Turkish court orders YouTube access to be restored

The ban was imposed after leaked recordings of official meetings turned up on YouTube

Access to video-sharing site YouTube looks set to be restored in Turkey after a ruling by the nation's highest court.

A block was imposed in late March, soon after recordings alleging official corruption were aired on the site.

Now Turkey's constitutional court has said the block violated laws governing freedom of expression.

The court is now informing telecom authorities of its decision and is telling them to lift the block.

The decision is widely seen as a snub to the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which has been a sharp critic of social media sites such as Twitter and YouTube.

Both sites were blocked earlier this year after recordings of official meetings were leaked and widely circulated. One recording involved senior army officers discussing intervention in Syria and others supposedly revealed corruption among people close to Mr Erdogan.

Complaints

The block on Twitter was lifted last month but the limits on YouTube have stayed despite decisions from lower courts calling on the government for them to be lifted.

It is not clear whether the order to lift the ban will be effective since the authorities said those earlier calls were ignored because offending material was still available on the site.

The constitutional court was looking into the validity of the block after complaints from Turkish citizens about it.

Many people have used special software to get round the ban and ensure they can still see videos on the site.

The block was imposed as a "precautionary administrative measure", Turkey's telecommunications regulator said at the time.

Turkey passed a controversial law early this year that let the regulator cut off any site without needing to get a court order.

YouTube was blocked previously in Turkey in 2007 but that ban was lifted in 2010.

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Siemens restructuring to affect 11,600 jobs worldwide

German industrial giant Siemens plans a major reorganisation of its business, affecting 11,600 workers.

The restructuring directly affects 7,600 jobs worldwide, with another 4,000 potentially affected as part of changes to its regional organisation.

However a company spokesman said: "Removing jobs in one area does not necessarily have to mean job cuts."

Some staff may be redeployed and Siemens is holding talks on the plans with its works council.

The company is reorganising itself into nine divisions from its current 16. It intends to cut annual group costs by 1bn euros ($1.4bn) from 2016.

The reorganisation follows a previous one that affected 15,000 posts. In a news conference on Friday, a Siemens spokesman said that the number of job losses from that revamp was 4,000.

Siemens employs 360,000 staff worldwide, with about a third of these in Germany.

Alstom battle

Earlier this month, Siemens said in its latest company report that it expected its markets "to remain challenging in fiscal 2014" with a recovery not expected until later in the year.

Siemens is keen to buy part of France's Alstom.

To do that, it will have to come up with a more attractive bid than US firm General Electric (GE), which is pushing hard to do a deal with the French industrial firm.

To sweeten its approach, GE recently promised to create 1,000 jobs in France.

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Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide drafts to be published

Douglas Adams' sci-fi comedy was turned into a TV series in 1981

Writing that Douglas Adams cut from his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels is to be published for the first time after being found in his archive.

He wrote 16 chapters for an early version of Life, The Universe and Everything - but abandoned it, filed the typescript away and started again.

It has now been found, along with other unseen passages, in an archive of his work at the University of Cambridge.

Extracts will be included in The Frood, a new biography by Jem Roberts.

Adams (third right) oversaw the original BBC radio series at the end of the 1970s

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which Arthur Dent travels the universe after Earth is destroyed, first gained popularity as a BBC radio series in 1978.

An initial novel was published in 1979 and was followed by four more. Adams died in 2001 at the age of 49.

Adams' family gave Jem Roberts permission to look at his papers after they were loaned to St John's College, Cambridge.

They included the abandoned draft for Life, The Universe and Everything, the third book in the series.

"The original version was going brilliantly - he had loads of really funny chapters and scenes - and then he just decided to abandon the whole lot and start from scratch," Roberts told BBC News.

"The book that we know has exactly the same plot. He'd written a version that was about two thirds of the way through before he abandoned it.

"A lot of people thought it had gone in the bin. But no. The manuscript with about 16 chapters is right there in St John's College."

Simon Jones and Richard Vernon appeared in the TV version

When he started the book from scratch, Adams kept the story outline but rewrote most of the action, leaving "only the odd scrap that's recognisable", Roberts said.

Asked why Adams rejected the manuscript, the biographer said: "It was during the period when he split up with his girlfriend, which was a major ruction in his life.

"He was extremely unhappy at the time. I think he just wanted a whole fresh start."

Roberts' book, which will be published in September, will also include passages that were left out of the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel.

"There are two short extracts, which are very entertaining actually, which were cut from the first book," Roberts said. "They're little asides, maybe a couple of pages each.

