Nelson Mandela Leaves Hospital After 10 Days

Former South African president Nelson Mandela is spending his first day at home after 10 days in hospital being treated for pneumonia.

The 94-year-old was allowed to return home "following a sustained and gradual improvement in his general condition".

An ambulance is understood to have taken him back to his residence in Johannesburg.

President Jacob Zuma's office said Mr Mandela would now receive "home-based" care.

Mr Mandela is believed to have been transported home in this ambulance

A statement said: "President Zuma thanks the hard working medical team and hospital staff for looking after Madiba so efficiently."

He also extended his gratitude to all South Africans, friends of the nation and to people around the world for their support.

Spokesman Mac Maharaj told Sky News: "We are all very happy with the news and grateful to the doctors and the hospital staff for looking after him so well.

"The doctors say that given his age, they have to monitor him very carefully and they have to remain cautious all the time.

"He is frail, and we need to take into account his age ... but Madiba is a fighter and he is not ready to say goodbye to us."

It has been the third health scare in four months for the anti-apartheid leader.

He was in hospital briefly in early March for a check-up and before that in December for nearly three weeks with a lung infection and following surgery to remove gallstones.

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, who became South Africa's first black President in 1994, is a global symbol of tolerance and the struggle for equality.

Mr Mandela stepped down as President in 1999 and has not been politically active for a decade.

He has a history of lung problems dating from when he contracted tuberculosis as a political prisoner.

He spent 27 years on Robben Island and in other jails for his attempts to overthrow the white-minority government.

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India Houseboat Murder: 'Dutch Man Confesses'

By Alex Rossi, India Correspondent, in Kashmir

Police sources tell Sky News that a Dutch man they have been questioning over the murder of a British woman has now confessed.

Sarah Groves, 24, was found in a pool of blood inside the houseboat she had been living on for up to two months on the Dal Lake in Srinagar, Kashmir.

Officers have named the suspect as Richard de Wit, 43, and said he claimed to have been under the influence of drugs.

He had been staying on a neighbouring boat. When he was arrested 60 miles away he was carrying only his passport and was not wearing shoes.

The victim was staying on a houseboat on picturesque Dal Lake

Local police said Miss Groves, from Guernsey, had been stabbed at least 25 times with what was described as a "mountain knife".

The door to her room had also been forced open.

Her body is being sent for medical examination to determine whether she was sexually assaulted before being killed.

Deputy General Inspector Ahafadul Mujtaba told Sky News: "He has told us he killed the girl - we don't know why. He also says he had taken drugs, cannabis.

Shoes sit outside the door of the houseboat where Sarah Groves was staying

"We have taken his blood samples and have sent them away for testing. We have also not ruled out a sexual motive but there was no direct evidence at the scene. We are awaiting medical results."

Under Indian law a confession to a police officer is not admissible in a court of law.

The police say de Wit will be held in custody for the next 14 days whilst they continue to gather evidence.

Friends have paid tributes to Miss Groves on Facebook. Underneath a photograph of her smiling, Charlene Carter said: "That beautiful smile I will never forget."

Donna Stacey said: "Waste of a beautiful life just goes to show the world we live in."

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North Korea: US Missile Test Delayed Amid Row

The US has delayed the testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile over the growing tensions with North Korea, according to a defence official.

A Pentagon source said the Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel decided to postpone the long-planned Minuteman 3 launch until next month because of concerns it would exacerbate the crisis.

North Korea's military warned this week it was authorised to attack the US using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons.

South Korean officials said the North has moved at least one missile with "considerable range" to its east coast - possibly the untested Musudan missile, believed to have a range of 1,800 miles.

The US has been carrying out joint military exercises in the area with South Korea involving warships and bombers.

Sky News Asia Correspondent Mark Stone says the postponement of the missile launch marks a change in approach by the US.

The US brought forward deployment of a Global Hawk spy plane to Japan

He said: "Two weeks ago the US military was issuing media releases announcing the deployment of B52 and B2 bombers to the region, as a show of strength and North Korea's response was to increase its own bellicose statements.

"China and Russia have collectively called on both North Korea and America to back down and in the past few days there have been signs that the Americans are altering their stance."

Mr Hagel's decision comes as China's Foreign Ministry expressed "grave concern" about escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula and asked for assurances about the safety of its diplomats.

And Chinese President Xi Jinping appeared to up the pressure on Pyongyang when he said in a speech that no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain".

