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BBC news 2013-03-26

BBC News with Marion Marshall

The president of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, has defended a 10bn euro bailout deal to save the country’s banks from collapse. Mr Anastasiades, who negotiated the agreement with the EU and the IMF in Brussels, said in a televised address that the agreement laid the foundation for the future of the country.

"Cyprus found itself at(on) the brink of economic disaster. Our choices were not easy and it was not an easy environment. After hard negotiation to a sense of responsibility, we got to a conclusion that safeguards the future of the country. The agreement is hard, but under the circumstances it is the best possible we could have achieved.”

The Cyprus deal protects small savers, but depositors with more than 100,000 euros, many of whom are Russian, face big losses.

The British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced plans to tighten the rules on state welfare to immigrants. People from other European Union countries will lose unemployment benefits after six months unless they can prove they have a reasonable chance of finding work. Rob Watson has more.

Opinion polls suggest immigration is among the voters’ biggest concerns. Now David Cameron has become the latest politician to join the debate on immigration with a promise to tighten the access of newcomers from the EU to benefits, social housing and free healthcare. It’s not thought the new rules will have a massive impact, but for David Cameron the message is more important than the measures-- the message being that the government is listening to the voters on immigration.

The European Union has suspended most of the sanctions it imposed on dozens of people close to the Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe after the country approved a new constitution curbing the president’s powers. But Mr Mugabe himself remains on the sanctions list. Mike Wooldridge reports.

The new constitution expanding civil liberties was approved in what the EU praises as a “peaceful, successful and credible referendum”. The sanctions, travel bans and the asset freezes were imposed after the disputed presidential elections of 2002. Lifting them on all on the list with the exception of President Mugabe, nine other individuals and two companies is clearly intended as encouragement to further political progress and a demonstration of continuing concern.

The United Nations is moving about half of its international staff out of Syria because of concerns for their safety. The decision comes after mortar shells fell near a hotel used by UN staff in the capital Damascus. The building and UN vehicle were damaged. The organisation has 100 foreign staff in Syria.

World News from the BBC

An aide to the prime minister of Haiti has been killed in a drive by shooting in the capital Port-au-Prince. Georges Henry Honorat was shot dead outside his home by two masked men on a motorcycle. Mr Honorat also worked as the editor-in-chief of a newspaper and as secretary general of the Popular National Party.

The internet company Yahoo has bought an application created by a British teenager in a deal reported to be worth tens of millions of dollars. Called Summly, the app summarises news stories from media companies. It was created two years ago by 17-year-old Nick D'Aloisio who lives in London. He told the BBC what the app can do.

"Summly is an iPhone app that I launched in November and what we are doing is to build a summarisation technology that can take any news article and automatically summarise it into these paragraphs. And the idea is that these paragraphs will look easier to read than full-length news articles when you have an iPhone and you just want to get a catch-up of what’s going on.”

The app’s technology is to be used in Yahoo mobile products and Mr D’Aloisio will become Yahoo’s youngest employee. His start-up company was backed by investors including the Chinese entrepreneur Li Ka-shing and the artist Yoko Ono.

Tiger Woods has reclaimed the world No.1 ranking for the first time since 2010. He regained golf’s No.1 spot after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational in the US state of Florida. More from our sports news reporter Alex Capstick.  

Tiger Woods is back leading the pack. He put it down to hard work and patience as well as the three tournament wins this year. It’s been a long difficult struggle which began when his car hit a fire hydrant outside his home in November, 2009. What followed was the undignified spectacle of a global icon’s fall from grace. A previously unblemished image ripped apart by a series of tawdry revelations. His marriage ended. His golf suffered. Various injuries didn’t help. Some said he would never be the player he was.

BBC News