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BBC news 2012-07-01

BBC News with Nick Kelly

The international peace envoy Kofi Annan says world powers have agreed on a plan calling for a transitional government for Syria. Speaking after the summit in Geneva, he outlined what needed to be taken place.

"The key steps in any transition include the establishment of its transitional governing body which can establish a neutral environment in which the transition can take place. That means the transitional governing body would exercise full executive powers. The transitional governing body could include members of the present government and the opposition, and other groups should be formed on the basis of mutual consent."

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after the summit that the aim of agreement was a government without President Assad.

"Assad will still have to go. He will never pass the mutual consent test. The text also makes clear that the power to govern is vested fully in the transitional governing body, which strips him and his regime of all authority if he and they refuse to step down and leave."

However, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rejected the US interpretation of the agreement, saying there were no conditions set out on who could be in the transitional government.

"We're going to build the work for a transition and take it to a new stage, but that work will be done by the Syrians themselves. That is very clearly stated in the document it's a Syrian-led transition. We have achieved a situation where there are no prior preconditions to the transitional process and the national dialogue, and that there is no attempt to exclude any kind of group from this process."

In Syria itself, activists say the army has regained control of Douma near the capital Damascus after a siege and shelling lasting several days. They say dozens of people have died and hundreds more have been injured with bodies lying in the streets. The activists say many people have been forced to flee the town and others are trapped inside with food, electricity and water supplies running out. The Syrian state news agency said the army was continuing to pursue what it described as terrorists in Douma with dozens dead after raids on their hideouts.

Egypt's first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi has been sworn in with a call for the swift reinstatement of the country's parliament, which was recently dissolved. In a ceremony at a military area outside Cairo, the head of the governing military authorities, Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, officially handed power to President Morsi. Earlier in a speech at Cairo University, Mr Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood said he'd protect the army as an institution, but he warned that its job was to defend the country, not to run it. Mr Morsi promised a shining new page in his country's history.

World News from the BBC

Pakistan's new Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf says the country's President Asif Ali Zardari is immune from prosecution for as long as he's in office. Mr Ashraf was speaking on the issue for the first time since becoming prime minister. Three days ago the Supreme Court gave Mr Ashraf two weeks to clarify whether he intended to pursue corruption charges against President Zardari.

A tougher policy on Afghan migrants is coming into force in part of Pakistan, which means up to a million Afghans could face deportation. Officials in Pakistan's northwestern province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan, say they will no longer tolerate Afghan migrants who are not officially registered as refugees. Here's Jill McGivering.

The whole issue of Pakistan's Afghan migrants is highly sensitive. During decades of instability Pakistan, like Iran, opened its borders to millions of Afghans, accepting them as refugees. Since 2002 they have started to go back on a voluntary basis. Almost four million have returned, but 1.7 million with a refugee status remain, and there's frustration in Pakistan that the rate of return has fallen.

The former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has died. He was 96 and had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Mr Shamir served as prime minister in the 80s and 90s. Born in Russia he was a member of a Zionist militant group before Israeli independence and later worked in the country's intelligence service. Mr Shamir's political career began in the 70s in the ranks of the right-wing Likud party, where he gained a reputation as a hardliner who opposed many peace initiatives.

And violent thunderstorms have swept across the eastern United States, killing at least eight people and causing widespread destruction. State-wide emergency has been declared in Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio, where more than three million households are without electricity. The process of restoring power could stretch into next week.

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