Six In The Morning Sunday January 26

26 January 2014 Last updated at 06:41 GMT

Ukraine crisis: Opposition rejects offer of PM post

Ukrainian opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk says protests will continue after he rejected President Viktor Yanukovych's offer to appoint him as prime minister of the country.

Mr Yatsenyuk said the opposition was generally ready to accept leadership, but several key demands must be met, including new elections.

Clashes continued overnight. Activists stormed a Kiev building housing police.

The president's proposal came amid new efforts to end the deadly unrest.

He offered the post of prime minister to Mr Yatsenyuk and the position of deputy PM to former boxer Vitali Klitschko following talks on Saturday.

'Not afraid'

Speaking to large crowds in central of Kiev late on Saturday, the opposition leaders repeated their demands.

China jails activist Xu Zhiyong for four years for ‘disturbing public order’

Lawyer of high-profile dissident describes guilty conviction as ‘illegal and unfair’ following closed-door trial 

• Tania Branigan in Beijing
• theguardian.com, Sunday 26 January 2014 05.23 GMT

A Chinese court has jailed leading activist Xu Zhiyong for four years for public order offences related to his role in a social justice and transparency movement.

Xu is a legal scholar and advocate who has been at the forefront of campaigns for rights in China for a decade. Several others from the New Citizens Movement which he co-founded have stood trial already or will appear on Monday.

The Beijing No 1 Intermediate People’s Court said on its microblog on Sunday morning that it had found Xu guilty of "gathering a crowd to disturb public order" following his closed-door trial on Wednesday.

Egypt violence: Army general al-Sisi turns anniversary of Tahrir Square uprising into presidential rally

ALASTAIR BEACH

 CAIRO  Sunday 26 January 2014

It was not supposed to be like this. Exactly three years after the Tahrir Square revolt, Egyptians are at war with each other once more.

As army helicopters hovered low over central Cairo yesterday and rioting erupted across the nation, the insurrection which toppled Hosni Mubarak in January 2011 appeared as lifeless as the hundreds who have perished in its name.

Instead, an Islamist insurgency seems to be growing, flush with the hatred of extremist militants angered by the military’s ousting of Mohamed Morsi, the former Islamist President, last summer.

On the eve of yesterday’s anniversary, a wave of deadly explosions reverberated across the capital – including a sophisticated car-bomb attack outside the security directorate headquarters in central Cairo. It was the first time since the fall of Morsi that militants had launched such an attack at the heart of the security establishment.

Syria talks focused on aid shipment to besieged area of Homs, U.N. envoy says

BY ROY GUTMAN

McClatchy Foreign Staff

GENEVA — The Syrian government and its opponents, in their first face-to-face meeting, on Saturday discussed opening an aid corridor to the besieged old city neighborhood of Homs, raising hopes that a humanitarian gesture might spur progress toward ending Syria’s devastating civil war.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.’s special envoy for Syria, said a convoy with food, medicines and supplies could go in as soon as Monday – if agreement can be reached with local belligerents on Sunday.

The old city has been under siege for well over a year, and the last aid delivery there was in November 2012, an official of the International Committee of the Red Cross told McClatchy. He said the ICRC, and its partner, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, have repeatedly been refused permission to send in food and medicine.

Thai protesters disrupt early voting for disputed election

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre

Protesters trying to force Thailand's prime minister from office swarmed polling stations in Bangkok on Sunday, chaining doors shut and halting advance voting in nearly all centers ahead of a disputed election next week.

A deputy prime minister said 45 of 50 polling stations in the capital had been closed down and advance voting was disrupted in 10 of Thailand's 76 provinces.

On Saturday, a government minister said Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was prepared to discuss cancelling the February 2 election if activists ended more than two months of often unruly protests. The government said it was ready to delay the vote if its opponents agreed not to boycott or disrupt a rescheduled poll.

26 January 2014 Last updated at 02:15 GMT

Mandla Maseko: The first black African heading into space

A 25-year-old DJ from a South African township is set to become the first black African to go into space. Mandla Maseko is one of 23 people who won a seat on an hour-long sub-orbital trip in 2015. He explains how he beat one million other people to the prize.

I first saw an advert for the competition on television and then heard another ad on the radio. I had to send a photo of myself jumping from anywhere, so I chose to jump off a wall and my friend captured me in mid-air.

I had to answer a couple of questions and explain why I wanted to go into space. My response was: "I want to defy the laws of gravity, and go down history as the first black South African in space."