Hello, I'mJerry Smit with the BBC news.

The Republican Party candidates for the last two US presidential elections Mitt Romney and John McCain have denounced the front-runner for this year's nomination Donald Trump. Mr. Romney described him as a bully and a conman who was unfit to lead the country. Mr. Trump has hit back. He said Mitt Romney was a disastrous candidate in the last presidential race. Barbara Plett Usher reports. The Republican establishment is finally saying that we've really got to do something. So you got this intervention by Mitt Romney which I think is the most high level one so far, but you also have others beginning to speak as senator John McCain. The House speaker Paul Ryan has made some statements you got, Business leaders getting together to pump millions into a political action community that is going to put out attack ads against Mr. Trump. The math is what they're trying to do is to stop him from getting enough votes to outright get the nomination before the national convention in July.

The North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has told the country's military leaders they must be ready to fire nuclear weapons at a moment's notice. The remarks follow the imposition of new UN sanctions in response to a North Korean nuclear test and rocket launch in January. Here's Stephen Evans. According to the Korean Central News Agency, Kim Jong-un said as he inspected rocket launches his military should bolster its nuclear force both in quality and quantity and get nuclear warheads on standby to use preemptively. This kind of blood-curdling rhetoric is not unusual. And outside experts doubt that North Korea has yet got the ability to make a bomb small enough to put on a feasible missile though it does appear to be moving steadily towards that goal.

A group of major high-tech companies has supported Apple in its legal battle with the FBI as the authorities seek to access encrypted data on an iPhone used by the Islamist militant behind December's killing spree in San Bernardino California. Dave Lee reports. Twitter, Airbnb and Ebay are among the companies offering support to Apple in their case. The 17 tech firms jointly filed an amicus brief, a mechanism by which individuals or companies can offer their view on a case they feel affects them even if they're not explicitly involved. Apple also has the support of the husband of victim Anies Kondoker who survived being shot three times in last year's attack. However several other victims'families are believed to be backing the FBI. Its director James Comey early this week maintained Apple is overstating the security risk in unlocking the iPhone.

The president of the European Council Donald Tusk has said it could be time to turn back migrant boats trying to reach Greece. During a speech in Ankara, he said it was up to Turkey to decide how to reduce the flow. World news from the BBC.

The Brazilian Supreme Court has decided that the speaker of the Lower House of Congress Eduardo Cunha must face corruption charges. Mr. Cunha is accused of accepting bribes on contracts for two drilling ships leased by the state oil company Petrobras. Here's Julia Carneiro. The Supreme Court's decision means that Eduardo Cunha will now face trial which might have happened much sooner were it not for his privileges as a sitting politician. The bribe allegations emerged months ago, but his power as the speaker of the Lower House had him escaped. He was the one who accepted impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff last December. A weak-ened Eduardo Cunha is good news for president Rousseff, but just as she still has to decide whether Cunha should step down while facing trial, so he could still cause problems for the president.

Princess Cristina of Spain has testified for the first time at her trial for alleged ex-fraud. Her husband Inaki Urdangarin is accused of using his royal connections to generate business income they used for extravagant private spending. She said he had been in charge of all the family expenses. Each one of us had our own professional activities and he was in charge of the economic side of the household. I was trying to coordinate the family agenda, my own business, our family and also my institutional duties. Both have denied any wrongdoing.

Ukraine's foreign minister has said that talks trying to resolve the separatist conflict in the east of the country have ended without a breakthrough. Pavlo Klimkin is speaking after meeting his French, German and Russian counterparts in Paris.

Jamaica has sworn in a new prime minister. He's Andrew Holness, a former education minister and leader of the Jamaican Labor Party. Mr. Holness will be governing with the slim one seat majority.

BBC news.