BBC News with Mike Cooper
The United Nations human rights commissioner Navi Pillay has accused Syria of waging war on its own people. In a statement from Geneva, Ms Pillay said Syria was ruthlessly crushing civilian protest, using cruel and
vicious
violence.
"I have been watching the whole region and seen incidents of excessive violence. And what we're seeing now in Syria is so
atrocious
, I felt that I had to strongly condemn the excesses that are being taken there
in terms of
the regime's oppression of ordinary aspirations of their own people. And for a government to act so violently against their own people is something that is totally unacceptable."
The United Nations nuclear watchdog has decided to refer Syria to the Security Council over its alleged
covert
nuclear programme. The International Atomic Energy Agency voted to
rebuke
Syria on claims of an undeclared nuclear reactor in the country's remote northeast. Bethany Bell reports.
Diplomatic pressure on Syria is mounting. The IAEA's board of governors has reported Damascus to the Security Council. The vote came after the agency's latest report, which said that a Syrian site which was bombed by the Israelis in 2007 was very likely a secret nuclear reactor. That's a charge Syria denies.
Pakistan's prime minister has ordered an inquiry into the death of a young man, Sarfaraz Shah, at the hands of paramilitary forces in Karachi on Wednesday. Video footage of the incident was broadcast on Pakistani television. Here's Jill McGivering.