BBC News with Sue Montgomery

The decision by the United States to give direct military assistance to the rebels in Syria has provoked strong reaction around the world. Russia expressed deep scepticism about the US assertion that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons and said arming the rebels would worsen the violence. From Washington, Paul Adams.

The White House says there is a new urgency to the Syrian conflict because of an influx of Hezbollah fighters as well as what it now believes is firm intelligence that President Assad has used chemical weapons. But the Obama administration won’t say what the new assistance will actually consist of. Most people assume that’ll include weapons possibly up to and including anti-tank missiles. But officials are reluctant even to describe it as arming the rebels.

In Syria itself, the foreign ministry has denounced as lies the US assertion that it has used chemical weapons. The leader of the main rebel military group, Salim Idriss, welcomed Washington’s move and said the rebels needed anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons immediately.

Polls have closed in Iran where people have been voting to choose a successor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There were long queues at some polling stations and voting hours were extended. The main pro- reform leaders were not allowed to stand. Here is Richard Galpin.

There does seem to have been a lot of enthusiasm amongst voters to cast their ballots in this election, prompted in part by the sudden emergence of the cleric Hassan Rouhani as in effect the opposition candidate. Even though he is only viewed as a moderate conservative, he was quite outspoken during the campaign, not least calling for relations to be restored with Western countries, which have imposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme. At rallies, he accused the hardliners who controlled Iran of bringing the country to its knees.

Italy’s highest court has upheld the jail sentences handed down to seven police officers and prison doctors for the brutal treatment of protesters during the G8 summit in Genoa 12 years ago. More than 250 protesters were held at a barracks in the city after riot police stormed the school they were using as a dormitory during the summit. They endured days in detention where they were physically humiliated and threatened with rape. All of them were innocent of any crime and were eventually released. Alan Johnston reports from Rome.

The days of mayhem in Genoa are most vividly remembered for one particular assault-- riot police stormed a school where peaceful anti-globalisation activists were sleeping and many people were subjected to appalling beatings.  A number of the activists were then taken to the Bolzaneto barracks where in detention they endured more brutality. And this latest court case relates to what happened there.

World News from the BBC

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that the young and unemployed in Europe should be prepared to move to find work. A quarter of all people under the age of 25 in the eurozone are jobless. And in Spain and Greece, the figure is around 60 per cent. Steve Evans reports from Berlin.

Chancellor Merkel in her interview with the BBC was adamant that the policy of broadly balancing budget, sometimes called austerity, was the right one, but conceded that the unemployment of young people was what she called a huge crisis. Chancellor Merkel suggested that more mobility was needed. She said that in her own area of East Germany when communism collapsed and unemployment soared, many young people from her region only had jobs because, as she put it, they moved to the south.

Prosecutors in Poland say they will investigate reports that a member of a Nazi-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children during the Second World War has been living in the United States for more than 60 years. Michael Karkoc, who was 94, is said to have lied to the American immigration authorities about his involvement with the SS in Ukraine, denying that he had done military service. Mr Karkoc is not said to have had a direct hand in war crimes, but it’s alleged that he was at the scene of the atrocities as the company leader. Mr Karkoc refused to comment on the allegations.

The BBC has suspended its partnership with a Turkish broadcaster, NTV, with immediate effect after the station refused to broadcast Friday’s edition of the BBC’s Turkish language news programme World Agenda.  The programme contained a report by a correspondent in Istanbul about the initial reluctance of Turkish media including NTV to cover the anti-government demonstrations. The director of the BBC World Service, Peter Horrocks, said any interference in BBC broadcasting was totally unacceptable.

BBC News