12 December 2012 Last updated at 07:30 GMT
North Korea defies warnings in rocket launch success
North Korea has defied international warnings with an apparently successful launch of a rocket into space.
The rocket, launched at 09:49 local time (00:49 GMT), appears to have followed its planned trajectory, with stages falling in expected areas.
North Korea says a satellite has been placed in orbit; the US confirmed an object had been put into space.
South Korea, the US and Japan have condemned the launch as a banned test of long-range missile technology.
The US called it a "highly provocative act that threatens regional security", while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said it was a "clear violation" of a UN resolution.
Wildlife trafficking efforts 'threatening national security', says WWF
Group says organised crime syndicates are 'outgunning' governments, leading to sharp rise in elephant and rhino deaths
Illicit trade in wildlife has exploded into a $19bn criminal enterprise, threatening government stability and national security, the WWF warned on Wednesday.
A report from the world's biggest conservation group said the current effort to stop trafficking in ivory, rhino horn, and other endangered species was pitifully inadequate against the powerful and sophisticated crime syndicates with a global reach.
"It has been a failure. We are losing these populations in front of our eyes," Carter Roberts, the president of WWF, said in an interview. "It is being outgunned in terms of technology. It is being outgunned in terms of resources, and it is being outgunned, worst of all, in terms of organisation."
RUSSIA
Is Putin's corruption fight just for show?
In attacking corruption on all levels of Russian government, Putin is fulfilling an old promise in dramatic fashion. Criminal trials and billions of roubles are on the line. Half of Russia worries he has other motives.
When Vladmir Putin delivers his yearly speech to the nation from the Kremlin on Wednesday, December 12, one word will not be lacking: corruption. The Russian president appears to have declared open war on the deeply entrenched problem in Russia.
"It's not a campaign, but a systematic extermination of corruption," Putin said at a meeting with close advisers in Moscow this week. In a television interview, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev spoke of "the beginning of a very difficult task." He added that the timing of the ever-more explosive corruption investigations is no accident.
Grace: Robert Mugabe is a fine, God-fearing gentleman
Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe, who is married to Africa's oldest leader, says her husband made her the woman she is today.
To his political foes and western critics he is a cold-hearted tyrant blamed for bloodshed and national decline. To his wife, however, Robert Mugabe is a supportive, God-fearing family man who is never without his rosary.
Grace Mugabe said at the opening of a children's home, the state-owned Sunday Mail newspaper reported, when she told the love story of Africa's oldest leader.
"I was very young when I started living with President Mugabe, but he was patient with me and took time to groom me into the woman that I am now," said Grace (47), who is four decades his junior.
"Some of you see me doing all this charity work and reckon that it is all my thinking and doing, but that is not the case. VaMugabe is very supportive of women because he knows kuti musha mukadzi [a woman makes a home]," she added.
Southeast Asia
Dec 12, 2012
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By Mark Dearn
MANILA - An effigy of Philippine President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino burned in front of the Malacanang Palace in Manila this week as thousands of people took to the streets on Human Rights Day. The annual mobilization is of increasing significance to Philippine activists, often the targets of human-rights violations the government is failing to tackle.
In spite of Aquino's repeated rhetoric of reformism, backed by his story of being the son of a victim of an extra-judicial killing - Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, the anti-Marcos senator assassinated in
1983 on the tarmac of the Manila airport that now bears his name - the killing of campaigning activists have not ebbed.
In spite of Aquino's repeated rhetoric of reformism, backed by his story of being the son of a victim of an extra-judicial killing - Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, the anti-Marcos senator assassinated in
1983 on the tarmac of the Manila airport that now bears his name - the killing of campaigning activists have not ebbed.
Chavez cancer surgery in Cuba 'successful'
Vice president says the Venezuelan leader's fourth cancer operation was "complicated" but a complete success.
Last Modified: 12 Dec 2012 06:10
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's fourth round of cancer surgery was complicated but successful and the leader was recovering in his Cuban hospital room, the country's vice president says.
"We want to thank all the love, the pure love ... for this operation ended correctly and successfully," Nicolas Maduro, who was recently designated by Chavez as his successor in case he becomes incapacitated, said in an address to the nation on Tuesday.
Maduro said the surgery had lasted more than six hours, adding that "Commander Chavez was back in his room" and would shortly begin a "post-operative phase" that would last several days.
Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo, reporting from the capital, Caracas, said that after addressing the nation Maduro attended a mass held for Chavez in the city.
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