Six In The Morning

15 December 2012 Last updated at 07:41 GMT

Connecticut school shooting: Obama calls for action

Paul AdamsBBC News, Washington

President Barack Obama has called for "meaningful action" against gun crime after a Connecticut school shooting left 27 dead, including 20 children.

An emotional Mr Obama spoke of his "overwhelming grief" over the deaths at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The suspected gunman was widely identified as Adam Lanza, 20, who is among the dead. Earlier, he is thought to have also killed his mother.

It was one of the most deadly shooting attacks on a US school or university.

In 2007, a student at Virginia Tech university killed 32 people and injured many more.

The children at Sandy Hook Elementary were aged between five and 10.

Police Lt Paul Vance said 18 children were pronounced dead at the school, and two died after being taken to hospital.

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EGYPT

Polls open in Egypt for constitution vote

Egyptians are voting on a constitution staunchly supported by Islamists but bitterly opposed by those who say it would undermine human rights. If it is voted down, the process of drafting a new charter will start afresh.

Egyptians started casting their ballots on Saturday in the first round of a referendum on a controversial constitution that has polarized the country and prompted people to take to the streets in protest.

Polling on the referendum is being spread over two Saturdays due to a shortage of judges willing to provide the legal supervision for the vote.

The first round of voting began on Saturday in Cairo, Alexandria and eight other regions. Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) and are to close at 7 p.m. (1700 GMT). Around 25.8 million Egyptians are eligible to vote in the first round.

Joystick Warfare HellThe Suffering of an American Drone Operator

By Nicola Abé

Much has been made of the devastating impact American drones have on civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan. One soldier's story shows that it can also adversely affect the lives of those who operate the remote-controlled weapons. Former servicemember Brandon Bryant is still haunted by images of the injured and dying.

For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and, for security reasons, the door couldn't be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world.

The container is filled with the humming of computers. It's the brain of a drone, known as a cockpit in Air Force parlance. But the pilots in the container aren't flying through the air. They're just sitting at the controls.

Korea

COMMENT
Kim Jong-eun should fear Sunshine
By Andrei Lankov 

Whatever policy towards North Korea will be chosen by the new South Korean government following the December 19 presidential election, it seems clear that it will be significantly softer than that followed by the Lee Myung-bak administration. 

Right now it appears that Park Geun-hye, the candidate of the moderate right, has better chance of winning, but it is unlikely that she will continue with the hardline policy of her predecessor. 

This looming dovish turn is likely to annoy some people on the political right in South Korea. They often vilify aid to, and cooperation with North Korea as "appeasement", and they point to the obvious lack of reciprocity in North-South relations. It is stated that the money earned by Pyongyang through exchanges

  
with the South is used to strengthen North Korean leader Kim Jong-eun's rule. 

N. Irish police involved in Belfast lawyer's 1989 murder, says report

Today's report said Northern Irish police colluded in a loyalist paramilitary's murder of high-profile lawyer Patrick Finucane, though it did not find an 'overarching state conspiracy.'

By Jason Walsh, Correspondent

DUBLIN, IRELAND

Another murky episode from Northern Ireland's recent dark past has been partially exposed, thanks to a new report on the 1989 murder of Belfast lawyer Patrick Finucane that found "shocking" collusion by state officials in his death. But critics say that the British government has yet to fully shine a light onto its own involvement in the murder. 

A report published today found that police and other officials "actively furthered and facilitated" Mr. Finucane's murder at the hands of paramilitary loyalists, who shot him in his home on Feb. 12, 1989, in front of his wife and two small children.

"My review of the evidence relating to Patrick Finucane's case has left me in no doubt that agents of the state were involved in carrying out serious violations of human rights up to and including murder," wrote former UN war crimes prosecutor Sir Desmond de Silva, who conducted the report.

15 December 2012 Last updated at 00:25 GMT

Japan loses faith in traditional politics

By Rupert Wingfield-HayesBBC News, Tokyo

The traditional view of Japanese elections is that they are boring - prime ministers come, prime ministers go, but nothing really changes and Japan carries on regardless.

For more than half a century, it was right.

But in the past few years Japanese politics has changed. More importantly the Japanese public has changed - they have lost faith in the traditional political parties.

Three years ago they kicked out the old Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and gave a landslide win to the Democratic Party of Japan.

This weekend they will do exactly the opposite - kicking out the Democrats and handing power back to the LDP. But they like neither of them.

Japanese politicians only have themselves to blame. Since the Japanese economic bubble burst in 1992, Japanese people have lived through 20 years of stagnation and deflation.

Ask any economist of any stripe what Japan needs and they will give you a very similar list.