North Korea held its most recent nuclear test in February and in December launched a long-range rocket that potentially could hit the continental US.

China's President said no country should throw "the whole world into chaos"

It has been angered by increasing sanctions and the exercises which are scheduled to continue to the end of the month.

This week, the US said two of its missile-defence ships were being moved closer to the Korean peninsula and a land-based system was being deployed to the Pacific territory of Guam later this month.

And deployment of an unmanned spy plane to northern Japan was brought forward to boost US surveillance after North Korean threats.

The Global Hawk will be stationed at the US airbase in Misawa, northern Japan, according to the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun.

The drone deployment was not supposed to have been public knowledge but was leaked by Japanese media.

Japan will further boost its defences by ordering its armed forces to shoot down any North Korean missile headed towards its territory, according to press reports.

The order may be issued by Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera in the coming days but would reportedly be kept secret so as not to alarm the public.

It comes after North Korea warned foreign diplomats they may not be safe in the country if war breaks out.

Pyongyang asked foreign embassies whether they were considering evacuating staff, saying the government could not guarantee their safety in the event of conflict from April 10.

The British Foreign Office dismissed the warning as "rhetoric".

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Mexico Drug War Memorial Angers Relatives

A monument unveiled by the Mexican government in memory of the thousands killed during the country's vicious drug war has sparked anger among victims' relatives.

The £1.6m Mexico City structure, which includes steel panels bearing quotes from famous writers and thinkers, was dedicated during an official ceremony on Friday.

But only some rights groups recognise the monument because it does not bear a single victim's name.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said: "Other organisations asked us for other space because they're against this one.

A relative writes on one of the steel panels in Mexico City

"What took us so long was trying to get agreement among the groups, and we failed."

The dispute arises from the fact the Mexican government has yet to fully document the drug war dead - thought to be as many as 70,000 people - despite constant pleas from the public.

Former president Felipe Calderon's government stopped counting the victims in September 2011, and Enrique Pena Nieto's new regime has only provided monthly statistics for December 2012 to February 2013.

Jose Merino, a political science professor at Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology, said people would not accept the memorial until the government documented every case.

Mr Calderon, who at first dismissed most of the drug war dead as criminals, proposed the memorial last year after meeting with victims' families.

Many Mexicans consider the military as complicit in drug war abuses and disappearances.

The land where the memorial is located belonged to the Defence Department, but was given to a governmental body that helps victims and relatives.

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India: Survivor Found Day After Tower Collapse

Rescuers have pulled out alive an injured woman from the wreckage of a Mumbai tower block - 36 hours after it collapsed leaving as many as 72 dead and 70 injured.

She was dragged from the building on Saturday morning after rescue workers heard her voice and used camera equipment to pinpoint her location under the rubble.

A 10-month old infant was pulled from the debris on Friday.

Most of the dead and missing are migrant construction workers who were living on the site in Thane, on the outskirts of the city, with their families.

At least 17 of those killed are children.

A 10-month-old child rescued from the rubble

The building collapsed "like a pack of cards within three to four seconds," one witness said on Thursday night.

As rescue teams combed the rubble for survivors immediately after the collapse, two young children were plucked out alive to cries of "God is great".

Rescue workers with sledgehammers, gasoline-powered saws and hydraulic jacks struggled to break through the tower of rubble in their search for possible survivors. Six bulldozers were brought to the scene.

More than 20 people remained missing and three floors of the building still needed to be searched, said R S Rajesh, an official with the National Disaster Response Force who was at the scene.

A toddler is pulled out alive from the wreckage

"All the three floors are sandwiched ... so it is very difficult for us," he said, adding that rescuers were continuing to pull survivors from the wreckage.

An investigation has now been launched into what has been described as one of the worst incidents of its kind in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

The collapse is being blamed on shoddy construction and unstable foundations.

The building was only supposed to be four storeys high but three extra levels had been illegally constructed on top and an eighth was being added when it collapsed, said police.

Rescue workers search for survivors in the rubble

Police said they have arrested the builder and his associates. They face a number of charges including manslaughter.

A local resident who gave his name as Ramlal said: "The building collapsed like a pack of cards within three to four seconds.

"Only labourers used to stay there. No rich person or well-to-do family stayed here. Only poor people stayed here."

The neighbourhood where the building collapsed was part of a belt of more than 2,000 illegal structures that had sprung up in the area in recent years, said Malvi, the town spokesman.

"Notices have been served several times for such illegal construction, sometimes notices are sent 10 times for the same building," he said.

