Six In The Morning Saturday January 4

4 January 2014 Last updated at 08:44 GMT

Bangladesh polling stations torched on eve of election

At least 30 polling stations in Bangladesh have been torched ahead of Sunday's controversial election.

The violence came as the opposition, which is boycotting the vote, began a two-day strike in protest at what it called a "scandalous farce".

At least 100 people have been killed during weeks of election violence.

The opposition wants a neutral caretaker administration to oversee the election, as in previous years - something the government has refused.

Bitter enemies

Police and election officials reported arson attacks at some 30 polling stations around the country, including in the capital, Dhaka. Some reports put the toll as high as 60.

Crisis in South Africa: The shocking practice of 'corrective rape' - aimed at 'curing' lesbians

Clare Carter travelled across South Africa to photograph and interview the victims of this appalling crime. 

PATRICK STRUDWICK 

 Saturday 04 January 2014

Mvuleni Fana was walking down a quiet alleyway in Springs – 30 miles east of Johannesburg – on her way home from football practice one evening when four men surrounded her and dragged her back to the football stadium. She recognised her attackers. One by one, the men raped her, beating her unconscious and leaving her for dead.

The next morning, Mvuleni came round, bleeding, battered, in shock, and taunted by one overriding memory – the last thing they said to her before she passed out: "After everything we're going to do to you, you're going to be a real woman, and you're never going to act like this again".

Corrective rape is a hate crime wielded to convert lesbians to heterosexuality – an attempt to 'cure' them of being gay. The term was coined in South Africa in the early 2000s when charity workers first noticed an influx of such attacks. But despite recognition and international coverage, corrective rape in the region is escalating in severity, according to Clare Carter, the photographer behind these images. This is amid a backdrop of parts of the country "becoming more homophobic", as one recent victim asserts.

Why Kim Jong-un probably didn't feed his naked uncle to 120 dogs

January 4, 2014 - 5:15AM

Max Fisher

If you've been on the internet in the last 24 hours, you've might have seen the story claiming that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had his uncle executed last month by stripping him naked and feeding him to 120 hungry dogs. The story was first reported by a minor Hong Kong outlet on December 12, was picked up by a Singaporean newspaper on December 24 and since late Thursday has been sweeping through nearly every corner of the media.

The only problem is that it's probably – probably – not true.

It was indeed a big surprise last month when South Korean intelligence revealed that Kim had purged his own uncle, Jang Song Thaek, which North Korea confirmed a couple of days later with a long screed in its state media.

Gringo Trails: Is tourism destroying the world?

By Zoe Li, for CNN

A new documentary suggests tourism is out of control in parts of the world, irreversibly damaging the environment and indigenous cultures.

"Gringo Trails," a film more than a decade in the making by American anthropologist Pegi Vail, looks at the effect of the unplanned or mismanaged growth of the tourism industry in developing countries.

Using dramatic examples from different continents, such as the devastating impact of hedonistic full moon beach parties on Thailand's Koh Pha Ngan island, the film is moving and informative, if sometimes elementary.

Spain's troubles and the Panama Canal

BY TIM JOHNSON

McClatchy Foreign Staff

Call it the mother of all cost overruns.

A Spain-led consortium building a new set of locks for the Panama Canal said this week that it had miscalculated the cost of the job and would need an additional sum to finish the work: $1.6 billion.

This might seem like a minor business news item. In fact, its effects are rippling through Europe and in global shipping and maritime circles.

The consortium says it may halt work on Jan. 20 unless it is paid, further delaying the expansion of the canal, which handles roughly 5 percent of world trade each year. The expansion is already 72 percent complete. But delays have already pushed the ribbon cutting back till June 2015. And this may delay it further.

4 January 2014 Last updated at 01:03 GMT

Pushinka: A Cold War puppy the Kennedys loved

By Alison GeeBBC World Service

During the Cold War, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and US President John F Kennedy wrote to each other regularly. Despite the hostility between their countries, the two men also exchanged presents. One was a dog called Pushinka, whose mother was one of the first dogs to fly into space and return alive.

"My mother told a funny story," says Caroline Kennedy, who is now the US ambassador to Japan, but was once - a little over 50 years ago - a toddler growing up in the White House.

"She was sitting next to Khrushchev at a state dinner in Vienna. She ran out of things to talk about, so she asked about the dog, Strelka, that the Russians had shot into space. During the conversation, my mother asked about Strelka's puppies.