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BBC news 2012-08-25

A court in Norway has sentenced Anders Breivik to 21 years in jail, after ruling that he was sane when he killed 77 people in bomb and shooting attacks last year. The judge said his actions could be explained in the context of his fanatical right-wing views, rather than as a product of a sick mind. Prosecutors who wanted to Breivik to be declared insane say they will not appeal. Lars Bevanger reports.

Judge Wenche Arntzen ended months of speculation just minutes after she began announcing the court’s decision. She and four other judges had found Anders Breivik to be sane and therefore able to serve the maximum sentence of 21 yearsin prison. The judge recognized he suffered from a personality disorder, but that did not mean that he was insane in the face of the law. Breivik had admitted he killed 77 mainly young people in a car bombing and shooting spree last year. His guilt was never indoubt.

A sacked fashion accessory designer shot dead a former colleague on a crowded New York street in the morning rush hour . Responding to the incident near the Empire State Building, police killed the gunman during exchange of fire. Eight other people were injured. The mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg said some of those might have been hit by police bullets.

Earlier this morning a little after 9:00 am., a man who had been fired from his job about a year or so, began shooting near the Empire State Building but out on the street. He killed one person, and at least nine other people were shot. And some may have been shot accidentally by police officers who responded immediately and while confronting the suspect and failing shooting him. Unfortunately, there may have been other victims as well.

Two employees of the American embassy in Mexico City were injured when their vehicle came under fire on a road near the capital. Mexican officials said more than 30 shots were fired at the vehicle which has diplomatic license plates. Reports say Mexican police were looking into reports of a stolen car in the area near the city of Cuernavaca and opened fire as the car failed to stop at a checkpoint. The US state Department says it’s working with Mexican authorities to investigate the incident.

Syrian opposition sources say that 21 people have been killed in an air raid and artillery attack on residential buildings in Mayadin, a town in the east near the Iraqi border. The Syrian army has also resumed its bombardment of Darayya on the outskirt of Damascus. Activists say at last 21 people have been killed. There are also reports of heavy government shelling on several districts in the northern city of Aleppo.

The campaign group Amnesty International says it’s been told that Gambia has executed nine prisoners out of 47 who’ve been on death row . An Amnesty spokeswoman told the BBC the executions, the first in the Gambia for 29 years, were reported to include a woman and three citizens of Senegal.

World news from the BBC

The British government is organizing an emergency response to a cholera epidemic in Sierra Leone which has killed more than 200 people. It plans to help provide clean water and sanitation for some 2 million people. Here’s our world affairs correspondent Mark Doyle.

The British government’s aid arm the Department for International Development has earmarked 2.5 million dollars to tackle the cholera epidemic in Sierra Leone which has already taken over 200 lives. It could threaten many thousands more if not brought under control. Cholera is a sort of extreme diarrhea. It can kill people within hours if rehydration is not administered quickly. It’s relatively simple to treat if clean facilities and trained staff were available. But Sierra Leone is a poor country with overstretched hospitals.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran of totally ignoring western demands about its nuclear program. Mr. Netanyahu said Tehran’s progress towards achieving nuclear weapons was accelerating after Iran installed more gas centrifuges at its fore old plant. There’s growing speculation that Israel’s leadership may be contemplating an attack on Iran’snuclear facilities before the US presidential election in November.

Activists from the environmental campaign group Greenpeace say they’ve left a Russian offshore oil rig in the Arctic after spending several hours cleaning to its sides. The activists said there had been holes with icy water and plotted with metal objects. The platform in the patrol sea is operated by the Russian company Gazprom. The environmentalists fear that drilling in the Russian Arctic could have disastrous consequences.

The German government has admitted that from 2008 to 2010 German federal police trained members of the security forces of Belarus famously branded “Europe’s last dictatorship” by the former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The Germany Interior Ministry said the government had believed Belarus was committed to a process of democracy.

BBC news.