The Syrian opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib has resigned from the Syrian National Coalition just four months after taking the post. But the SNC reported to have asked him to stay on. Jim Muir reports.

Mr al-Khatib didn't spell out his reasons for resigning after barely four months in the job. But the signs up that was

triggered

by the election last week of Ghassan Hitto to head a new opposition interim government, a step that Mr al-Khatib believe to be premature. The rebel Free Syrian Army has also said it will not recognize Mr Hitto, because it said, he was not elected by consensus but imposed by outside powers.

Police in Britian say they've found no

evidence

that anyone else was involved in the death of the exiled Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky, whose body was found at a property near London. Mr Berezovsky was once a Kremlin insider, who amassed a huge fortune after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but he fled to Britain after falling out with President Putin.

Police in Colombia say they've seized half a ton of cocaine">cocaine hidden in a

shipment

of bricks. Officers said the drugs would have been worth close to $2m if sold on the streets of the United States. The

cocaine

was found stashed inside cases full of bricks in the Colombian port city of Cartagena, ready for shipment to Honduras. Police suspect that the construction firm behind the shipment was set up solely for the purpose of smuggling drugs.