Hi °C | Lo °C A 60-year-old woman was trampled to death by a surging crowd at a Christmas giveaway in northern Peru.
The woman was crushed as hundreds of people at a stadium in the town of Chimbote, 230 miles north east of the capital Lima, jostled for free "panetones", a sweetened bread adorned with candied fruit.
Local hospital director Carlos Hernandez Neyra said 10 other people were injured at the early-morning event.
Carter apology over Jew upset
Former US president Jimmy Carter has apologised for any words or deeds that may have upset the Jewish community in an open letter meant to improve an often-tense relationship.
He said he was offering an Al Het, a prayer said on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, which signifies a plea for forgiveness.
Democrat Mr Carter outraged many Jews with his 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and Israeli leaders have also shunned him over his journey to Gaza to meet Hamas.
Governor slain after abduction
A governor kidnapped by suspected leftist rebels on his 69th birthday had his throat slashed within a few hours of the abduction, a Colombian investigator said.
The body of Caqueta state governor Luis Francisco Cuellar was found face down on a rural hillside nine miles from his house in the state capital of Florencia, the state's chief judicial investigator Manuel Hernandez said.
Military officials speculated Mr Cuellar's captors killed him because security forces were in pursuit, Mr Hernandez said.
Ceausescu was 'fooled by aides'
Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was deceived by his advisors and still believed Romanians adored him hours before his overthrow, his only surviving child said in a rare interview two decades after the fall of the regime.
Valentin Ceausescu described his father as removed from reality in the hours before a rally organised to show support for the Stalinist leader turned against him, forcing him to flee the capital and leading to his overthrow.
