pope francis s historic visit to south sudan ends with an open air mass. he urged people to reject the venom of hatred and pleaded with leaders to find peace. pakistan s former president, general pervez musharraf, has died following a long illness. he was 79 years old. president musharraf seized power in a bloodless military coup in 1999, serving in office for seven years from 2001. in 2008, he suffered defeat in the polls and left the country six months later. when he returned in 2013 to try to contest the election, he was arrested and barred from standing. he was charged with high treason and was sentenced to death in absentia, only for the decision to be overturned less than a month later. at the time of his death, he had been living in exile in dubai, receiving medical treatment. the bbc s gordon corera looks back on his life. 1999. and when troops stormed the national television headquarters to put pervez musharraf in power, the people of pakistan heard a familiar refr
iranian state television says that the supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei has pardoned a large number of prisoners linked to protests. the state broadcaster says that ayatollah khamenei was responding to a proposal by the head of the judiciary. iranian media outlets say that the letter from the judiciary chief said that a number of people, especially the young, had committed wrongful actions and crimes because of incitement and propaganda by the enemy. our middle east analyst sebastian usher gave us this update. this is a pardon that comes on the eve of the anniversary of the 1979 islamic revolution, so there are pardons quite regularly for that. what we don t know, obviously the numbers. we don t know when or how this will happen. we do know the way that it s written says it s an answer to an appeal, a letter from the head of the judiciary who essentially frames it as being many people who went out to protest, particularly the young, were misled, by foreign agents, propag
what we don t know, obviously the numbers. we don t know when or how this will happen. we do know the way that it s written says it s an answer to an appeal, a letter from the head of the judiciary who essentially frames it as being many people who went out to protest, particularly the young, were misled, by foreign agents, propaganda from abroad, and that they now want forgiveness. and they re still described as riots, nothing more, nothing less. so, in terms of how the authorities frame this, obviously nothing has changed. also, it makes clear that people who are accused, who have been charged with more serious crimes, so that s spying, murder, destruction of state property, won t be pardoned. the issue about that is that many, many activists, many people involved in this say that those people who have been charged with the strongest offences have not had fair trials. they ve been summary trials. so they haven t had a fair look at what their case is anyway. i think this is