thatched
homes and a hospital. He said the army and the UN peacekeepers were in defensive positions protecting the town's administrative centre. But being totally outnumbered by about 6,000 attackers, they were unable to prevent the homes being burnt to the ground. Almost all residents of Pibor are from the Murle tribe, and they had already fled.
There have been more clashes in Syria between anti-government protesters and security forces. The violence comes on the fifth day of the Arab League observer mission. As foreign journalists are restricted from reporting inside Syria, Jon Donnison sent this account from neighbouring Lebanon.
Video posted on the Internet from Idlib, in the north of the country, appeared to show water cannon being used on protesters. There was also the sound of gunfire. Meanwhile, Arab League observers continued their mission. In more online video, a man who appeared to be a monitor in the southern town of Deraa acknowledged he'd seen government
snipers
firing from rooftops. But the head of the observer mission, Mustafa Dabi, has since told the BBC his colleague was mistaken. This will add to demonstrators' claims that Mr Dabi is
biased towards
the Syrian government.
The American space agency Nasa is about to put two new satellites into orbit around the Moon to map its gravity. Scientists expect the data to reveal what exactly lies beneath the Moon's surface, shedding new light on how the lunar body formed and how it's changed through time. This is the first mission to focus specifically on the Moon's gravity.