BBC News with Marion Marshall.
US officials say American forces will continue normal operations including surveillance flights over the East China Sea where Beijing has recently declared an air-defence zone. The area includes islands at the heart of a territorial dispute with Japan. The officials were speaking soon after China announced it had scrambled fighter jets to trail American and Japanese military aircraft in the zone. A spokesman for the foreign ministry in Beijing, Qin Gang, said China was simply defending itself.
China's establishment of the zone was not directed towards any specific country or target. It's entirely for the purpose of exercising China's right of self defence and will not cause regional tensions. Normal fights over the East China Sea in the past week have not been affected.
South Africa's most senior anti-corruption official Thuli Madonsela has criticized a newspaper for publishing what she says an extract of a provisional report suggesting President Jocob Zuma should repay public money spent on upgrades to his home. The Mail and Guardian said the report found that Mr. Zuma derived substantial benefits from improvements that were meant to be for security purposes. Nabu Disaco of BBC Africa says the allegations could be damaging for Mr. Zuma and the ANC.
The controversy around this is likely to run belong for the coming days and perhaps even weeks. Then it's highly damaging for the credibility of the presidency and also it doesn't do much for the credibility of the ANC as the party of the poor. Next year is an election year. So as you can imagine, it's a really a talked-about topic in South Africans and South Africans will be eagerly awaiting the full report which is due in about a month's time.
Prosecutors in London have been describing the killing last May of a British soldier Lee Rigby close to his barracks in the southeast of the city. Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo deny the charges. Jane Peel was at the trial.
Lee Rigby's family were in court to hear prosecution council Richard Whittam QC described the circumstances of his death "a shocking". He said the 2 defendants had driven a car straight at the soldier. The prosecution say the defendants then attacked his unconscious body with a meat-cleaver and knives. The jury was also shown footage of the aftermath of the killing. A man said to be Michael Adebolajo holding knives and with blooded hands says we have killed this man today because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers and this British soldier is one.
The European Union has welcomed provisional association agreements with Georgia and Moldova, but failed to finalize a deal with Ukraine which was meant to be the highlight of a summit in Lithuania between the EU and 6 former Soviet states. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych blamed pressure from Russia for his decision not to sign. His move provoked huge street demonstrations in Ukraine.
World News from the BBC.
The US government has pulled back from a commitment to fix fully its new federal healthcare website by midnight on Saturday. Instead, it now says most people should be able to register in early December. The website, a key part of President Obama's flagship health law, crashed last month, leading to a sharp drop in the president's approval ratings. Here is our North America editor, Mark Mardell.
The practical implementation of the most important law that the president has introduced, the one that will make the biggest difference to millions of Americans has been an unmitigated disaster. The website offering people new healthcare insurance options has barely worked. In October, the first month of operation, only 100,000 could sign up compared to the hope for half a million. Next week will be the real test. But already the sign-up for small businesses has been delayed by a year and advertising campaign postponed. They don't want a sudden rush to crash the delicately recovering system.
The President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro has called on the authorities to start detaining retailers who overcharge people. In a televised speech, Mr. Maduro said those responsible for defrauding prices would fill the full force of the law. President Maduro has recently been granted powers to govern by decree for a year.
The authorities in Brazil's largest city Sao Paulo are fighting a major blaze at a landmark building by the architect Oscar Niemeyer. A huge plume of smoke rose from the Latin American memorial, a cultural center in the west of the city which hosts an art gallery, a major auditorium and other facilities.
The official data watchdog in the Netherlands says that Google has been breaking the country's data privacy laws. The firm implemented a new policy last year allowing it to collect information gathered about people who used more than one of its services. The Dutch data protection authority said Google's policy didn't do enough to specify what it's collecting data for or how it would be used.