BBC News with Marion Marshall

Cardinals gathered in the Vatican have elected a new pope. St Peter’s Square erupted into cheers and applause as white smoke issued from a floodlit chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel to signal a decision had been made. A short while later the identity of the new pope was announced as the Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The 76-year-old has become the first-ever pope from the Americas in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, taking the papal name of Francis I. Dressed in his white robes and wearing large round spectacles, Pope Francis emerged on the balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square to roars of joy from the tens of thousands of people gathered in the square below.

"Good evening. You know that the duty of the conclave was to provide Rome with a bishop. It looks as if my brothers, the cardinals, went to fetch him at the end of the world.”

Our Vatican correspondent, David Willey, was in St Peter’s Square when the new pope appeared.

He’ll be the first pope to call himself Francis, which of course is homage to the famous saint of the same name. Cardinal Bergoglio from Argentina, who is a Jesuit, first Jesuit pope, and he is famous in his home country for the simplicity of his life. He’s an intellectual clearly, but I think what attracted people to him was the fact that he spent a lot of time among impoverished people and he also is well-known at home for his efforts in trying to repair the reputation of his church, which lost a lot of people after failing to challenge the dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s. So a very imaginative choice, I think-- of course the first non-European pope in modern history.

There was joy and surprise in Argentina at the news of the pope’s election. Worshipers waiting patiently outside Buenos Aires Cathedral on the central Plaza de Mayo cheered and thundered with applause and cars honked their horns outside. And the cathedral bells immediately started tolling in celebration. 

World News from the BBC

The European Parliament has demanded further negotiations on the EU’s long-term budget which was painstakingly negotiated by EU leaders. The MEPs said the budget was not acceptable in its current form. Bethany Bell reports.

The battle over the EU’s long-term budget continues. In February after lengthy and difficult negotiations, national leaders agreed to a 3.3% cut. Countries like Britain want their EU contributions to fall in line with national austerity cuts. But other countries want to protect EU spending arguing that it will help re-launch growth. Now a resolution backed by the main parties in the EU Parliament has demanded further negotiations on the multi-year budget, although it doesn’t explicitly reject the 3% cut.

The world’s biggest radio telescope has been inaugurated in Chile on a mountain high above the Atacama Desert. The Alma project, which consists of 66 huge antennae, is expected to provide unprecedented information that may help us understand the origins of the universe. Andreas Lundgren, a Swedish astronomer who works on the project, explained what advantages this radio telescope has over traditional optical telescopes.

"The radio waves, they can penetrate into these black clouds to understand star formation. Optical telescopes, they can just see the surface while we can see what’s actually going on inside the cloud. Alma is bigger than all the other telescopes combined, was so much more sensitive and we are just still growing to disguise the limit.”

The authorities in Venezuela have extended the official mourning of the late president Hugo Chavez until Friday. The decision means that official buildings will continue to fly their flags at half-mast and celebrations and festivities will remain banned. Mr Chavez died last Tuesday after a long battle against cancer.

BBC News