Hostages fly home after Libya ceremony

Six foreign hostages who were held by Islamic separatists in the Philippines have flown home from Libya which helped to secure their release.

At a ceremony earlier in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, ministers from France and Germany thanked the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, for his personal intervention and asked for his continued assistance in freeing the remaining hostages.

Colonel Gaddafi was unexpectedly absent from the ceremony, which took place in front of the ruins of his headquarters that were bombed by American warplanes in 1986.

A BBC correspondent in Tripoli says the ceremony was marred by heavy-handed security, with foreign journalists being held under armed guard for hours before the hostages arrived. Meanwhile officials in the Philippines have confirmed that an American man has now been abducted by a faction of the Islamic rebel group.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service