A crowd watches the rescuers at work

GR Khairnar, a former top Mumbai official, said government officials who allowed the illegal construction should be tried along with the builders.

"There are a lot of people involved (in illegal construction) - builders, government machinery, police, municipal corporation - everybody is involved in this process," he told CNN-IBN television.

As the economy has grown, so has the appetite for property and the quick profit that comes from unauthorised construction.

In one of the worst collapses, nearly 70 people were killed when an apartment building in a congested New Delhi neighbourhood crumbled in November 2010.

That building was two floors higher than legally allowed and its foundations appeared to have been weakened by water damage.

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India: British Woman Murdered In Kashmir

A Dutchman has been detained after a 24-year-old British woman was found murdered on a houseboat in Indian-administered Kashmir, police have confirmed.

The woman had apparently been stabbed and police said she was found in a pool of blood on the vessel at Srinagar's Dal Lake, a popular tourist destination.

Senior police officer Abdul Ghani Mir said the man was picked up as he tried to flee the valley with only his passport.

A police officer at Dal Lake, a popular tourist destination

He said: "A 24-year-old British national was found murdered in a local houseboat this morning. A Dutch national, De Wit Richard, has been detained for investigations.

"While preliminary investigation has confirmed that the woman was murdered, we are investigating other angles. Forensic evidence is being collected.

"The Dutch national had fled from the houseboat in the night, leaving behind his belongings. He was trying to flee from the valley, carrying only his passport. We flashed an alert for his arrest."

Forensics officers are looking for clues at the scene

The man was held at Qazigund, in south Kashmir's Anantag district, around 100km (62 miles) from the lake where the woman's body was found.

Speaking near the murder scene, Deputy Inspector General of Police for central Kashmir Syed Afadul Mujtiba said: "There is one houseboat over here in which there were two tourists living.

"One tourist was there for about one month. She has been living here, an English tourist, and a Dutch tourist arrived two days ago, and now today in the morning the dead body of the female tourist has been found with incision wounds, sharp-edged weapon wounds, and the Dutch tourist has tried to escape.

Onlookers gathered near the scene of the murder

"It appears that he has murdered this female tourist."

Sky's India correspondent Alex Rossi said: "Police say preliminary investigations have confirmed that this woman was murdered, but they are investigating other angles.

"Forensic evidence is being collected and the Dutch national is being questioned."

The Foreign Office says it is in touch with local authorities and the victim's family have been informed.

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India: 35 Dead As 'Illegal' Building Collapses

At least 35 people have died after a building that was being constructed illegally in Mumbai, India, collapsed.

A further 50 people were injured in the collapse in the suburb of Thane, a senior police official said.

It is believed nine children were among the dead.

The building had not been cleared for construction by local authorities.

Despite this the first four floors had homes and offices that were occupied at the time of the collapse.

Workers were adding four more floors and had finished three before the building fell.

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North Korea Moves Two Missiles To East

By Mark Stone, on the South Korea border

North Korea has moved two missiles to its east coast and loaded them on mobile launchers, South Korea's Yonhap news agency has said.

The move fuels fears of an imminent firing, which would further ramp up tensions in the peninsula.

"It has been confirmed that North Korea, early this week, transported two Musudan mid-range missiles by train to the east coast and loaded them on vehicles equipped with launch pads," Yonhap quoted a top government official as saying, according to AFP.

The official said the mobile launchers had since been hidden in special underground facilities, according to the report.

South Korea said earlier it had been seeking urgent information on one Korean missile that had been moved.

Intelligence officials from the US, Japan and South Korea are monitoring the movement of the weapons.

The Musudan missile is a mid-range weapon, meaning it is capable of reaching South Korea and Japan and perhaps also the US territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean.

"The range is between 3,000 to 4,000km (1,864 to 2,485 miles). There are major US military forces in Guam and a fixed number of troops to deal with the Korean peninsula, so I think these facts can reduce the possible danger there," said Kim Min-seok, South Korea's Defence Ministry spokesman.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said daily reports from Pyongyang were "really alarming and troubling" and urged North Korea to ease tensions.

"Nuclear threat is not a game, it is very serious," he said, adding that any misjudgement or miscalculation could have "very serious implications".

North Korea's young leader Kim Jong-Un has escalated his rhetoric

Speaking to Sky News, a security adviser to the South Korean government said there is no doubt that North Korea's capability is concerning.

"The technological level of North Korean weapons has become much improved and better - especially their missile capability and their long-range artilleries," Kim Byungki said.

