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Michael Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray has been charged by the authorities in Los Angeles with involuntary manslaughter. Dr Conrad Murray was accused of acting unlawfully but without malice. He’s due to appear in court shortly, his lawyer said he would plead “not guilty”. Here’s our correspondent in Los Angeles David Willies.

Cardiologist Dr Conrad Murray was Michael Jackson's personal physician, hired to oversee the singer's preparation for a series of comeback concerts at London's 02 Arena. Michael Jackson was apparently having difficulty \ sleeping, and on the night he died, Dr Murray told detectives he had administered a number of drugs. Dr Murray then left the room and when he returned, Michael Jackson had stopped breathing. The coronal recorded verdict of homicide after concluding that Michael Jackson died of acute Propofol intoxication.

The losing candidate in Sri Lanka presidential election, General Sarath Fonseka, has been arrested by military police at his office in Colombo. The general led the Sri Lanka’s army during its final onslaught against Tamil Tiger rebels, but later fell out with the government and resigned. Charles Haviland reports from the Sri Lankan capital.

Rauff Hakeem, one of the senior politicians, having a meeting with General Fonseka at the time, said a large number of army officers dragged him out by his hands and feet in what Mr Hakeem called a very humiliating and disgusting manner. The senior government defense official Laxman Hulugalle told the BBC that the general had been taken into custody, because, he said, he violated army rules by holding discussions with party leaders while chief of the army and the armed forces. General Fonseka’s aids denied he has broken any rules or plotted anything.

Pressure is building among western countries for new stiffer international sanctions against Iran, following its announcement that it will begin enriching uranium to a higher grade and constructing more enrichment plants. The United States and France, leading course for a broader sector of punitive sanctions, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, said the time had come for what they called “strong measures”.

More than a hundred people have been rescued from the sea in the Gulf of Aden after human traffickers forced them overboard from a stricken boat. A rescue operation found the migrants clinging to bits of driftwood and utterly exhausted. Our east Africa correspondent Peter Greste reports.

The coastguard from the semi-autonomous region of Somaliland spotted the first of the survivors floating in the water on Sunday. The refugees told them a horrific story. They left the northern coast of Somali over a week earlier, 135 Somalis and Ethiopians hoping for a better life in the Europe and Middle-east. But the boat developed engine trouble and drifted for days. Eventually the traffickers who they paid to take them across the Gulf of Aden forced the refugees into the water at gun point.

This is the World News from the BBC.

The International Criminal Court has dismissed war crime charges against the first rebel leader in the Sudanese region of Darfur to appeal before it. A pre-trial hearing of the court ruled the prosecutors had failed to produce enough evidence at the man, Abu Garda, had planned and participated in an attack on an African Union military base in 2007, in which 12 peacekeepers were killed. Abu Garda had denied all the charges against him.

One of the most senior police officers in London has been sentenced to four years in prison for assaulting and then trying to frame a man. Ali Dizeai, who is an Iranian descent and a Commander in the Metropolitan police, was convicted of misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice. He maintained he was targeted by colleagues because his prominent role in supporting ethnic minority officers.

With all but a handful of votes counted from Ukraine’s presidential election, the opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych has narrowly beaten his rival, the Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Official figures gave Mr Yanukovych whose party is allied to the Kremlin's United Russia a margin of almost 3 percent over Mrs Tymoshenko, who was one of the leaders of the Orange Revolution.

The Football Federation of Benin has sacked the country’s entire football team following its poor performance of the Africa Cup of Nations. The French coach, Michel Dussuyer , and all his staff were also dismissed. The president of Benin’s Football Federation, Moucharafou Anjorin, explained why the decision was taken.

A number of things happened, we have players that we are totally disrespectful of the football authorities. They were driven more by the greed for money than respect for the authorities that ran the game. Several players even failed to show up at the reception held in their own outer-presence office before the tournament began. This was a scandal. This is a disciplinary issue, not a technical issue.