20 October 2013 Last updated at 08:19 GMT
Australia bushfires: New South Wales declares state of emergency
A state of emergency has been declared in New South Wales as Australian firefighters battle bushfires that have already destroyed more than 200 homes.
The announcement comes as conditions look set to deteriorate with soaring temperatures and strong winds expected to fan the flames in the coming days.
The Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, has been the worst-hit region with some fires still raging out of control.
State officials say they are the most dangerous conditions in 40 years.
New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell said the declaration would give emergency services additional powers over the next 30 days which could include cutting gas and power supplies if needed.
World Cup 2014: Brazilians' rage against the state will disrupt the celebration
While standards of living have improved for millions, many services remain poor and will be the focal point of unrest in 2014
The night of 30 June was one of intense drama in Rio de Janeiro. Inside the newly refurbished Maracanã stadium, still slick with plaster dust, a gladiatorial atmosphere turned to celebration as Neymar scored Brazil's second goal in a 3-0 victory over Spain in the Confederations Cup final, on the cusp of half-time.
This dramatic game could have been the perfect curtain-raiser for the 2014 World Cup, were it not for the scenes outside the stadium, where thousands of protesters faced off against police in riot gear, the air thick with teargas and insults. Last Tuesday, the story was repeated. As TV Globo showed the 2-0 victory over Poland that clinched England's place in the finals, 10,000 people joined a protest in central Rio in support ofstriking teachers, a few miles from the Maracanã.
As teachers began to drift home, the sound of carnival drums was replaced by the thump of percussion grenades and the hiss of exploding teargas canisters as hundreds of black-clad youths, known as the "Black Bloc" after the anarchist demonstration tactics they adhere to, began battling outnumbered police.
'Since the chemical weapons deal, nothing has changed': The West has taken its eye off the carnage in Syria
Celebrated British surgeon speaks out on the country's ongoing humanitarian catastrophe - and how it could be solved
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The international community must establish "humanitarian corridors" between Syria and neighbouring countries to prop up a hospital system that has lost thousands of doctors and is "rapidly" running out of life-saving supplies, one of Britain's leading surgeons has said.
Vascular surgeon David Nott, who last week returned from a six-week trip to northern Syria, said that doctors and other healthcare workers were being targeted by the regime, and that aid supplies were being disrupted by Islamist militants who were increasingly at war with both the Assad government and the rebel Free Syrian Army.
Mr Nott, a seasoned emergency medic who has worked in conflict zones including Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, worked 18-hour days at a field hospital in a rebel-held area, one kilometre from the front line, during an aid mission with the charity Syria Relief.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
China urges 'de-Americanized' new world order
In the response to the debt ceiling battle in the US, Beijing has called for the world to become more independent of Washington. But the emerging global powers have no vision for what a post-American order should be.
In an editorial published by China's state news agency Xinhua, Beijing has lambasted US global leadership, calling for emerging economies to forge a new world order that is less dependent on the volatilities of American domestic politics.
China, the largest single-holder of American Treasury securities, has a particularly strong national interest in how the US reacts in the wake of the resolution of the shutdown and the decision to raise the debt ceiling, albeit temporarily. A US default could have devalued the billions of Treasuries that Beijing holds.
The Chinese government has used the opportunity to question the legitimacy of US global leadership, saying that "it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world."
Pakistani army chief Ashfaq Kayani's successor faces a host of challenges
October 20, 2013 - 3:16PM
Ben Doherty
South Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media
Rawalpindi: Fourteen years ago, when Nawaz Sharif was last prime minister of Pakistan, he thought he had his man in uniform. He was wrong.
In 1998, over several more senior officers, Sharif chose to appoint Pervez Musharraf as his chief of army staff. It was to prove neither a happy, nor a long, union.
Sharif must choose a man he can work with ... but not so pliant he will not have the respect of his forces.
Within a year, with both men's reputations damaged by Pakistan's provocation of fighting with India in Kashmir, Sharif sought to sack his general.
Former 'missing child' in El Salvador's civil war tells his journey in film
At 16, Nelson de Witt discovered he was taken and put up for adoption after his revolutionary mother was killed in a raid. There are an estimated 800 children like him from El Salvador's civil war.
Nelson de Witt had just returned from summer camp when he heard the life-changing news.
It wasn’t the fact that Mr. de Witt’s biological family was located in El Salvador – he had long known he was adopted from the Central American nation.
But for the first time the details of his life before adoption were revealed – and the story was more dramatic than he ever imagined. Then 16-year-old de Witt learned he wasn’t just adopted at age two by a family in Boston; He was the son of El Salvadoran revolutionaries.
Born Roberto Coto, his mother died in a government raid on a guerrilla safe house in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa and de Witt became one of the estimated 800 disappeared children of El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, which ended in 1992 with a peace accord between the government and leftist guerrillas.
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