Climate change: COP24 deal to bring Paris pact to life
Negotiators in Poland have finally secured agreement on a range of measures that will make the Paris climate pact operational in 2020.
Last-minute rows over carbon markets threatened to derail the meeting - and delayed it by a day.
Delegates believe the new rules will ensure that countries keep their promises to cut carbon.
The Katowice agreement aims to deliver the Paris goals of limiting global temperature rises to well below 2C.
"Putting together the Paris agreement work programme is a big responsibility," said the chairman of the talks, known as COP24, Michal Kurtyka.
What happened next? The survivors of the Genoa bridge collapse: ‘We’ve been abandoned, as if nothing happened’
When the Genoa Bridge collapsed in August, it was one of the worst tragedies in modern Italian history. Some people – extraordinarily – survived the 30-metre fall. How have their lives changed since?
With heavy rain pounding the roof of their car, Nataliya Yelina and her fiance, Eugeniu Babin, felt the sensation of Genoa’s Morandi bridge rising as they drove across it, as if they were on a drawbridge. Then, all of a sudden, they plummeted.
The couple are among the 16 people who survived when a huge span of the bridge collapsed on 14 August, the day before a national holiday. It was one of the worst tragedies in modern Italian history: 43 people were killed, the youngest, eight-year-old Samuele Robbiano.
Displaced huddle in a basement as winter grips Syria
After washing up her family's dishes over a plastic basin, 11-year-old Cedra sits on the floor of the dank basement in Syria to tackle her day's studies.
A dark staircase leads from a street in the town of Al-Bab to the gloomy space the young girl, her blind father and some 40 other families have the misfortune of calling home.
"There's a single room which we use as a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom," said Cedra.
She scribbled in her notepad, while crouched against a wall of bare cinder blocks and under a line of laundry trying to dry in the humid cellar.
The residents of this underground camp were displaced by the Syrian war, sometimes several times, mostly from the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.
A .38-Caliber RosaryThe Dangerous New Face of Salvini's Italy
Shots fired at foreigners, assaults on minorities, neo-fascist marches: Italy's extreme right wing feels emboldened by the country's new leadership. Many are pointing fingers at Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. But is he to blame?
By Walter Mayr
He has hardly got off the airplane before the stream of invective begins. Refugees, says Matteo Salvini at the end of a trip to Africa, "who rape, steal and deal" will be stopped by the new security decree. Italy, he fumes, has had enough of migrants "who aren't fleeing from war but who are bringing war to our country."
Not a day goes by without an incitement from Salvini. In office as interior minister since June 1, the head of the right-wing party Lega has become the voice of the government led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Salvini's motto is simple: "Italians first." His tone is combative. And the consequences can be seen everywhere.
Detention of 100 Christians raises concerns about religious crackdown in China
Updated 0402 GMT (1202 HKT) December 16, 2018
A prominent Chinese pastor and former legal scholar is one of 100 Christians detained by authorities after he was reportedly arrested on allegations of "inciting subversion of state power."
Wang Yi and his wife, Jiang Rong, were taken into police custody early last week in the city of Chengdu, where they run the Early Rain Covenant Church, according to ChinaAid, a US-based nonprofit that advocates on behalf of China's Christian communities.
A church parishioner, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed Wang's arrest in a phone call with CNN.
Thousands of Central Americans await refugee status in Mexico
More than 3,000 Central Americans in southern Mexico are under consideration for refugee status in country.
by Sandra Cuffe
Samuel Isai Mejia's problems began last year with workplace sexual harassment, but things quickly snowballed from there. Facing intimidation from police and military forces as well as gangs, he fled Honduras this year.
Mejia is from a dangerous area of La Lima, a city 16km southwest of San Pedro Sula, in northwestern Honduras. But his neighbours did not know two key things about him that carried heavy risks: where he worked, and his sexual orientation.
"I'm part of the gay community," the 25-year-old told Al Jazeera in Tapachula, in southern Mexico.
Town hosting wrecked Fukushima plant may allow partial access in 2020
Today 06:36 am JST
One of the host municipalities of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is considering lifting restrictions in spring 2020 on daytime access to an area being rebuilt in the town center, sources close to the matter say.
Northeast Japan's Futaba, where the Nos. 5-6 units of the complex are located, became a ghost town after the 2011 disaster due to high levels of radiation. Those wishing to visit need to apply in advance for permission to enter and must pass through a checkpoint.
But such restrictions would be lifted during the daytime for access to a special zone several kilometers from the Fukushima plant on the Pacific coast where government-funded decontamination and reconstruction work are under way with the aim of evacuees returning to live there in the spring of 2022.
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