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BBC news 2012-11-13

BBC News with Marion Marshall.

The radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada is to be released on bail after winning his latest appeal against deportation from Britain to his homeland Jordan where he was convicted in his absence of plotting bomb attacks. An immigration commission said it wasn't convinced by British government assurances that no evidence obtained by torture would be used against him in Jordan. Danny Shaw reports.

The court said there was still a real risk the statements of two men who were allegedly tortured would be used against Abu Qatada in Jordan in spite of the Home Secretary's assurances that he would receive a fair trail. Theresa May said the court had applied the wrong legal text, she will ask the court of appeal to consider the issue again. Abu Qatada's lawyers said the case emphasized the fundamental rules of the law that Britain subscribed to that torture evidence should not be used.

The Gulf Cooperation Council has announced that it is recognizing the newly formed Syrian operation coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. The GCC includes Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two important backers of the Syrian opposition. Jim Muir reports from Beirut.

The Gulf Cooperation Council pledged to support the new body in the hope that it would be a step towards a swift political change of power in Damascus. Official recognition of this sort by the nations which support the Syrian opposition was part of the deal they offered to persuade the different factions to shelf their differences and create a unified leadership structure. The coalition's new leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib is in Cario to talk to the Arab League where Qatar and other supporters will be pushing for full Arab recognition of this new group.

Israel has fired tank shells at a Syrian army artillery unit after mortar shells fell near an Israeli army post in the occupied Golan Heights. An Israeli TV channel says that several Syrian soldiers were wounded. Israel has again warned Syira that it will make a tougher response to any more shelling.

Members of parliament in Britain have been calling on the BBC to reconsider the $715,000 payoff promised to its former director general. George Entwistle resigned on Saturday following a television report wrongly accusing a former British Conservative politician of child sexual abuse. Here is Rob Watson.

The payoff to the former director general George Entwistle is proving to be yet another political and public relations disaster for the BBC. In parliament MPs of all parties called on Entwistle, the BBC to reconsider the size of the payment. But the BBC was also described as a globally and nationally valued institution, whose independence should not fall victim to the current crisis. In a clear signal. The government doesn't want to interfere, the Culture Minister Maria Miller said the what the BBC needed now was a period of stability to put its house in order, stressing it was a job only the BBC itself could do.

World News from the BBC

The European Union is suspending a controversial environment tax on airlines from outside the EU. Since January none European airlines using airports in the EU have been told to pay fees linked to the amount of carbon dioxide they produce, but the tax was opposed by countries including China, Russia and United States.

British members of the parliament have questioned senior executives of three multinational companies Google, Starbucks and Amazon as to why they pay almost no tax in Britain. The chair of the Public Accounts Committee said that Starbucks' claim that it had operated in Britain for 15 years without making a profit didn't ring true. The companies all report European sales through their headquarters in other EU countries allowing them to take advantage of lower tax rates there.

A top aide of Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been sentenced to ten years and ten mouths in jail for corruption. Jose Dirceu was President Lula's chief of staff from 2003 to 2005. Leonardo Rocha has more.

Thirty-seven people including senior figures of the governing Workers Party were charged for the alleged involvement in a scheme that became known in Brazil as Mensalao, or Big Monthly Allowance. Jose Dirceu who was once one of president Lula's closest allies was found guilty a month ago and sentenced now to nearly 11 years in jail. According to the Supreme Court, he sets up the illegal scheme that used public funds to pay politicians from coalition parties to approve government proposals. He denied the scheme ever existed.

Three thieves posing as an art teacher and two students have stolen paintings worth $2m from a museum in the South African capital Pretoria. Officials said the three men arrived at the museum on Sunday asked the staff to show specific paintings pulled out guns and then ran away with five works of famous artists.

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