Six In The Morning

Nelson Mandela funeral farewell in Qunu ancestral home

 15 December 2013 Last updated at 08:30 GMT

The BBC

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

Reuters in Beijing

theguardian.com, Sunday 15 December 2013 06.56 GMT

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.

A Tale of Two Cities: America’s Bipolar Climate Future

New York City and New Bern, North Carolina both face the same projected rise in sea levels, but while one is preparing for the worst, the other is doing nothing on principle. A glimpse into America’s contradictory climate change planning.

 By Marc Hujer and Samiha Shafy

When Veronica White and Tom Thompson stand on the coastline of their respective cities, 680 kilometers (423 miles) apart, they gaze out at the same ocean, but see different things.

White, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, believes “we have to prepare the entire coastline for disasters, including storms and rising floodwaters.” Thompson, a former city planner in New Bern, North Carolina — an eight-hour drive to the south — argues the opposite. “All this panic about the climate always amazes me, but people like to believe horror stories,” he says.

 At odds with Ecuador, USAID moves to leave

USAID expects to close its doors in Ecuador by September 2014 due to an increasingly acrimonious relationship with President Rafael Correa. This comes six months after it was kicked out of Bolivia.

 By Ezra Fieser, Correspondent

The US Agency for International Development says it plans to leave Ecuador amid an impasse with the government, just six months after the agency was kicked out of Bolivia, in what analysts say is another sign of the waning US influence in the region.

In a letter to USAID partners in the country on Thursday, acting Mission Director Christopher Cushing said the decision to leave Ecuador comes “as a result of the Government of Ecuador’s decision to prohibit approval of new USAID assistance programs.”

Mr. Cushing said the agency had $32 million in aid scheduled for programs in coming years in Ecuador, according to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Christian Science Monitor. A USAID official confirmed the letter’s authenticity.

Fierce winter storm makes life even worse for Syrians who’ve fled to Lebanon

 BY MITCHELL PROTHERO

McClatchy Foreign Staff

MASNAA, LEBANON – When Mohammed fled heavy fighting in the Syrian city of Raqaa that killed the sheep that supported his family and came to this frozen muddy patch of borrowed land in Lebanon, he expected to return home “in six months maximum.”

“The Free Syrian Army was winning,” he said. “They were winning in (Aleppo), winning in Deraa and starting to fight in Damascus. I didn’t think it would be much longer before the regime fell.”

That was 18 months ago. On Friday, as the worst winter storm in nearly 100 years battered Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Mohammed stood in the maelstrom, without socks.

North Korean leader’s influential aunt remains in power after uncle Jang’s execution

 SEOUL (Reuters)

 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s influential aunt Kim Kyong Hui remains a part of the regime’s inner circle, even after the execution of her husband last week, the second most powerful man in the isolated nation.

North Korea late on Saturday named 67-year-old Kim Kyong Hui, daughter of North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung, as one of the funeral committee members for North Korea’s ruling party, a prestigious position.

Kim’s uncle Jang Song Thaek was killed last week just days before the second anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il, the father of North Korea’s current ruler.