Six In The Morning

14 December 2012 Last updated at 07:23 GMT

North Koreans mark rocket success with mass rally

North Koreans have gathered in Pyongyang for a mass rally to celebrate Wednesday's long-range rocket launch.

State television showed huge crowds cheering to mark the launch, which has been condemned by many nations as a banned test of missile technology.

South Korea, meanwhile, says its navy has retrieved debris from the rocket and will study it.

The first stage of the rocket fell west of the Korean peninsula. South Korea's navy located it shortly afterwards.

It was North Korea's first successful use of a three-stage rocket to put a satellite into orbit. North Korea said on Friday that more launches would go ahead.

The UN Security Council has condemned the launch, calling it a missile test that violated two UN resolutions banning Pyongyang from such activities passed after its nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

COURT CASES

European human rights court rules on El-Masri rendition case

Europe's top human rights court has ruled in favor of Khaled El-Masri, a German man who was kidnapped and taken to a CIA prison in Afghanistan. The court said the man was tortured and repeatedly had his rights violated.

The European Court of Human Rights Thursday ruled in favor of Khaled El-Masri, a German man of Lebanese origin, saying Macedonia was "responsible for his torture and ill-treatment" both in the country and after turning him over to US authorities.

"The Court found Mr. El-Masri's account to be established beyond a reasonable doubt," it said in its decision, adding that Macedonia was responsible for a process in which "he had been a victim of a secret 'rendition' operation."

Displaced and ForgottenEthnic Violence Overshadows Kenyan Campaign

By Christoph Titz in Kenya

Kenya's last election ended in chaos and violence. Thousands were killed, and hundreds of thousands more were displaced. They were people like Grace Wambui, who now lives in a wasteland settlement without hope for a better future. Many fear the upcoming election could bring more violence.

The shabby tent far from home is all that Grace Wambui, 52, has left. It stands among two dozen other such shelters in the badlands near Lake Elementaita in Kenya. Locals use the term badlands to refer to the low-lying land on the shores of the lake that nobody wants. It is hard and dry and if rainfall is sparse, the dirt quickly sucks it up.

At the moment, however, it is the rainy season, and more water is pouring out of the clouds than the thin soil can handle. In the evenings, the water level in the camp begins to climb, forcing Wambui and her neighbors to flee, as they have so many times before. They go to the nearby village of Kikopey and ask the pastor there if they can spend the night in the church.

Great balls of China to defend against 'apocalypse'

December 14, 2012 - 12:54PM

Tom Hancock

Qiantun, China: As people across the globe tremble in anticipation of next week's supposed Mayan-predicted apocalypse, one Chinese villager says he may have just what humanity needs: tsunami-proof survival pods.

Camouflage-clad former farmer and furniture maker Liu Qiyuan, 45, inspected his latest creation, a sphere several metres tall he calls "Noah's Ark", designed to withstand towering tsunamis and devastating earthquakes.

It's possible for 30 people to survive inside for at least two months. 

Liu Qiyuan

"The pod won't have any problems even if there are 1000-metre-high waves ... it's like a ping pong ball, its skin may be thin, but it can withstand a lot of pressure," he said at his workshop in Qiantun, an hour from Beijing.

Chile-Peru border dispute moves from battlefield to courtroom

A five-year legal battle over a Chile-Peru territorial dispute ends tomorrow. Countries have gradually moved their conflicts to the legal arena, but how the losing country reacts to the verdict will be telling.

By Steven Bodzin, Correspondent / December 13, 2012

SANTIAGO, CHILE

Lawyers from Peru and Chile complete their arguments tomorrow in a trial to determine once and for all which country controls what acreage of the Pacific Ocean. 

The trial will end a five-year process in which Peru has sought to expand its maritime territory, fixing a border that Peru claims was left undecided when the two countries finished the War of the Pacific in 1883.

That the two sides are fighting it out in a varnished wood courtroom rather than the battlefield shows how the world has changed in the last generation. Peru went to war with Ecuador over a patch of the Amazon in 1995, and Chile came close to war with Argentina in 1978 over control of part of Tierra del Fuego. Around the world, scores of boundaries remain in dispute, but countries have gradually moved their conflicts to the legal arena.

Japan election a world away from tsunami-hit town

By Alex Zolbert, CNN

December 14, 2012 -- Updated 0619 GMT (1419 HKT)

Ishinomaki, Japan (CNN) -- It's been nine months since I took the photos, but as the temperature drops below zero at the start of another Japanese winter, one image stubbornly dwells on my mind.

It's not of the tsunami-inflicted destruction -- the flattened homes, mangled cars or piles of debris -- in Ishinomaki, one of the worst-hit areas in the Tohoku region, in the country's north.

Instead, it is an image of retirees huddled on small benches outside their temporary homes.

The pre-assembled homes have ample heating and are equipped with small kitchens -- and yes, many people in other parts of the world live with much less.

But in talking with some of the elderly residents in March, one year after the devastating earthquake and tsunami, it was clear that they were struggling to adapt to their new surroundings.