"One of them is all about the history of the Dentrassi, who work on the Vogon ships, and there's a bit where Arthur goes on this long reverie about science, which is very out of character for him, which I think is maybe why it got cut."

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Spain arrests militant suspects in Melilla

Spanish police in Melilla have made dozens of terror arrests in recent years, often in co-operation with Morocco

Spain's interior ministry says it has arrested six men on terror charges in its north African enclave of Melilla.

A statement said the men were suspected of trying to recruit fighters for militant groups in Libya and Mali.

Spain has arrested dozens of suspected militants in its enclaves in Melilla and Ceuta in recent years. The cities lie on the southern Mediterranean coast and are surrounded by Morocco.

Earlier this week, about 400 migrants breached the border fence in Melilla.

The enclave is a major crossing point for those seeking work or asylum in Europe and there have been several attempts to storm the 6m-high (19ft) border fence in recent weeks.

Friday's arrests were carried out by Spanish police in co-ordinated raids.

One man detained was described by the interior ministry as the "first Spanish jihadist" to have returned from the conflict in Mali.

He was also suspected of attending a training camp run by Mali's Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao).

In March, Spanish and Moroccan police detained seven men whom they accused of running a militant cell spanning both countries.

Together with a second Spanish enclave, Ceuta, Melilla is the European Union's only land border with Africa.

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Microsoft's ex-CEO Steve Ballmer 'wins Clippers bid'

Steve Ballmer left Microsoft in February but still own shares in the company

Microsoft's former CEO Steve Ballmer has reached a deal to buy the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team for a potential record deal of $2bn (£1.2bn).

Shelly Sterling, who owns the Clippers with her husband through a trust, said she was "delighted" with the deal.

Donald Sterling was banned from the sport for life after he was recorded making racist remarks.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) later agreed to begin the process of selling the team.

However, Mr Sterling's lawyer Bobby Samini argues that as a co-owner of the team he has to consent to the Clippers' sale and is refusing to back the deal. "That's his position. He's not going to sell."

Local media reports say that details of the deal are unclear and many questions relating to it are unanswered.

NBA owners are due to meet in New York on Tuesday to consider Mr Sterling's remarks. The latest development could pre-empt a move by the NBA to force Mr Sterling to sell his interest in the team.

Mr Ballmer said in a statement that he was honoured to have his name put forward to the NBA for approval. He thanked the league for "working collaboratively" with him throughout the sale.

"I love basketball. And I intend to do everything in my power to ensure that the Clippers continue to win - and win big - in Los Angeles," he said. "LA is one of the world's great cities - a city that embraces inclusiveness, in exactly the same way that the NBA and I embrace inclusiveness."

Mr Ballmer's bid was accepted by Shelly Sterling, wife of Donald Sterling

A forced sale of the LA Clippers would require the approval of three-quarters of the 30 team owners in the NBA

In her statement, Shelly Sterling said Mr Ballmer "will be a terrific owner".

"We have worked for 33 years to build the Clippers into a premier NBA franchise. I am confident that Steve will take the team to new levels of success," she said.

The statement said that she made the deal "under her authority as the sole trustee of The Sterling Family Trust, which owns the Clippers".

Mr Ballmer is believed to have outbid two rival groups for the team, one of which was led by media mogul David Geffen and included talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

Mr Ballmer retired from Microsoft in February, but he still owns shares in the company.

A forced sale of the LA Clippers requires the approval of three-quarters of the 30 team owners in the NBA.

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Pakistan police defend actions over Lahore honour killing

Muhammad Iqbal, husband of murdered Farzana Parveen, with her body shortly after the attack

Pakistani police have denied they did nothing to stop a so-called honour killing in front of a court in Lahore.

Farzana Parveen was bludgeoned to death by her family for marrying a man of her own choice. Police say she had died by the time they were able to intervene.

Ms Parveen's husband Muhammad Iqbal has maintained that officers stood by as the attack took place.

Meanwhile, Iqbal himself has admitted killing his first wife six years ago in order to marry Ms Parveen.

Relatives in 'scuffle'

Ms Parveen, who was three months pregnant, was pelted with bricks and bludgeoned by relatives furious because she married against their wishes.

In a report given to the chief minister of Punjab state on Friday, police say one of Ms Parveen's relatives accosted her "several hundred feet" from the court premises and shot her in the shin.

There was no police deployment in that area, the report says, but a police inspector happened to be nearby and managed to snatch away the gun.

