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BBC news 2013-03-11

BBC News with Fiona MacDonald.

Britain, Italy and Greece said they believed that seven foreign hostages had been killed in Nigeria, as reported by the militant group that took them captive. The radical group, Ansaru, seized the seven men last month from a construction site in northern Nigeria. He said the hostages, British, Italian, Greek and Lebanese, were killed because of a rescue attempt by British and Nigerian forces. But Italy denied this. The British foreign secretary, William Hague, condemned the killing in the strongest terms. "This is an unforgivable act of pure cold blooded murder, for which there can be no excuse or justification. The responsibility for this tragic outcome rests solely with the terrorists who took these people hostage." Correspondents say Ansaru is a splinter group from the Islamist sect, Boko Haram, which has for years been staging attacks in Nigeria.

The Afghan president, Harmid Karzai, has accused the United States of working with the Taliban to keep foreign troops in the country beyond 2014, when most are due to leave. Mr. Karzai said both the US and militants wanted to frighten people into believing there would be more violence in Afghanistan unless international forces remained. The American Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel, who's in Kabul, denied the charge. "I told the president that it was not true, that the United States is unilaterally working with the Taliban or trying to negotiate anything. The fact is, any prospect for peace, for political settlements, that has to be led by the Afghan."

Scientists say the earthquake in Japan in March 2011 was so big that its effects were felt at the edge of space. The earthquake caused a devastating tsunami which killed nearly 16,000 people. Writing in the journal "Geophysical Research Letters", the researchers said the earthquake emitted such a powerful ripple of sound that traces of it were picked up by the Goce satellite, 255 kilometers above earth.

A fire in a block of apartments in Germany has killed eight members of a family of Turkish origin, a mother and her seven children. The blaze broke out on Sunday morning, in the town of Backnang near Stuttgart. Steve Evans reports from Berlin. The fire broke out in a flat in an old three-storey leather factory converted into apartments. Four people were rescued from a balcony but the flames and smoke were too intense to reach the mother and her children. Investigators were concentrating on an oven in the building as the likely source. The building also houses the offices of a Turkish cultural association. But the police said there was no evidence of racist attack. There will be keen interest though, because in the past, the police have been accused of being slow to see any racist connection to crime.

World news from the BBC.

The people of Falkland Islands are voting in a referendum on whether to remain an overseas territory of the United Kingdom. Voters are widely expected to support retaining their current status. But Argentina has called the exercise illegal and meaningless.

Brazilian police said a driver who collided with a cyclist has admitted flinging the cyclist's severed arms into a stream after the limb was ripped off by the impact of the collision. The incident in one of Sao Paolo's main streets has caused outrage in Brazil. A police spokesman told the BBC the motorist had turned himself in. The cyclist is in hospital.

The ashes of a World War Two secret agent, who died in 2011, had been scattered in a French forest where she carried out her most perilous operations. Nancy Wake played an extraordinary role in the French resistance movement against German occupation. As chris Bockman reports from southern France. Nancy Wake combined glamor, charm and bravery behind enemy lines in France with such success that at one point she was top of Gestapo's most wanted list. When the Germans discovered she was a spy, she was forced to flee to Englandwhile her French husband was tortured and killed for refusing to reveal her whereabouts. She returned, parachuting into central France, where she acted as a liaison officer between the French resistance and allied forces. The memorial service for Nancy Wake, known to be fond of an early morning gin and tonic, was followed, as she wished, by a very large drinks reception.

Princess Lilian of Sweden, whose decades long secret romance with the royal prince became one of Sweden's best known love stories, has died at the age of 97. British born Princess Lilian met Sweden's Prince Bertil in London during the second world war, but they had to keep their relationship secret for decades, because of the prince's obligation to the throne and Lilian's status as a divorced commoner.

BBC News.