BBC News with Ian Purdon.

Around 50 senior members of Ahrar al Sham, an Islamist rebel group in Syria have been killed or wounded by an explosion in the northwest of the country. The group's commander Hassan Aboud was among the dead as Jim Muir reports.

The Islamic Front, the umbrella group in which the Ahrar al Sham are the strongest faction, said that Hassan Aboud was among at least a dozen leading figures it named as having died in the explosion at the headquarters in the town of Romhamdan in Idlib Province while a big meeting was under way. The final number of people who died is expected to be much higher. Although the group is hard line Islamist in orientation, it has opposed and clashed with the ultra radical Islamic State (IS) which is the most likely quarter to be blamed for the attack as it was when another Ahrar al Sham leader Abu Hada Masuri was killed in a suicide bomber attack on his headquarters in Aleppo in February.

The World Health Organization has reported another sharp rise in the number of people killed by the Ebola virus in West Africa. The WHO said 2,296 victims have died, half of them within the past three weeks. Sedario Balezin, a doctor working in the Liberian capital Monrovia says a serious bed shortage means patients can't be treated.

The situation here is really bad. It is completely out of control and we foresee and need at least 1,000 beds. We have in totally in Monrovia about 240 beds. That means that meantimes people who have come to here we have to tell them to turn them away. They come back home, they are still sick people. They can in fact die in their home. And so it is a literally bad way for the disease to spread.

The office of the French president Francois Hollande has announced that Paris will host an international conference on the security situation in Iraq next Monday. Iraqi president Fuad Masum will attend as well as regional and international leaders.

Mr. Hollande is to visit Iraq on Friday to offer France's support to the country's new leaders.

Canadian explorers have found one of two ships used by the British Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin to search for the Northwest Passage 170 years ago. HMS Erebus and Terror disappeared in 1845 with their crews. League Cutter reports.

The discovery was announced by the Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper. One of the two lost ships from Sir John Franklin's doomed Arctic expedition has been found. But it's not yet known whether the ship is HMS Erebus or HMS Terror. The discovery was confirmed using a remotely operated underwater vehicle. The two ships of the Franklin Expedition and their crews disappeared during an 1845 quest for the Northwest Passage. There were many searches for them throughout the 19th century but the mystery of exactly what happened to Franklin and his men has never been solved.

World News from the BBC.

The Russian president Vladimir Putin has had another phone conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko. He said Moscow was committed to assisting Ukraine with the peace process. On Wednesday, the European Union has held a further meeting to decide whether to implement new sanctions against Russia over its involvements in the crisis in Ukraine. On Monday, EU ministers agreed on new financial restrictions on Russia businesses.

A court in the US state of Minnesota has convicted a former nurse of assisting suicide by encouraging a man in England to hang himself in front of his webcam so that he could watch on the Internet. William Melchert-Dinkel had admitted having conversation with the depressed people in Internet chat-rooms entering a suicide pact and giving instructions on how to carry them out.

Medical experts of football's world governing body have decided that a strict set of rules is needed concerning the treatment of head injuries in international football and European Club competitions. Our sports correspondent Alex Capstick has the details.

A loud bell sounded following several incidents at the World Cup in Brazil when players were allowed to carry on despite clearly suffering from the effects of concussion. Medical experts of football's world governing body have concluded that a strict set of rules should replace the current general guidelines. The head of FIFA's medical committee Michel D'Hooghe said a three-minute stoppage was enough time for a team doctor to evaluate the seriousness of a head injury, and that his decision on whether or not to remove a player must be final.

The computer giant Apple has unveiled its smart watch, the first new product developed under the leadership of Tim Cook. Dubbed the iWatch, the breast device, the brace med device was unveiled at a celebrity-studded presentation at his headquarter in California. It works, with the company's iPhone, to help people monitor health, manage homes and even buy merchandise.

BBC News.