Cuban prosecutors charge detained US citizen Alan Gross with plotting against the state and say they will seek a 20-year jail term.

The UN-backed Global Fund Against Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria strengthens financial safeguards following allegations of corruption.

The US Army denies ethnic Hmong leader Vang Pao, who led a CIA-sponsored secret war in Laos in the 1960s, a burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

One of Nepal's top TV networks begins broadcasting its nightly news bulletin in semi-darkness to highlight the effects of massive power cuts.

Freezing weather and snow paralyse northern Mexico, which is experiencing its lowest temperatures in more than 50 years.

A Thai soldier is shot dead in a disputed area around the Cambodia border, where tensions have been rising in recent days.

Warnings against travel to Tunisia are lifted as the Foreign Office says there is a "reduced threat" following recent political unrest.

Birds living around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident have 5% small brains, an effect directly linked to lingering background radiation.