The governing party in southern Sudan, the SPLM, has for the first time publicly backed independence for the South ahead of next month's referendum. This is at odds with the terms of a 2005 peace deal that ended a long civil war with northern Sudan. Here's Simon Ponsford.
When they signed their peace deal, the leaders of both North and South Sudan also made a commitment - they would campaign to make unity attractive to southerners. But it's been an open secret that what the South really wants is independence, and that's what a senior SPLM member, Anne Itto, has now made perfectly clear. She accused the governing party in the North, the NCP, of making unity a very, very, very unattractive prospect.
Tens of thousands of people have attended a rally in Rome against the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The protest was organised by the opposition Democratic Party. Mr Berlusconi faces a motion of no confidence in parliament next week. In a message to supporters, he insisted he'd win Tuesday's vote.
The authorities in Germany say two bank robbers shot dead on Friday may have been the same married couple who staged a string of hold-ups over a 15-year period. The pair were carrying out a heist when they were interrupted by police and a gunfight broke out. German media said the female robber took her own life when she saw her husband killed. A police officer was also badly injured. The couple were widely known as the "gentleman robbers" because they were extremely polite to their victims.