Continue reading the main storyPirates are said to get rich from the ransoms they are paid

by Natalie Duval, BBC News, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

Somali pirates have freed a German-owned chemical tanker, reportedly after a $5.5m (£3.6m) ransom was paid.

The Marida Marguerite, with a crew of 19 Indians, two Bangladeshis and one Ukrainian, was seized in May by pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades.

Kenya-based officials said a ransom was paid, but there was no independent confirmation.

Pirates now hold 25 vessels and 587 hostages after they seized another German-owned ship on Monday.

The EU's Indian Ocean anti-piracy force (Navfor) said in a statementthat the cargo ship Ems River was taken in the early hours, about 200 miles (325km) north-east of the port of Salalah in Oman.

The ship was on its way to Greece from Dubai at the time of the attack, carrying a cargo of petroleum coke.

The EU said it had an eight-strong crew of one Romanian and seven Filipinos.

One Tuesday afternoon, the Marida Marguerite was sailing to safe waters, according to Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme.

He said $5.5m was paid to release the ship. The vessel's owners have not yet commented.

Officials and companies rarely comment on the payment of ransoms, though analysts say such deals are widespread.

Continue reading the main storyThe hanging took place at Tehran's Evin prison

Iran has hanged a man after finding him guilty of spying for Israel's intelligence service, the official Irna news agency says.

Ali Akbar Siadat, an Iranian, was executed inside Tehran's Evin prison, according to judicial officials.

Irna said he was in contact with the Israeli spy agency Mossad for several years, and had passed on information about Iran's military activities.

He was arrested in 2008, when he tried to leave Iran with his wife.

Siadat "confessed that he had transferred information to Mossad about Iran's military activities," Irna said, adding that he had "received $60,000 to give classified information to the Zionist regime".

He was accused of providing details about military bases, fighter jets, training flights, air crashes and missiles.

It was not clear from the Irna report if Saidat was a government employee, or how he obtained the information.

He allegedly met his contacts from the Israeli intelligence service during trips to Turkey, Thailand and the Netherlands.

Espionage is punishable by death under Iranian law.

In 2008 an Iranian telecoms engineer, Ali Ashtari, was hanged after being convicted of spying for Mossad.

Correspondents say Tehran routinely accuses Israel of conducting hostile activities against Iran, including espionage against its armed forces and its nuclear programme.

Irna said a second man, Ali Saremi, was also hanged on Tuesday.

Saremi was alleged to be a member of the opposition group, People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) - which Tehran says is a terrorist organisation.

He had been arrested several times since 1983.

The authorities say that when he was arrested for the final time in 2007, they found CDs, photos and hand-written documents about the PMOI in his house.

Continue reading the main storyThe West African leaders have not yet spoken out strongly on the election dispute

West African heads of state have begun their mission in Ivory Coast aimed at bringing an end to the crisis following the disputed presidential election.

Leaders from Sierra Leone, Benin and Cape Verde have arrived at the residence of Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent who insists he won the poll.

They are expected to give Mr Gbagbo a final chance to step down peacefully.

He is refusing to make way for Alassane Ouattara, who has been internationally recognised as the president-elect.

The three presidents - Benin's Boni Yayi, Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde - arrived in the main city, Abidjan during the morning.

They held talks with the head of the UN peacekeeping mission, Young Jin Choi, before heading for the presidential residence in Abidjan for a meeting with Mr Gbagbo.

A Sierra Leone government spokesman told the BBC that the leaders from the Ecowas regional grouping would be offering Mr Gbagbo a way of leaving without being humiliated.

Ecowas has deliberately chosen to send three heads of state who have not yet spoken strongly on the election dispute, says the BBC's John James in Abidjan.

But after the failure of mediation efforts by the former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, and the head of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping, this visit has a single agenda - to persuade Mr Gbagbo to step down and avoid military intervention by Ecowas, our correspondent adds.

Mr Gbagbo's supporters say the presidents will be received respectfully, but Mr Gbagbo continues to insist that he won last month's election.

Mr Ouattara's victory in the 28 November election was overturned by the Constitutional Council, a body headed by an ally of Mr Gbagbo, citing claims that results were rigged in the north.

Special envoy

On Monday, the African Union (AU) appointed Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga as its special envoy to Ivory Coast to push for a peaceful outcome to the crisis.

Correspondents say the AU's appointment is another setback for Mr Gbagbo, as Mr Odinga has been hawkish on the crisis, and was the first African leader to call for military action.

