World News Update, what you need to know

Ukraine's interim president Oleksandr Turchynov has made an about-face aimed at defusing tensions by backing a referendum on turning the centralised country into a loose federation with broader regional rights. His announcement stops short of protesters' calls for each Russian-speaking region to stage its own referendum.

ELSEWHERE:

DUNCAN - A fourth person has been charged in the death of Australian baseball player Christopher Lane in southern Oklahoma.

PRETORIA - Guinea's Foreign Minister Francois Fall says the west African country has brought the spread of the deadly haemorrhagic Ebola virus under control after more than 100 deaths.

BAGHDAD - Militants have closed down a Euphrates River dam they control, blocking a major water source for central and southern Iraq.

WASHINGTON DC - An alleged anti-Semite who fatally shot three people at a US Jewish centre and retirement home in Kansas will be prosecuted for hate crimes, police say.

WASHINGTON DC - A US army general is upholding Private Chelsea Manning's conviction and 35-year prison sentence for giving reams of classified US government information to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

VALPARAISO - Firefighters backed by police and soldiers have battled for a third day a massive blaze that killed 12 people and ravaged a huge swath of Chile's historic port city of Valparaiso.