A former senior police official is arrested over the 2006 murder of campaigning Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Austria's Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner becomes the first woman to reach all 14 Himalayan summits above 8,000m (26,000 ft) without bottled oxygen, her team says.

The world contains about 8.7 million species, according to the latest estimate - and it could take more than 1,000 years to identify them all.

Rating agency Moody's cuts Japan's debt rating citing concerns about the size of the country's deficit and borrowing levels.

Hurricane Irene weakens to a category 1 storm over the Caribbean, but meteorologists warn it could regain strength and hammer the US east coast over the weekend.

Col Gaddafi vows "martyrdom or victory", reports say, after scenes of celebration following Libyan rebels' seizure of his Tripoli compound.

A woman in the US state of Alaska is convicted of abusing her adopted Russian son, in an apparent ploy to appear on a TV programme.

North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, is holding talks with President Dmitry Medvedev, on his first trip to Russia since 2002.