BBC News with Julie Candler

The United Nations Security Council has voted to deploy up to a further 300 unarmed military observers in Syria. They'll spend three months monitoring a ceasefire and helping to implement a peace plan agreed by the Syrian government. Speaking after the vote, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, made it clear that Washington's patience was running out.

"If there is not a sustained cessation of violence, full freedom of movement for UN personnel and rapid, meaningful progress on other aspects - all other aspects - of the six-point plan, then we must all conclude that this mission has run its course. We will not wait 90 days to pursue measures against the Syrian government if it continues to violate its commitments or obstruct the monitors' work."

The Security Council has strongly condemned the coup earlier this month in Guinea-Bissau and warned of possible sanctions. It demanded the restoration of the civilian government and the immediate release of the Prime Minister and leading presidential election candidate Carlos Gomes Junior.

There have been further demonstrations in Bahrain with thousands of people taking part in protests ahead of Sunday's Formula 1 Grand Prix. Caroline Hawley reports.

As clashes broke out again on the eve of the race, protesters took refuge in a coffee shop in the capital, only to find tear gas fired inside. Elsewhere on the island, thousands of people took part in a big protest march. Tensions already running high have been exacerbated by the death of a 37-year-old man, whose body was found on the roof of a farmhouse after clashes on Friday night. The exact circumstances aren't clear, but the opposition says he was a protest leader killed by security forces, who were beating demonstrators and firing buckshot. The authorities have announced an investigation.

An American company, Titan Salvage, has been awarded the contract to salvage the Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia, which sank off the coast of Tuscany in January with the loss of 32 lives. Nine people have been investigated in connection with the disaster, including the captain Francesco Schettino, who's under house arrest. David Willey reports from Rome.

It's expected to take about a year to raise the 114,000-tonne cruise liner, which is lying on its side in shallow water just outside the tiny tourist ford. The vessel will be re-floated by placing airbags under the hull after a huge gash on the port side has been repaired. It's not yet clear whether the Costa Concordia will be repaired or will be scrapped after it's been towed away to an Italian port. Fears that the shipwreck might cause an environmental disaster because of leaked fuel have proved unfounded.

BBC News

South Sudan has accused Sudan of a concerted attempt to destroy one of its oil facilities despite recent move[s] to defuse the conflict between the two countries. A number of blasts have been heard in South Sudan, where a senior military official told the BBC an air attack had targeted the oil-processing facility of the Unity oil field.

Vietnam says it will ask for international help to find out what's causing a skin infection that's already killed 19 people in the central province of Quang Ngai. More than 170 have been made ill. The disease is baffling health workers, as Viv Marsh of our Asia-Pacific desk reports.

The disease first emerged last year then subsided, but it's broken out again in an impoverished, mountainous part of Quang Ngai province. Frightened residents of Reu village have laid branches across the path to the houses of infected people to try to isolate the outbreak. It begins with a rash on the hands and feet. If it isn't treated early, it can result in liver problems and multiple organ failure. Dozens of people are being treated at a leprosy hospital in the neighbouring province of Binh Dinh. Vietnam's health ministry has carried out tests but says it can't yet pinpoint the cause.

Charles Colson, adviser to the American President Richard Nixon, has died aged 80. Mr Colson was jailed for his role in the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation, but went on to become an influential evangelical Christian writer and broadcaster. He said prison life had humbled him, turning him from someone who looked down at life from the top into someone who saw life from the underside.

An armed man has failed in his attempt to steal a small plane from an airport in Los Angeles because he didn't realise that it had been chained to the ground. Employees at the LA county airport said the man had pulled out a gun and grabbed the keys, but the plane was locked to the tarmac and when police came, they found the would-be thief revving the engine, going nowhere.

BBC News

注：听力文本来自普特

译文和讲解部分为可可原创，未经许可请勿转载