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BBC news 2016-06-23

Hello, I am Jerry Smit with the BBC News.

The United Nations refugee agency says the number of people displaced by conflict has reached the highest level ever recorded. Releasing its annual reports on forced displacement, the UN says that by the end of last year more than 65 million people worldwide were refugees, asylum seekers or internally displaced. Imogen Foulkes reports from Geneva.

War and persecution caused a sharp rise in the number of people forced to flee their homes last year, bringing the global total UN figures show to over 65 million. Over a half of all refugees come from Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia. Meanwhile Germany received the most asylum requests. The UN says governments must show unity in the face of such a vast crisis not just for the sake of refugees but in the collective human interest.

Voters in the Italian capital Rome have elected their first female mayor. Virginia Raggi of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement has effectively beaten her rival Roberto Giachetti in the run-off. Mr Giachetti  belongs to the centre-left Democratic Party of the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The Democratic Party has also lost the mayoral battle in Turin, but its candidates have held on to power in Milan and Bologna.

Campaigners have released photographs of personal effects washed up on the beach of Madagascar that could be from the missing Malaysian airliner MH370. Relatives of those on board are being encouraged to look at the images to see if the items belong to their family members. Here's Richard Westcott.

The personal effects don't have names on, but some are quite distinct. There are several bags with recognizable designs - one is tartan; another has the computer game Angry Birds on. Some of the families put pictures online so that other families spread across the world can see if they recognize anything. It's still very possible that they are nothing to do with the aircraft, that they fell off a boat or were just randomly dumped into the sea. But they were found on the same beach in Madagascar, where suspected parts of the aircraft have also washed up.

The British parliament has been recalled today to pay tribute to the Labour politician Jo Cox, who was killed last week in her constituency. This report from our political correspondent Eleanor Garnier.

It will be a defiant display of unity. Politics will once again be put to one side. Colleagues and friends of Jo Cox will come to the Commons to remember an MP who many said was a rising star. There have been cools for MPs to break the tradition of sitting in political groupings with rival parties mixed up in a show of solidarity. It will be a significant moment not just because party divisions will be put aside, but because the recall of parliament is a rare event.

World News from the BBC

A suicide bomber in the Afghan capital Kabul has killed at least 14 security guards in an attack targeting their minibus. Eight other people were injured. The Interior Ministry said those killed were Nepalese nationals employed by a company that provides security to western embassies.

Six people have been killed in southern Mexico in clashes between protesting teachers and security forces. At least 50 others including many police officers were injured. The violence broke out as officials in the state of Oaxaca tried to clear a highway blocked by left-wing activists who were protesting against the attested two high-profile union leaders last week. Reports say most of the dead were young people.

The American golfer Dustin Johnson has won the US Open chairmanships - his first major title. Johnson overturned the four-shot lead of Ireland's Shane Lowry to clinch victory at the Oakmont Club in Pennsylvania. Here's our golf correspondent Iain Carter.

Johnson's long overdue first major was captured in brilliant style but was overshadowed by a rules controversy that led to him being penalized a shot after his ball moved a minimal distance on the fifth hole. The question surrounded whether he had caused it to move as he prepared to putt. A rules official cleared him at the time, but the USGA examined video footage and farcically this left no one knowing Johnson's actual score. Johnson's superb closing birdie then removed any doubt over the outcome, but golf's rule-makers attracted huge criticism from leading players.

The Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has promised to introduce legislation for a plebiscite on same-sex marriage to be held before the end of the year if his coalition wins the general election next month. The opposition Labor Party have labeled the move a platform for homophobia, and they are instead promising to introduce a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.

And that's the latest BBC News.