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BBC News with Marian Marshall.

Two American envoys have met the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem in the first visit to Damascus by high-ranking US officials in more than four years. One of the envoys, Jeffrey Feltman, said that the discussion had been constructive and had been not about finger-pointing but about identifying areas of mutual concern. Natalia Antelava reports from Beirut.

The Syrian government has played down the significance of the talks between the US diplomats and the Syrian minister of foreign affairs. One Syrian official who wanted to remain anonymous said Damascus didn't want to make a big deal of the talks and that the government was treating them with great caution. Over the last few days, Obama administration officials have repeatedly said that while they wanted to engage with Damascus, they also have real concerns about the role of Syria in the region and its support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has submitted his cabinet resignation to make way for a government of national unity. The rival Hamas movement has welcomed the decision, which Mr. Fayyad said would take effect after a unity government was formed. The announcement follows the relaunch last month of reconciliation talks between Hamas and the Fatah party of the Palestinian President Muhammad Abbas.

A British resident freed from Guantanamo Bay last month has released more details which he says support his claims that the British security service, MI5, colluded in his interrogation by the CIA. Ethiopia-born Binyam Mohamed has given a British newspaper what he says are two telegrams sent by MI5 to the CIA after he'd been transferred to Morocco in 2002. The director of the civil rights group Liberty, Shami Chakrabati, explained why the telegrams were so crucial as far as she was concerned.

"The telegrams suggest that while they didn't know where he was, they did know he was under the CIA control and they were asking the Americans to interrogate him in a certain way, now that, to me, looks very much like a smoking gun. Whether I am right or not about that, it's certainly more than enough to call the police in. So I think what this does is to make a mediate criminal investigation, absolutely inescapable."

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has gone to Botswana to recuperate after the car crash on Friday which he suffered minor injuries and his wife was killed. A source close to Mr. Tsvangirai said the prime minister needed time to rest and come to terms with what had happened, stressing that his departure from Zimbabwe had nothing to do with security concerns. The MDC Secretary General, Tendai Biti, who is now also Zimbabwe's finance minister, speculated that the accident could have been avoided.

"The police are making investigations. We are also carrying on our own independent investigations. We will be making the necessary amendments so an announcement in due course. There are certain things that could have helped to avoid this thing, and one of them is clearly for a police escort."

 

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