overwhelming
and scientific. Any action against North Korea at the UN will require China's backing.
World News from the BBC.
The Obama administration has defended itself against accusations that it hasn't done enough to deal with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. At a news conference, President Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs said they had applied the
utmost
pressure on BP, which is struggling to contain the spill.
"
We have taken every step. We have pushed relentlessly for BP to do what is necessary to contain what is leaking, to deal with both the environmental and the economic impacts of what, as the president said today, is unquestionably a disaster."
Morocco has defended its decision to expel a number of westerners over the past few months. The government accused them of trying to
convert
Muslims to Christianity. Our religious affairs correspondent Christopher Landau reports.
The Moroccan constitution defends freedom of worship for non-Muslim citizens, but attempting to convert Muslims to other faiths is against the law. Ahmed Toufiq, the Moroccan Minister for Islamic Affairs, told the Reuters news agency that expelled foreigners had been undermining public order. He said that some hide their proselytism and religious activism
under the guise of
other activities.
Prosecutors at a trial in France
arising from
the crash of an Air France Concorde in Paris 10 years ago have asked for a suspended prison term for the former head of the plane's development programme Henri Perrier. Mr Perrier has said he would not accept being held responsible.