However, according the police, a scuffle ensued between about 20 members of Ms Parveen's family and 10 to 15 of Iqbal's, during which one of Ms Parveen's brothers struck her with a brick three times, wounding her fatally.

Police say one of Ms Parveen's uncles, two of her cousins, and the driver who brought them to Lahore were arrested on Friday.

Her father surrendered to police shortly after the killing.

'Honour' killings in Pakistan

• In 2013, 869 women murdered in so called "honour killings"

• Campaigners say real number is likely to be much higher

• Of these, 359 were so called "Karo Kari" cases, whereby family members consider themselves authorised to kill offending relatives to restore honour

• Rights groups say conviction rate in cases of sexual and other violence against women is "critically low"

Source: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan annual report 2013

Further reading: Why do families kill their daughters?

Ms Parveen's relatives had filed a case against Iqbal at the High Court, accusing him of abducting her.

The newlyweds were at the Lahore court to contest this case. Ms Parveen had already testified to police that she had married of her own free will.

Analysis - M Ilyas Khan, BBC News, Islamabad

The twists and turns in the events since Farzana Perveen's murder on Tuesday have transformed a case of honour killing into a tricky tale of love, greed and murder.

We have a man who now admits to have killed an earlier wife, and a woman who the police claim was already someone else's legally wedded wife - which would make her an adulteress under Pakistani law. In addition, the father, brothers and cousins who are accused of murdering Farzana are also said to have killed a woman of the family before.

A recent police report does little to explain this, except for its emphasis on the point that the Farzana case was not a case of stoning, suggesting that it did not merit the attention it got. This is reflective of a deeply conservative society which tends to condone such crimes, and is helped by a set of Islamic laws dating from 1980s that "privatise" murder as a crime against the individual instead of the state, and give the heirs of the victim the right to pardon the killer.

So there is often minimum police interest in these cases, and as a result, there are few successful prosecutions. Many believe it is this atmosphere of impunity that emboldened Farzana's relatives in the first place to kill her in broad daylight.

Previous murder forgiven

In other developments in the case, Iqbal himself has admitted that he killed his first wife six years ago in order to be able to marry Ms Parveen.

Iqbal's son by his first marriage Aurangzeb told the BBC's Ilyas Khan that relatives persuaded him to forgive Iqbal, enabling his release from prison under Pakistani law.

"They said that my mother was gone anyway and would never return, and that I had two younger brothers to take care of," Aurangzeb said.

"So if my father came back, our life would be much better. And he was my father after all. So I agreed," he added.

Aurangzeb also said Ms Parveen had told him that her elder sister had also been killed by the family. In that case the sister had reportedly refused to leave her husband.

A police spokesman told the BBC they could not confirm this allegation. There has been no comment from Ms Parveen's family.

There are hundreds of so-called "honour killings" in Pakistan each year.

The latest incident has prompted particular outrage, with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif describing it as "totally unacceptable".

Arranged marriages are the norm in Pakistan, and to marry against the wishes of the family is unthinkable in many deeply conservative communities.

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Kyrgyz man 'lied' to Boston bombing investigators

Prosecutors say Matanov lied to investigators about how well he knew Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (above)

Authorities in the US state of Massachusetts have charged a Kyrgyzstan national with lying to police and destroying evidence in the Boston bombings investigation.

Khairullozhon Matanov, 23, spoke to the suspects accused of the bombing in the days after the attack, prosecutors say.

Mr Matanov is not accused of a role in the bombings or of knowing of the plot.

The blasts at the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and hurt more than 260 on 15 April 2013.

In a statement, the US attorney's office in Boston said that in the days after the bombing, Mr Matanov realised the FBI would want to interview him because of his ties to Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the bombing suspects, and because he shared their "philosophical justification for violence".

Prosecutors say Mr Matanov deleted information from his computer and lied to FBI investigators about his relationship with the brothers.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 20, has pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges in connection with the bombing and is awaiting trial. His brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a shoot-out with police four days after the attack.

'Supported' bombing

Mr Matanov, a taxi driver who arrived in the US legally in 2010 and lives in Quincy, Massachusetts, is scheduled to appear in court on Friday.

According to prosecutors, Mr Matanov had known the brothers prior to the bombings, spoke to both several times after the explosions, and took them out to dinner the evening after the attack.

"In the days following the bombings, Matanov continued to express support for the bombings, although later that week he said that maybe the bombings were wrong," the federal prosecutors wrote in an indictment filed on Friday.

