15 December 2013 Last updated at 08:48 GMT
Nelson Mandela funeral farewell in Qunu ancestral home
Nelson Mandela's state funeral is under way at his ancestral home in Qunu, ending a week of commemorations for South Africa's first black leader.
Some 4,500 people - including foreign dignitaries - are attending the service, which blends state ceremonial with traditional rituals.
A close friend, Ahmed Kathrada, told the service he had lost an "elder brother" who was with him for many years in prison on Robben island.
Mr Mandela died on 5 December aged 95.
Members of his family attended an overnight vigil, with a traditional praise singer believed to be chanting details of his long journey and life.
China arrests 1,300 people suspected of making and selling fake medicines
Authorities seize fake drugs and tonnes of raw materials as part of government crackdown
Chinese police have rounded up more than 1,300 people nationwide suspected of producing and selling fake medicine as part of an intensified government crackdown, state media have reported.
Authorities seized fake drugs and nine tonnes of raw materials worth more than 2.2 billion yuan (£220m), the state news agency Xinhua said in a dispatch seen on Sunday, citing the ministry of public security.
Police have shut down 140 illegal websites and online pharmacies in 29 provinces and major cities since June, Xinhua said, without giving details.
The seized fake drugs purported to deal with illnesses ranging from children's colds and flu to heart problems, and had been advertised online.
Grim forecast for e-waste as technology trash to top 65m tons by 2017
More recycling would lessen the danger of the Third World dealing with our electronic junk – and create opportunities for us
One year after Sandy Hook, Americans still up in arms
December 15, 2013
Nick O'Malley
US correspondent for Fairfax Media
America is still fiercely divided over its gun laws.
An ugly stand-off in a Texas car park last month showed just how bitter the debate over gun control has become in America in the year since the killings in Sandy Hook.
Four women from the group Moms Demand Action, formed days after the massacre of 26 children and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14 last year, had met in a coffee shop.
Word of their presence spread among members of the pro-gun group Open Carry Texas, and soon about 40 people had gathered in front of the coffee shop brandishing firearms.
The women behind the throne in North Korea's 'empire of horror'
Kim Jong-un's execution of his uncle has been seen as a brutal demonstration of who is in power. But behind the scenes, are Kim Kyung-hui and Ri Sol-ju, Kim Jong-un's aunt and wife, pulling the strings in North Korea?
8:00PM GMT 14 Dec 2013
In the scant collection of carefully-staged photos that emerge from North Korea, Jang Song-thaek was everywhere.
At the funeral of Kim Jong-il, marching directly behind Kim Jong-un, the newly anointed Dear Leader; on an escalator, visiting a shopping centre to glorify the triumph of the regime; dressed in the uniform of a full general whispering words of wisdom into the ear of the world’s youngest head of state.
Now Jang, Mr Kim’s uncle and one of North Korea’s most powerful men, has been erased.
The reclusive communist state confirmed his execution on Thursday. The 30-year-old Mr Kim, it appeared, was demonstrating in no uncertain terms who really ran the show.
Far Right in Eastern Europe Makes Gains as Syrians Arrive
By ANDREW HIGGINS
Published: December 14, 2013
SVILENGRAD, Bulgaria — After spreading turmoil and desperate refugees across the Middle East, Syria’s brutal civil war has now leaked misery into Europe’s eastern fringe — and put a spring in the step of Angel Bozhinov, a nationalist activist in this Bulgarian border town next to Turkey.
The local leader of Ataka, a pugnacious, far-right party, Mr. Bozhinov lost his seat in the town council at the last municipal elections in 2011 but now sees his fortunes rising thanks to public alarm over an influx of Syrian refugees across the nearby frontier.
Membership of the local branch of Ataka, he said, had surged in recent weeks as “people come up to me in the street and tell me that our party was right.” Ataka, which means attack, champions “Bulgaria for Bulgarians” and has denounced Syrian refugees as terrorists whom Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest nation, must expel. An Ataka member of Parliament has reviled them as “terrible, despicable primates.”
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