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Ukraine ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko jailed over gas deal
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Former Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko has been jailed for seven years.
A judge ruled she had criminally exceeded her powers when she signed a gas deal with Russia in 2009.
Mrs Tymoshenko said the charges against her were politically motivated. She vowed to appeal against her sentence and fight for Ukraine "till her last breath".
The US and the EU have condemned the charges as selective prosecution of political opponents.
European officials suggested that jailing Mrs Tymoshenko would be a serious blow to the country's hopes of integration with the European Union.
Riot police stood outside the court as thousands of supporters and opponents gathered. There have been minor clashes and some arrests.
Judge Rodion Kireyev said the former prime minister would also have to pay back 1.5bn hrivnas ($186m) lost by the state gas company as a result of the deal.
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Woman gives birth hours after running Chicago Marathon
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Instead of having a rest after completing the Chicago Marathon, pregnant Amber Miller gave birth.
Mrs Miller, who was nearly 39 weeks pregnant, said "it was the longest day of my life". She gave birth to a healthy 7.7lb (3.5kg) girl, June.
The marathon was the eighth for the 27-year-old, who already had one child. On her doctor's orders she ran half and walked half the distance.
"Lots of people were cheering me on: 'Go pregnant lady'," she said.
"For me, it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. I was running up until that point anyway," she told Associated Press news agency.
"I am crazy about running."
Because she half-walked the race, she finished the 26.2 mile (42.16km) course in 6:25 - slower than her usual pace.
"A few minutes after finishing, the contractions became stronger than normal and I understood what was going on," she said.
"When they became more regular, we had a sandwich and then we left for hospital," Mrs Miller added.
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Australian cricket 'fix' claims rejected
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Court testimony suggesting Australian cricketers are the world's biggest match-fixers has been rejected by Australian cricket's governing body.
London's Southwark Crown Court heard on Monday that sports agent Mazhar Majeed had said Australians were "the biggest" when it came to rigging games.
Cricket Australia said the claims were "baseless and outlandish".
Cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif are accused of fixing parts of a Lord's Test match, which they deny.
The court had heard that Mr Majeed, 36, made his claims while talking to an undercover journalist.
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Burma 'to grant prisoner amnesty'
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Burma's president is to grant amnesty to more than 6,300 prisoners, state-controlled media has announced.
The announcement, on state television, did not specify how many of those freed would be political detainees.
But the news came hours after Burma's new human rights body called for the release of "prisoners of conscience" who did not threaten state stability.
On Monday the US said if Burma showed concrete progress on issues like political prisoners, it would respond.
Western nations currently impose sanctions on Burma, and one of the key reasons is political prisoners.
Thought to number more than 2,000, they include journalists, pro-democracy activists, government critics, monks involved in anti-government protests in 2007 and members of Burma's ethnic groups fighting for greater autonomy
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London 2012: West Ham Olympic Stadium deal collapses
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The deal to award West Ham the Olympic Stadium after the London 2012 Games has collapsed, the government has confirmed.
The board of the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) has ended negotiations amid concerns over delays caused by the legal dispute with Tottenham.
The OPLC, government and Mayor of London have instead agreed the stadium will remain in public ownership.
West Ham welcomed the move and said it would bid to be the stadium tenants.
Any interested bidders will have to submit proposals by January.
Sports Minister Hugh Robertson said: "The key point is the action we have taken today is about removing the uncertainty. The process had become bogged down in legal paralysis.
"Particularly relevant has been the anonymous complaint to the EC over 'state aid' and the OPLC received a letter from Newham Council yesterday saying because of the uncertainty they no longer wanted to proceed.
"That was the straw that broke the camel's back and we thought it better to stop it dead in its tracks now.
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Antarctic lake mission targets life and climate signs
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A pioneering British expedition to sample a lake under the Antarctic ice hopes to find unknown forms of life and clues to future climate impacts.
The mission will use hot water to melt its way through ice 3km (2 miles) thick to reach Lake Ellsworth, which has been isolated from the outside world for at least 125,000 years - maybe a million.
The team hopes to be the first to sample a sub-glacial Antarctic lake.
An engineering team leaves the UK later this week along with 70 tonnes of gear.
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Humala sacks Peru police commanders in corruption purge
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Peru's new President, Ollanta Humala, has replaced two-thirds of the country's most senior police officers, in a purge designed to root out alleged corruption.
Thirty of Peru's 45 police generals have been pushed into retirement.
They include the overall commander and the head of the anti-drugs force.
Critics have accused President Humala of acting hastily without giving officers the opportunity to defend themselves from unproven allegations.
President Humala took office in July promising tough action on corruption and drug trafficking.
Peru is one of the world's biggest cocaine producers, and some of the officers forced into retirement have been accused of taking bribes.
But correspondents say the scale of the purge has come as a surprise.
At least one general said he had been sacked even though he had not been linked to any wrongdoing.
