BBC news with Sue Montgomery

The Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on pro-Russian separatists in southern and eastern Ukraine to postpone a referendum on autonomy, which is due at the weekend. He also said this month’s presidential elections in Ukraine were a move in the right direction. From Moscow, Steve Rosenberg.

The one thing Vladimir Putin isn’t known for is performing U turns but his latest comments on Ukraine do suggest a shift in the Kremlin’s position. And that raises hope at least of a diplomatic solution to the conflict. President Putin called on supporters of federalization in southeast Ukraine to postpone a referendum on secession planned for Sunday. This he said would create conditions for dialogue between the authorities in Kiev and those in Ukraine seeking greater autonomy.

The Ukrainian interior ministry has called for all remaining matches in the season’s football league to be held without spectators to avoid further incidents of violence. The call comes after clashes at recent games between pro-Russian groups and people who support a united Ukraine.

After three years of fighting with Syrian government forces, hundreds of opposition fighters have been streaming out of the old city of Homs, which had become a symbol of resistance to President Assad. Smoke billowed from parts of the city. Residents said the rebels had set fire to their bases before they left. The warring sides had made a deal which allowed the rebels and their families to leave. This activist in Holmes summed up the feelings of those moving out.

“Up till now we have been fighting. We love the city. We lived our best days here. It’s in our hearts and souls. None of the international organizations succeeded in putting enough pressure on the regime to open a humanitarian corridor or to supply us with the basic needs, food and medicine. We will leave to preserve who is still alive inside.”

Several hundred people are now thought to have died in an attack in northeastern Nigeria by suspected members of the Islamist group Boko Haram. A local senator said about 300 people were killed as militants stormed a town near the border with Cameroon on Monday. This report from Richard Hamilton.

A resident of the town of Gamboru Ngala, in Borno state told the BBC that people began to bury their relatives in mass graves on Tuesday and were still burying them now. She said the militants had locked up whole families in their homes. And then the gunmen would enter and spray them with bullets. Many residents had talked about members of Boko Haram using diversionary tactics. They said the militants spread rumors that the abducted school girls had been spotted somewhere else. The security forces then left Gamboru Ngala, leaving it at the mercy of Boko Haram.

World news from the BBC

South Africans have turned out in large numbers to vote in general elections as the country marks 20 years since the end of white minority rule. Long queues formed outside polling stations. And there was an air of excitement especially amongst first time voters, born after the end of the apartheid in 1994. The African National Congress is expected to win a fifth consecutive term in office.

New research into piracy has found that it has declined off the coast of east Africa but it is proving more difficult to combat on the west coast. The report by Oceans Beyond Piracy examined the costs of piracy off Somalia and in the Gulf of Guinea last year. It said although the economic cost of Somali piracy was 3 billion dollars, raids on ships declined, with only 23 vessels being targeted last year.

The founder of a Saudi human rights organization has been sentenced by a court in Riyadh to 10 years imprisonment and 1,000 lashes for assaulting Islam. Prior to his arrest in 2012, Raif Badawi’s organization, the Saudi Liberal Network had criticized cleric and religious bullies on his website.

A German art hoarder, whose collection of priceless works triggered an investigation into arts looted by the Nazis, has left the paintings to the Bern art museum in Switzerland. Steve Evans is in Berlin.

The art museum says it’s surprised and delighted that Cornelius Gurlitt’s will stipulated that it should get the pictures he kept in secret. But it adds, that the legacy brings with it, what it calls a wealth of questions of the most difficult and sensitive kind, of a legal and ethical nature, The museum now inherits more than a thousand pictures which any gallery in the world would want, but also disputes over how many of the works were looted by the Nazis, and then acquired improperly by Cornelius Gurlitt’s father, who was a war time art dealer.

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