing machine". Barbara Plett reports from New York.

The session is a chance for top Arab League officials to address the Security Council. The head of the league and Qatar's prime minister are appealing for the council to fully back their plan for a political transition in Syria. They have strong support from American and European members, which have demonstrated that by sending their foreign ministers. But the Syrian government has rejected the plan because it calls for the President Bashar al-Assad to devolve power to his deputy. Its ally on the council Russia has denounced the resolution as opening the path to civil war. The combined Western and Arab offensive here is aimed at softening Russia's opposition and convincing it not to veto.

The United Nations refugee agency says more than 1,500 people drowned or went missing trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in 2011 - the highest death toll ever recorded. A UN official said most deaths happened in the first half of the year while there was unrest in Tunisia and Libya. The official also said a record number of people arrived in Europe from North Africa.

The former head of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Fred Goodwin, has been stripped of his knighthood. He was given the honour in 2004 as he aggressively expanded the Edinburgh-based RBS into one of the largest banks in the world. Here's our political correspondent Rob Watson.

Sir Fred Goodwin, the former head of the RBS bank, is now just plain Fred. Revoking an honour is highly unusual in Britain, but the committee said the scale and severity of the impact of his actions made this an exceptional case. Sir Fred Goodwin had become the symbol and focus for widespread public anger at the banking industry when RBS was rescued in 2009 by taxpayers after sustaining huge losses under his leadership.

The United States National Archives has released previously lost recordings of top US officials made in the confusing and anxious hours immediately following the assassination of President John F Kennedy in November 1963. They include dramatic conversations aboard Air Force One, in which the newly sworn-in President Lyndon Johnson is returning to Washington from Dallas with President Kennedy's body. He's heard paying his condolences by telephone to the slain president's mother, Rose Kennedy.

Republicans in Florida are voting in the latest of the state primaries to choose their party's candidate for the US presidential election later this year. Opinion polls show the Republican front-runner Mitt Romney has a comfortable lead over his main rival, the more conservative Newt Gingrich, although Mr Gingrich won the most recent primary in South Carolina.

World News from the BBC

Iran says inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have ended three days of talks in Iran about its nuclear programme. Here's our Tehran correspondent James Reynolds, who's based in London.

IAEA inspectors spent three days in Iran. The nuclear agency has declined to comment on the details of their mission. It's not yet clear where the inspectors went nor whom they saw. Iran's semi-official Fars news agency says that the talks were held in a positive and constructive atmosphere. The news agency reports that the two sides have agreed to continue talks. This has yet to be confirmed by the IAEA. Before they began their trip, the inspectors told reporters that they wanted to ask Iran questions about the possible military dimensions of the country's nuclear programme.

Officials in France and India say the French firm Dassault is now certain to win a multi-billion dollar contract to provide the Indian air force with more than 120 new Rafale jets. It's one of the world's biggest recent defence deals. Andrew North reports from Delhi.

It's a major victory for the French because there were doubts over the aircraft's commercial future. Equally it's a big loss for the Eurofighter consortium, which includes British Aerospace and three other European companies. UK officials here said they were disappointed at the decision. There will be suspicions it has something to do with Britain's colonial past here, but officials said they'd been assured it was all about cost and no reflection of relations with India.

Andrew North reporting

The president of the Turkish Football Federation, Mehmet Ali Aydinlar, and two of his deputies have resigned following a crisis caused by a match-fixing scandal. Mr Aydinlar said he'd lost the trust of the European footballing body Uefa. Scores of people have been arrested during a police inquiry into match-fixing, which allegedly involves several top clubs including the champions Fenerbahce.

Those are the latest stories from BBC News.