After the FBI released photos of the brothers identifying them as suspects, Mr Matanov attempted to call Tamerlan Tsarnaev several times, prosecutors said.

He eventually drove to a local police station, where he told officers he knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev but lied about how well, prosecutors said.

A detective there told him he would likely be contacted by the FBI, and in response, Mr Matanov allegedly deleted hundreds of files from his computer and his internet history.

Mr Matanov was soon interviewed by agents with the FBI who also seized his computer. According to the indictment, he lied during several interviews with the federal investigators.

"Although Matanov soon dropped the pretence that he and Tamerlan Tsarnaev had not seen each other much, he continued to falsify, conceal, and cover up evidence of the extent of his friendship, contact and communication with the Tsarnaevs during the week of the bombings, especially during the hours following the bombings," it said.

Last year, police charged three university friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with obstruction of justice in the bombing investigation.

Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev - both from Kazakhstan - allegedly threw away the younger Tsarnaev's laptop and backpack.

Robel Phillipos is accused of lying to investigators. None of the three are implicated in plotting the attacks.

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Ukraine vows to bring peace to east

Ukrainian forces (pictured) have been battling pro-Russian separatists around Sloviansk for several weeks

Ukrainian forces will continue their offensive against rebels until peace and order are restored in the east, the interim defence minister has said.

Fighting has intensified around Sloviansk and 12 Ukrainian troops were killed on Thursday when pro-Russian rebels shot down an army helicopter.

Dozens of separatists died on Monday in a battle at Donetsk airport.

Russia has again called for Ukraine to stop its military campaign against the pro-Moscow rebels.

Interim Defence Minister Mykhailo Koval told reporters Ukrainian forces would continue operations in border areas "until these regions begin to live normally, until there is peace," the Reuters news agency reported.

Pro-Russian separatists have occupied administration buildings across Donetsk and Luhansk

The coffins of Russian nationals killed in the fighting for Donetsk airport were repatriated

And he again accused Russia of backing the rebels - a claim Moscow denies.

President-elect Petro Poroshenko has said Ukraine will punish the "bandits" who shot down the helicopter. Among those killed was Maj Gen Serhiy Kulchytskiy, head of combat and special training in Ukraine's National Guard.

The leader of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Borodai, told Russia's TV Rain that the only condition for negotiations with Kiev was the withdrawal of its troops from the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk.

And he denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of a team of monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), held by separatists. The self-proclaimed mayor of Sloviansk has said they will be freed soon but nothing has been heard of them since Monday.

A second group of observers, based in Luhansk, remains unaccounted for.

Separatists there told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency they had released the team, but the OSCE has put out a statement saying it lost contact with the observers at 19:00 local time (16:00 GMT) on Thursday.

President-elect Petro Poroshenko is known in Ukraine as the Chocolate King

Pro-Russian separatists in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk declared independence after referendums on 11 May, which were not recognised by Kiev or its Western allies.

The rebels took their cue from a disputed referendum in Crimea, which led to Russia's annexation of Ukraine's southern peninsula.

Up to 33 Russian nationals were among the dozens of rebels killed in fighting around Donetsk airport on Monday.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said there was "evidence" of Chechens trained in Russia who had come to "stir things up".

Chechnya's president has denied sending troops to Ukraine.

Separately, US officials said Russia had now withdrawn most of its forces from the border with Ukraine, but thousands remained.

Ukraine is also under pressure from Russia over its unpaid gas bill, which runs into billions of dollars.

Russia's state gas company Gazprom has threatened to cut off supplies to Ukraine if it fails to pay in advance for its June supplies.

A new round of talks between Ukraine, Russia and the EU is due to take place in Berlin later on Friday.

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Google sets up 'right to be forgotten' form after EU ruling

Technology correspondent Dave Lee explains how the controversial system will work

Google has launched a service to allow Europeans to ask for personal data to be removed from online search results.

The move comes after a landmark European Union court ruling earlier this month, which gave people the "right to be forgotten".

Links to "irrelevant" and outdated data should be erased on request, it said.

Google said it would assess each request and balance "privacy rights of the individual with the public's right to know and distribute information".

"When evaluating your request, we will look at whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there's a public interest in the information,"Google says on the form which applicants must fill in.

Google said it would look at information about "financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials" while deciding on the request.

Analysis - Rory Cellan-Jones

"Much of the comment online has been deeply sceptical about the right to be forgotten, particularly in the US where the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech would make this kind of ruling impossible.

