BBC News with Marion Marshall

Opposition demonstrators in Ukraine have welcomed government moves to meet two their key demands with the Prime Minister's resignation and the repeal of anti-protest laws. But demonstrators say they will stay on the streets until President Viktor Yanukovych resigns and calls earlier elections. David Stern reports from Kiev.

In a statement, President Yanukovych said he accepted the resignations of Mr. Azarov and the entire cabinet, although they would continue in their positions until a new government was formed. The announcement followed parliament’s repeal on Tuesday of controversial laws, passed two weeks ago, which reviewed a severely restricting the speech in the country. The laws introduction help spark violent clashes between riot police and demonstrators in central Kiev. Protests have spread to other cities including some in the east of Ukraine, where Mr. Yanukovych enjoys a stronger support.

President Putin has rejected what he called foreign interference in Ukraine saying visits by overseas envoys were adding to the unrests there. The comments said on an EU-Russia summit appeared to be a seemingly veiled criticism of European policy. The EU foreign policy chief is on her way to Kiev.

The United Nations Security Council has approved a resolution, allowing European troops to use force in the Central African Republic. The EU has sent up to 600 soldiers to help African and French troops already deployed in the country. The resolution also allows the sanctions against the ringleaders of groups in the alliance of militias or Seleka blamed for massacres and human rights abuses. The French ambassador Gerard Araud said the troops were needed not only to defend the people, but to engage in rebuilding the country.

“People forget also that basically what the Seleka did when they arriving Bangui is that in a very deliberate way they destroyed everything which was linked to the state, you know, they burnt the archives, they are burnt the registries. So there is no state left. So it means that the international community, the UN but also the European Union, we have to start I think, a long-term and ever to rebuild state, you know, really in Central African Republic.”

Police in Togo say they've arrested three men after discovering nearly two tons of ivory in a container destined for Vietnam. Conservationists say the West African country is a transit point between Central Africa and Asia. With more, here's Richard Hamilton.

Last August, Togo announced it had arrested a man known simply as the boss of country’s ivory trade believed to be responsible for the slaughter of thousands of elephants. Despite a global ban nearly a quarter of a century ago, Africa's elephant population is heading towards extinction. The numbers of forest elephants in central Africa, for example, have decreased by more than 60% over the last ten years. Across the continent, there is a continuing battle against poachers.

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A court in Jerusalem has sentenced an Israeli man to four years in prison for offering to spy for Iran. Yitzhak Bergel, who is 46, met Iranian diplomats at their embassy in Berlin two years ago and offered to collect intelligence about Israel. He admitted charges of contacting a foreign agent intent to commit treason and attempting to aid an enemy of Israel.

New figures released by the International Organization of Migration reviewed that more than 45,000 people risked their lives last year trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Italy and Malta from north Africa, a fifth of them children. More than 700 of the migrants died at sea and a spokesman for the IOM said ways need to be found to save people from drowning. Alan Johnston reports from Rome.

Every few days, migrants arrived on Italy shores each overcrowded fishing boat or unseaworthy rubber dinghy brings dozens of people. And this latest report gives an overall sense of the scale of the numbers involved in 2013. Of those 45,000 who made the crossing, the largest single group was people fleeing the war in Syria, there were more than 11,000 of them. But Eritreans and Somalis were also heavily represented.

The United States Customs officials say they've grounded all ten of their drone aircraft use to monitor the border with Mexico after one of the planes crashed into the Pacific. The unarmed Predator aircraft worth about 12 million dollars had a mechanical failure on Monday night.

One of the celebrated artists from Ivory Coast Frederic Bruly Bouabre has died, he was 91. Bouabre created many of his hundreds of small drawings while working as a clerk in various government offices. He also created his own alphabet, which are used to transcribe the oral traditions of his people, the Betes.

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