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BBC news 2013-12-14

BBC News with Jonathan Izard.

The 3-day period during which the body of Nelson Mandela lay in state has come to an end. South African officials say around 100,000 mourners have viewed Mr. Mandela's body at the union buildings in Pretoria. Some had to be turned away because queues were too long. Peter Biles reports from Pretoria.

In the Sandstone Amphitheater that is soon to be on Nelson Mandela's name, three days of lying in state ended with the playing of the South African National Anthem Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika. From the spot where Mr. Mandela was sworn in as president in 1994, his coffin was carried down the steps to the waiting hearse as military helicopters circled over the city. The body will remain in Pretoria overnight, and there will be a ceremony at a local air force base in the morning to allow members of the governing African National Congress to say a last farewell before Mr. Mandela's funeral in the eastern Cape on Sunday.

The charity Save the Children is warning of an increasingly dire humanitarian situation at the Central African Republic as spokesman said 40,000 people had gathered at the camp at the airport near the capital Bangui with many complaining of starvation. The country has been in chaos since rebels overthrew President Francois Bozize in March. Richard Hamilton reports.

A spokesman for Save the Children described scenes of appalling depravation. He said children were suffering from diarrhea and malaria and people were defecating in the open as there was only one latrine. They were also having to sleep outside despite heavy rains. And he added that there was rubbish scattered every where.

The United States says a retired FBI agent who is believed to have been held in Iran for the last 7 years was not a government employee when he went missing. US media have said that Mr. Levinson was on an unauthorized CIA intelligence operation when he went missing on the Iranian island of Kish. From Washington, here is our correspondent Jonny Dymond.

In a carefully phrased response to the Associated Press's story, White House spokesman Jay Carney said that Robert Levinson was not a government employee at the time of his disappearance. Mr. Carney also criticized as irresponsible the publication of the story. The AP said that Mr. Levinson was on an informal mission for the CIA organized by a group of agency officers outside of the normal oversight procedures. Mr. Levinson was last heard from in a video made public in the early 2011 where looking gaunt and sounding weary, he asked for US government assistance.

Mr. Levinson's family has criticized the US government, saying some officials were failing to do their best to locate him.

The authorities in the United States say they have arrested a man who was planning to detonated a car bomb at an airport in Kansas. The district attorney for Kansas said Terry Loewen who is an aviation technician had been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction at the mid-continent airport in Wichita.

World News from the BBC.

Police in the US state of Colorado have been called to a shooting at a high school south of Denver. The Arapahoe county chief sheriff says the suspected gunman who was a student at the school has killed himself and the incident is now over. Television pictures have shown students coming out of the school with their hands up. Two people are reported to have been injured.

Scientists say a mud volcano in Indonesia that's displaced tens of thousands of people should stop erupting much sooner than previously thought. The assessment is based on satellite monitoring of the area around the Lusi Volcano in east Java. Here is our science correspondent Jonathan Amos.

The eruption which began in east Java in 2006 is the largest of its kind, the result of a drilling operation that went wrong. The gooey noxious muck spewing out from the earth has so far displaced tens of thousands of people and has to be controlled by huge dams. Initially more than 100,000 tons of mud oozed to the surface each day. This has decreased ten fold and a new analysis based on Japanese satellite observations of ground subsidence suggest a further ten fold decrease can by expected by 2017.

Police in Colombia have arrested relatives and several alleged associates of a prominent gang leader Dario Usuga, known as Otoniel. Mr. Usuga who leads the Urabenos criminal gang is still at large. His cousin Arley Usuga Torres was arrested at a farm in northern Colombia. He is accused of killing more than 20 police officers and is wanted in the United States for drug trafficking.

The German football authorities say they will use a new resort village being built in Brazil as their World Cup base after deciding that local facilities would not be good enough.  The announcement coincides with growing controversy over the preparations for the World Cup next year. Three of the stadiums are behind schedule. The village on the coast of Bahia in northeastern Brazil is being built by a German entrepreneur. The complex have buildings around a pool will feature a press center and a training pitch.

BBC News.