BBC News with David Austin

Tens of thousands of Egyptians surrounded the presidential palace in Cairo to protest against a controversial draft constitution. The demonstration has been mainly peaceful, although there was a clash with security forces when some protesters breached a barbed wire cordon. Jon Leyne was there.

This is yet another huge crowded protesters, opponents of President Mursi, heading off in a series of marches and rallies to the presidential palace. And you can hear them the further the anger here, they are so angry about where President Morsi has taken the country even two weeks into these protests. They are just agitated as they were at the beginning. They are really really determined that they don't want him to lead the country in a direction that they are not happy with. In a statement, the security forces said President Mursi had left the building and they appealed for calm.

As civil war rages across Syria, both sides say a school close to Damascus has been hit by shell fire killing around 30 people, almost all of them children. Jim Muir reports from neighboring Lebanon.

Both rebels and the regime agree that a school to the northeast of Damascus was hit by shell fire or mortars, but both accuse one another of being responsible for what the state news agency called: a horrific massacre with almost all the victims school children. On virtually all sites of the capital there were clashes and heavy bombardments as government forces battled to keep rebels from pressing in on the central core of the city, the seat of the regime's power. With the international airport now generally considered too unsafe to risk landing Damascus is increasingly looking like a city coming under siege.