BBC News with Jerry Smit.

The White House has said it believes the American intelligence contractor Edward Snowden is still in Russia as he seeks to evade US extradition requests. Mr Snowden who leaked details of a massive US surveillance operation arrived in Moscow on Sunday and was expected to fly on to Cuba on Monday. The White House spokesman Jay Carney warned Russia the relations will be damaged if it does not hand over Mr Snowden.

"We are obviously in conversations and we are working with them, or discussing with them, and-- or rather expecting them to look at the options available to them, to expel Mr Snowden back to the United States to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged.”

A court in Italy has sentenced the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to seven years in prison for paying for sex with an underage prostitute and banned him from public office for life. Alan Johnston reports from Milan.

Silvio Berlusconi's lawyers were known to be braced for the worst as they went into the final day of this trial and they needed to be. The judges delivered a crushing verdict on their client. They said he was guilty of paying for sex with an underage prostitute who used to come to his raunchy sexually charged parties and the judges also decided that Mr Berlusconi abused the powers of his prime ministerial office when he tried to get the same 17-year-old out of trouble when she was arrested by the police.