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BBC News with Marion Marshall

One of Pakistan's best-known liberal politicians, the governor of Punjab province Salman Taseer, has been shot dead in Islamabad. Mr Taseer was in a busy market when one of his bodyguards¹ opened fire on him. Orla Guerin reports from Islamabad.

Police say the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was shot repeatedly at close range by one of those supposed to protect him, an elite² commando who was part of his security team. The reason, according to Pakistan's interior minister, was the governor's opposition³ to the country's controversial blasphemy⁴ laws. The loss of one of Pakistan's best-known politicians will deepen the profound sense of crisis here. The killing⁵ comes at a time when the government is hanging by a threat.

African diplomats⁶ say Laurent Gbagbo is ready to negotiate a peaceful end to the political crisis in Ivory Coast without preconditions, but there's still no sign that he's willing to relinquish⁷ the presidency⁸. A spokesman for his rival Alassane Ouattara, the man recognised internationally as the winner of November's election, meanwhile said his supporters weren't interested in further negotiations⁹; they just wanted Mr Gbagbo to leave office. John James reports.

On face value, this announcement is being interpreted as the first sign of progress in negotiations with Laurent Gbagbo, but on second glance, it's clear that he's not actually giving very much away. Mr Gbagbo has said from the start of this crisis that he'd be willing to talk with his rival while insisting that he isn't prepared to cede¹⁰ power. The head of the Ecowas commission, James Victor Gbeho, said that the option of military force was still being considered if the negotiations came to nothing.

A man who spent 30 years in an American prison has had his conviction overturned after DNA¹¹ evidence showed he was innocent. Cornelius Dupree Jr was just 21 when he was convicted of rape¹² and robbery. Here's Vanessa Buschschluter.

The case of Cornelius Dupree goes back 30 years when two men forced their way into the car of a young woman and her companion at a liquor store in Dallas. The male driver was robbed and left at the side of the road. The woman was raped¹³. She later picked out two men from a set of photographs shown to her by the police. Mr Dupree was one of them. He was sentenced to 75 years in prison and spent three decades appealing against the verdict. He was finally released on parole last July. Only a week later, DNA tests came back showing he was innocent.

The youngest son of the late Shah of Iran has committed suicide in the United States. A statement on the website of Iran's former crown prince Reza Pahlavi said his younger brother Alireza took his own life in his home in the city of Boston. He was 44 years old. The former Shah Mohammad Reza was ousted¹⁴ in the 1979 revolution in Iran. Members of his family moved to live in United States.

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A court in the United States has sentenced a Cuban-American man who'd pleaded guilty to hijacking¹⁵ a plane in 1968 to 15 years in prison. The man, Luis Armando Pena Soltren, had forced the pilot of the plane, which was flying from New York to Puerto Rico, to land in Cuba instead. He said he had hijacked¹⁶ the plane to be able to see his father, who was ill. Mr Soltren turned himself into the US authorities last year after spending more than four decades in Cuba.

A preliminary hearing to determine whether Michael Jackson's doctor should stand trial for manslaughter has opened in Los Angeles. Dr Conrad Murray has pleaded not guilty but faces up to four years in prison if convicted. Rajesh Mirchandani reports.

Prosecutors¹⁷ are setting out some of their case against Dr Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson's personal physician who's charged with his manslaughter. They say Dr Murray had been treating the singer's insomnia¹⁸ with the powerful anaesthetic propofol nearly every day for roughly two months up to and including the day he died in 2009. They say evidence will show the star died in his bedroom and that Dr Murray waited as long as 21 minutes before calling for help.

It's thought Dr Murray's lawyers may argue that Michael Jackson injected himself with the lethal¹⁹ dose in June 2009.

Ten days after his death in Miami, a dispute over where to bury the former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez has been rekindled²⁰ after some of his relatives denied agreeing to have the body transferred to Caracas. Other members of his family still want him buried there.

Prosecutors in Germany have dropped an investigation²¹ into claims by a Russian dissident couple that they had been poisoned on orders from Moscow. Viktor Kalashnikov and his wife Marina were reported to have 50 times the safe level of mercury in their blood and be losing hair and weight. An investigation was launched last month, but prosecutors say there's no evidence they were deliberately²² poisoned in Germany.

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