UN Chief Warns of Aleppo 'Atrocities'

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced alarm "over reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians" in Syria's city of Aleppo.
Mr Ban urged all the sides, particularly Syria's government and its allies, to protect civilians.

The former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has told the BBC that the dissolution of the Soviet Union 25 years ago was "a crime and a coup." He had stepped down as Soviet president, he said, to avoid a bloody civil war.

West African regional leaders are on their way to Banjul, capital of the Gambia, to press for a peaceful handover of power.