BBC News with Marion Marshall

A minute's silence has been observed at services remembering some both sides at the Atlantic to mark the 25th anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockebie. The majority of passengers on the airliner are from the United States, 11 people were killed on the ground in Lockebie. The service there was led by the Rev John MacLeod.

A bomb was planted on Pan Am 103, but it was an accident that the aircraft happened to come down on and around Lockerbie. This misfortune meant that the town had the agony of the aftermath, but then also the privilege of caring for the families of those who died.

The former vice president of South Sudan Riek Machar says his troops have seized the oil producing unity state and now control much of the country. There's been no independent verification of his comment, but security experts suggest his forces control at least some oil fields. More than 500 people have died in ethnic clashes in South Sudan since Sunday when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy of plotting a coup which he denies. Our Africa editor Richard Hamilton says efforts are going on to avert a full blown civil war.

There is a delegation from East Africa and they've been holding talks with President Salva Kiir who said that he would welcome unconditional talks, and less has been forthcoming from Riek Machar, although a BBC colleague earlier today did manage to speak to him and he said that he would negotiate if certain political detainees were released. They were prominent political figures who seemed to support him who were arrested after this alleged coup on Sunday.

Thailand's main opposition party the Democrats say they will not take part in the general election due in February in a move likely to deepen the country's political crisis. The Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra announced the national vote after a series of anti-government demonstrations in Bangkok. From there Jonathan Head reports.

For days Thailand's oldest party has been torn over whether or not to take part in an election it was almost certain to lose. In the end, the voices calling for a boycott won the argument, but it is a risky decision. The Democrats now stand accused of sabotaging democracy. And if the election does go ahead, they'll be left with no seats, with no power.

More than 1,000 people have marched in the capital of Niger to protest against what they see as their government's unbalanced partnership with the French nuclear firm Areva. The company has been mining uranium for 4 decades in Niger and is negotiating a new ten-year contract with the government which will give it a greater share of the profits.

World News from the BBC

The Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino has arrived in Tehran for a two-day visit during which she'll visit President Rouhani. Iranian media say Mrs Bonino will also hold talks with her counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif. It's the first visit to Iran by an Italian foreign minister for nearly ten years and comes a month after Iran signed a deal with six world powers on its nuclear program.

Gunmen in southern Yemen have shot and killed three soldiers in a drive-by attack on a military checkpoint. Officials said the attack occurred in the east of Al-Qotn in Hadramut province. The area has been restless since the death of a respected tribal leader at a checkpoint earlier this month. On Friday thousands of people took to the streets in protest over his death.

The body of a British surgeon who died in detention in Syria has been handed over to his family in Lebanon. It will now be taken back to the UK. Abbas Khan who was from London went to Syria to treat victims of the conflict there. Lyse Doucet reports from Beirut.

This was the day Abbas Khan's family was expecting to welcome him home, instead they received his body in a coffin. The Syrian government says he killed himself in his prison cell. His mother Fatima told us he was murdered by Syrian intelligence. Abbas Khan went to Syria last year to work in a field hospital in a rebel controlled area, but he was arrested by Syrian forces. His mother spent months in Damascus pleading for her son to be freed. She and other family members wrote letters to everyone they believed could help including the British government. "No one helped us", cried a heart-broken mother.

Astronauts at the International Space Station have completed the first of a series of spacewalks to perform urgent repairs on a damaged cooling system. The breakdown ten days ago forced astronauts to turn off nonessential equipment. NASA described the situation as potentially serious but not life-threatening.

BBC News