BBC News with Sue Montgomery.
The coffin of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is inching its way through a huge crowd of his supporters in the streets of the capital Caracas. The vice president, Nicolas Maduro, who was chosen by Mr Chavez as his successor, is heading the procession in a tracksuit in the colours of the Venezuelan flag. The president’s body will lie in state at a military academy before his funeral on Friday. Will Grant reports.
For his most devoted supporters, it was a chance to bid their leader, their commandant, goodbye. For many the death of Hugo Chavez has been a moment of visceral raw grief as though they’d lost a family member.
“Chavez lives. Chavez lives because I am Chavez and because most of us are Chavez. Long live Chavez!”
“Chavez hasn’t died. The revolution goes on.”
Hero or authoritarian, champion of the poor or autocrat, Chavez represented many things to many people.
Armed rebel fighters in Syria have seized about 20 United Nations peacekeepers in the Golan Heights. Reports say all the captives are from the Philippines. The UN Security Council has demanded their release. Here’s James Reynolds.
A video posted online shows a group of Syrian rebels standing on a road next to three white UN vehicles. The cars’ engines are still running. The pictures briefly show two men wearing the UN observer uniform of blue flak jacket and helmet sitting in their trunk at the back of the small convoy. In a statement, the UN confirms that around 20 of its peacekeepers have been detained. It says that the observers were stopped on a regular supply mission near a post that had recently been abandoned because of heavy fighting in the area.