Some have pointed out that information won't be removed from google.com, just your local version of the search engine, while others question the sheer practicality."

Google agrees to forget

Earlier this month, the BBC learned that more than half of the requests sent to Google from UK individuals involved convicted criminals.

This included a man convicted of possessing child abuse images who had also asked for links to pages about his conviction to be wiped.

'Fraudulent requests'

Google said information would start to be removed from mid-June and any results affected by the removal process would be flagged to searchers.

Decisions about data removal would be made by people rather than the algorithms that govern almost every other part of Google's search system.

Disagreements about whether information should be removed or not will be overseen by national data protection agencies.

Europe's data regulators are scheduled to meet on 3-4 June. The "right to forget" will be discussed at that gathering and could result in a statement about how those watchdogs will handle appeals.

Information will only disappear from searches made in Europe. Queries piped through its sites outside the region will still show the contested data.

On 13 May, the EU's court of justice ruled that links to "irrelevant" and outdated data on search engines should be erased on request.

The case was brought by a Spanish man who complained that an auction notice of his repossessed home, which appeared on Google's search results, infringed his privacy.

Less innovation?

On Friday, Google said that EU citizens who want their private details removed from the search engine will be able to do so by filling out an online form.

However, they will need to provide links to the material they want removed, their country of origin, and a reason for their request.

Individuals will also have to attach a valid photo identity.

"Google often receives fraudulent removal requests from people impersonating others, trying to harm competitors, or improperly seeking to suppress legal information," the firm said.

"To prevent this kind of abuse, we need to verify identity."

However, in an interview given to the Financial Times, Google boss Larry Page said that although the firm would comply with the ruling, it could damage innovation.

He also said the regulation would give cheer to repressive regimes.

Mr Page said he regretted not being "more involved in a real debate" about privacy in Europe, and that the company would now try to "be more European".

But, he warned, "as we regulate the internet, I think we're not going to see the kind of innovation we've seen".

Mr Page added that the ruling would encourage "other governments that aren't as forward and progressive as Europe to do bad things".

People keen to get data removed from Google's index must:

• Provide weblinks to the relevant material
• Name their home country
• Explain why the links should be removed
• Supply photo ID to help Google guard against fraudulent applications

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Migration surge hits EU as thousands flock to Italy

Migrants in Calais this week clashed with police as French authorities dismantled makeshift camps

By Paul AdamsBBC News

There has been a significant rise in the numbers of migrants reaching Europe in recent months, the BBC has learned.

The number of people attempting the dangerous sea crossing from North Africa to Italy has risen sharply, says Frontex, the EU border agency.

From January to April, 42,000 migrants were detected on these routes, with 25,650 of these crossing from Libya.

Combined with seven other less busy routes, the total figure for this year is probably now about 60,000.

On Wednesday, the Italian government said the number of refugees and other migrants reaching its shores had soared to more than 39,000.

The total for 2014 so far is more than the equivalent period in 2011, the year of the Arab Spring, which eventually saw 140,000 make clandestine crossings into Europe.

"If the current trends continue, and with the summer months approaching, there is a strong likelihood the numbers will increase further," says Gil Arias Fernandez, Frontex's Deputy Executive Director.

At least a third of the latest arrivals are Syrians, fleeing that country's civil war.

But other significant numbers are coming from Afghanistan and Eritrea.

In Calais, where the French authorities this week demolished two main squatter camps, the BBC found migrants from a host of countries, from West Africa to Bangladesh, with large groups from Iran and Pakistan's restive tribal areas.

Tracking one of the biggest migrations since World War Two

Almost three million people have fled Syria's bloody civil war. UN figures show the human tide began in earnest in early 2012.

Experts say the latest numbers are not surprising, after relatively low levels of migration in the early months of 2013.

"The main route through Libya was closed for so long that people in sub-Saharan countries have been waiting for a couple of years," says Franck Duvell, associate professor at the Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society at the University of Oxford.

"So the numbers have been building up and people were waiting for the very first opportunity to move," he says.

"I'm not sure this implies that we are going to see ever-more people arriving in the EU over the next couple of months. We've got to wait and see."

Much depends on the chaotic political and security situation in Libya, where a BBC team has recently seen evidence that large numbers of migrants are still waiting to cross. Some estimates put the figure as high as 300,000.

Italy complains that since last October, when it launched its "Mare Nostrum" [Our Sea] rescue operation, the cost of patrolling its patch of the Mediterranean has risen to 300,000 euros (£24,200: $408,000) a day.

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