I think the tone was the thing that would surprise some. Just a couple of days earlier, President Bashir put him in a considerate mode, and he'd certainly made comments reassuring southerners living in the north that they would be fine if the south became independent. This was totally the opposite. He said that there would be no space effectively for cultural or ethnic diversity in the new constitution that would come in if the south did separate.
The United Nations says it's deeply concerned about the growing evidence of massive human rights violations in Ivory Coast. The human rights commissioner Navi Pillay said that since Thursday's clashes in Abidjan, more than 50 people have been killed. Laurent Gbagbo, who's refusing to step down as president, has called for UN peacekeeping troops to leave the country.
But a UN spokesman in Abidjan, Hamadoun Toure, insists UN forces will stay.
"We will continue implementing our mandate, carrying out our usual tasks, mainly supporting Ivorian population to find a peaceful solution to the current political impasse."
Police in Austria have charged more than 100 men suspected of downloading child pornography. Five are school teachers. One of those under investigation is alleged to have collected more than 20,000 images depicting child sex acts.
World News from the BBC
Officials in Mexico say at least 22 people have been killed in a big explosion at an oil pipeline near Puebla, in the centre of the country. The secretary of state for Puebla says the explosion was triggered by thieves trying to siphon off oil from the pipeline. He said there were rivers of fire in the streets and that more than 100 houses had been damaged by the blast.