"It is more uncertain, it is less predictable, there are more ways for them to destabilise us and there are more ways for us to respond ... so it is more complex."

North Korea which, incensed at fresh UN sanctions and South Korea-US military drills, has issued a series of apocalyptic threats of nuclear war in recent weeks.

America says it is taking "all necessary precautions" to respond to the daily threats from the North Korean leadership.

President Barack Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, said the barrage of rhetoric fitted a "regrettable but familiar" pattern of North Korean behaviour.

The South Korean military during an exercise near the border

The Musudan, which is manoeuvrable on the back of a specially designed mobile launch pad, is untested and its accuracy is unknown. Most experts believe the North Koreans lack the technological ability to mount a nuclear warhead into its tip.

However, it can carry a significant load of conventional explosives which could cause considerable damage.

It is not clear whether military commanders in North Korea have been given orders to fire the weapon in anger or as a test.

There has been speculation that Pyongyang might schedule a firing to coincide with the birthday of the country's late founder Kim Il-Sung in mid-April.

Given the recent level of rhetoric delivered by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and the number of US and South Korean military assets that are now in the region, the missile would be shot down within minutes of any launch.

The US is preparing to move an advanced missile defence system to Guam

The concern is that this could then lead to an uncontrollable escalation in military action by both sides.

Sky News' Asia correspondent Mark Stone says South Korean people are "remarkably unconcerned about the threats that are coming from the North. Why? Because they're used to it. They've heard it for so many decades now.

"They don't believe he'll press the button."

He added that governments are, however, concerned because Mr Kim, North Korea's new young leader,  "is very unpredictable".

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Jill Meagher Murder: Accused Changes Plea

A man has pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of an Irish woman who was attacked and killed as she walked home from a bar in the Australian town of Melbourne.

Adrian Ernest Bayley pleaded guilty to rape and murder of Jill Meagher, 29, last September.

The 41-year-old father of four - who originally denied the charge - faces life in prison.

Jill Meagher's husband Tom

Bayley lived near inner-suburban Brunswick where he randomly abducted Ms Meagher only a few hundred yards from the apartment she shared with her husband.

Ms Meagher's murder shocked residents of Australia's second-largest city with some 30,000 people attending a rally against violence near the lane where she was strangled.

CCTV footage of the last sighting of Ms Meagher

The Irishwoman, who was working for state broadcaster ABC, went missing in the early hours of September 22 after a night out with friends.

She had been walking the short distance home to the flat she shared with her husband Tom.

Her body was found five days later in a shallow grave in a rural area about 31 miles from the city.

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Argentina Floods: Dozens Die As Rain Continues

At least 52 people have drowned in their homes and cars, or were electrocuted as floods swamped Buenos Aires.

Thousands have been evacuated from their homes

At least 46 died on Wednesday in and around the city of La Plata. Six deaths were reported a day earlier in Argentina's capital.

Many people climbed onto their roofs in the pouring rain after storm sewers flooded forcing water into houses.

"It started to rain really hard in the evening, and began to flood," Augustina Garcia Orsi, a 25-year-old student, said.

"I panicked. In two seconds I was up to my knees in water. It came up through the drains - I couldn't do anything."

Many claim officials have not done enough

The rains also flooded the country's largest oil refinery, causing a fire that took hours to put out.

The La Plata refinery suspended operations as a result, and Argentina's YPF oil company said an emergency team was evaluating how to get it restarted.

"Such intense rain in so little time has left many people trapped in their cars, in the streets, in some cases electrocuted," Governor Daniel Scioli said.

"We are giving priority to rescuing people who have been stuck in trees or on the roofs of their homes."

The region of Buenos Aires has been worst affected

President Cristina Fernandez visited Tolosa, a La Plata neighbourhood where she grew up and where her mother was among those evacuated.

She announced security measures to combat vandalism, help for identifying the dead, and three days of national mourning for the victims.

At least 2,500 people were evacuated from their homes to about 20 centres in the La Plata area, which is about 37 miles (60km) southeast of Argentina's capital.

The rains are expected to ease later

The flooding threatened to ruin food supplies across La Plata's metropolitan area, which has nearly one million people.

National Planning Minister Julio de Vido estimated that 280,000 people remain without power across the city and surrounding province of Buenos Aires, where most Argentines live.

"Our job is focused on restoring service, but we're going to wait until the equipment dries to guarantee the safety of the electricity workers, because we don't want any deaths," he said.

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