Mr Odinga has said he planned to talk to Mr Gbagbo, but would wait for the outcome of the Ecowas talks before deciding his next move.

In 2008, Mr Odinga was named Kenya's prime minister in a coalition government, after a disputed election and weeks of political unrest.

However, he dismissed the possibility of power-sharing between Mr Gbagbo and Mr Ouattara, saying the election commission, not the constitutional court, was the only legitimate authority to determine the winner.

West Africa expert Mike McGovern warns Mr Gbagbo's many supporters in the south, whose only access to news has been via state-run TV and radio, feel international players are intervening unfairly.

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• Viewpoint: Test case for Africa

"They've been made increasingly radical in a sense by the politics of the Ivorian conflict over the last decade," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

"If President Gbagbo was forced out of power one way or another, it still has to be taken into account that those people who supported him over the years may continue to be a central problem or spoilers in the process as we move forward."

Strike bites

Buses have now stopped working in Abidjan, leaving thousands stranded at home, after Mr Ouattara called for a general strike on Monday as part of his protest, our correspondent says.

The transport unions are close to Mr Ouattara and have frequently shown the ability to paralyse the city; any drivers trying to break the strike, particularly in opposition districts, face the threat of violence, he adds.

The atmosphere in Abidjan is tense, he says; while less violent than a few days ago, everyone fears a military intervention in the coming weeks.

Ivorians had hoped these elections would close the chapter on the country's most difficult 10 years, but instead they have opened up a new period of instability, he explains.

On Monday, supporters of Mr Ouattara briefly took over the Ivory Coast embassy in Paris.

The embassy was closed on Tuesday morning and a French foreign ministry spokesman told French radio that the process for approving an ambassador chosen by Alassane Ouattara was under way.

Mr Ouattara and his shadow government are currently in an Abidjan resort, protected by about 800 UN peacekeepers.

The UN has said at least 173 people have died in violence, and scores of others have been tortured.

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Passenger Kimberly Farge at La Guardia airport in New York: ''We are in limbo and aggravated''

by Biodun Iginla and Rochelle van Amber, BBC News

The north-eastern US is trying to get back to normal after blizzards left tens of thousands of air passengers stranded and many people without power.

Flights have now resumed into and out of New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

But many passengers were expected to be stranded until the end of the week after some 7,000 flights were cancelled over the busy post-Christmas travel period.

Forecasters are now predicting milder weather for the rest of the week.

With many flights already expected to be nearly full between Christmas and New Year, airline industry experts said it would be difficult for companies to accommodate all the stranded passengers in the New York area quickly enough.

"This is a bad time for a blizzard to hit the east coast," airline consultant Darryl Jenkins told the Associated Press news agency.

American Airlines spokesman Ed Martelle said his company could resume a normal flight schedule by Wednesday, but he was unable to say how long stuck passengers might have to wait for a flight.

"Any airline scheduler will tell you it's like playing with a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces keep changing shape," Mr Martelle added.

Three airports serving New York - JFK, La Guardia and Newark Liberty International Airport - and also Boston's Logan and Philadelphia International reopened on Monday evening.

Areas such as New York were struggling to get back to normal after the snow storms

They had been closed since early morning, forcing thousands of passengers to camp out on floors in terminals. Analysts say the storm and its aftermath could cost the airlines up to $100m (£64m).

Tens of thousands of homes were left without power. The New York Times quoted utility companies as saying homes in Massachusetts, New York City and Westchester County, Long Island and New Jersey had no supply.

Five deaths were reported in road accidents in the storm, four in the Carolinas and one in Maine, the newspaper said, while many roads and streets remained blocked with snow.

National rail operator Amtrak - which earlier shut its New York-Boston route - announced a limited resumption of services.

The US National Weather Service says the monster snow storm is the result of a low pressure system which originated off North Carolina.

Six US states - Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia - earlier all declared emergencies.

The New York area received up to 51cm (20in) of snow over the last two days.

A subway train in New York City was trapped for seven hours before passengers were rescued.

The southern states of Georgia and South Carolina had their first white Christmas in more than a century.

But Washington DC escaped the blizzard, with only a dusting of snow.

The storm moved to Canada's Atlantic coast early on Monday. Around 27,000 homes in Nova Scotia and 11,000 consumers in the New Brunswick area were reportedly left without power.

The timing of the snowstorm meant disruption for many thousands travelling after Christmas reunions. It also hampered the start of the shopping sales season and the return to work for many commuters.

More details from BBC Weather

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