President Humala - who is a former soldier - has also promoted dozens of officers in the armed forces.
The conservative opposition politician Lourdes Flores has warned that Mr Humala could be seeking to politicize the security forces, or do favours for his friends.
But Vice-President Omar Chehade said the changes followed a "rigorous evaluation" of the security forces.
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A traffic policeman gestures to a car as he directs traffic along a flooded street in Nonthaburi province on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand, on October 12.
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Thai workers transport boxes by boat as they salvage goods from a flooded factory in Nonthaburi province, suburban Bangkok on October 11.
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Cars submerged in floodwaters at a Honda factory outside Ayutthaya on October 11
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A recently drafted soldier says farewell to his mother at a conscription collection point in the southern Russian city of Stavropol on October 12.
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A student carries a portrait of King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck and future Queen Jetsun Pema, before hanging it outside the Lungten Zanpa School, their alma mater in the capital of Thimphu, Bhutan, on Oct. 12. The 31 year-old reformist monarch of the small Himalayan Kingdom will wed his commoner bride in a series ceremonies set for Thursday.
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Hurricane Jova bore down on a vulnerable Mexican coastline late Tuesday as people hunkered down in homes and shelters in tourist resorts and flood-prone mountain villages.
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The 47,230 tonne Liberian-flagged Rena lists in heavy morning seas, about 12 nautical miles from Tauranga, on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island October 12, a week after hitting the Astrolabe Reef. The captain of the Rena has appeared this morning in the Tauranga District Court over the incident and has been remanded on bail, and about 70 containers fell from the vessel amid heavy seas last night, according to Maritime New Zealand.
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Palestinian Hamas militants take part in a rally as they celebrate news of a prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel, in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip October 11. Israel and Gaza's Hamas Islamist rulers agreed on Tuesday to swap more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Israeli captive soldier Gilad Schalit, resolving one of the most emotive and intractable issues between them.
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Friends and supporters of Noam and Aviva Schalit, parents of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit who was captured in 2006 by Hamas-allied militants in the Gaza Strip, sit at the family's protest tent on the 1,934th day for their son's captivity outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem on October 11. According to a senior Palestinian official, Israel will free key Palestinian leader Marwan Barghuti under a prisoner deal in exchange for the release of captive soldier Gilad Schalit.
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Holding a portrait of her son, the mother of Hassan Salame watches a television broadcasting the speech of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaa, celebrating a deal that will see Palestinian detainees freed in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. Salame is one of the founders of Hamas armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassan Brigades, and is the mastermind of several deadly attacks committed in Israel.
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Mother Aviva Schalit and father Noam Schalit of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in the protest tent in Jerusalem on October 11.
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Occupy Wall Street protestors stage a "Millionaires March" in Manhattan's Upper east Side, one the city's wealthiest residential neighborhoods, in New York, October 11. Protesters from the Occupy Wall Street movement took their "Millionaires March" in front of the homes of some of New York City's wealthiest residents in Manhattan's Upper East Side, including News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and oil tycoon David Koch
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Security personnel guard the entrance of oil tycoon David Koch's house as Occupy Wall Street protestors stage a "Millionaires March" in Manhattan's Upper East Side, one the city's wealthiest residential neighborhoods, in New York, October 11.
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First lady Michelle Obama hosts local children on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011, as they attempt to break the Guinness World Records title for the most people doing jumping jacks in a 24-hour period.
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Female inmates at the Tripoli's infamous Djeida prison walk about the courtyard on Oct. 11. Some 1400 inmates are detained in this facility, among them former regime ministers, loyalist fighters, ordinary criminals and foreign immigrants.
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Two couples of sub-Saharan African immigrants confined in the Djeida prison in Tripoli on Oct. 11. Both women are pregnant.
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Unfazed by the loss of Beijing Olympic captain Alicia Sacramone, the Americans won their third title at the world gymnastics championships Tuesday night with a commanding performance that lets everyone know they're the team to beat next summer in London.
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USA's gymnasts, from left, Anna Li, Jordyn Wieber, McKayla Maroney, Sabrina Vega, Alexandra Raisman and Gabrielle Douglas celebrate after winning the women's team final at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Tokyo, Japan, Tuesday, Oct. 11.
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Military veterans US Army Sgt. (Ret.) Dan Nevins, left, and North Carolina National Guard SSgt. (Ret.) Dale Beatty, look on as former President George W. Bush tees off during a practice round in the two-day Warrior Open tournament at Las Colinas Country Club, in Irving, Texas on Sunday, Oct. 9. Twenty wounded military members are competing in the two-day Warrior Open tournament being held in the Dallas suburb of Irving.
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Spix's macaws sit on a branch in their aviary at the association for the prrotection of endangered parrots in Schoeneiche, eastern Germany, on Tuesday, Oct. 11. According to the association, the Spix's macaw is the rarest parrot species in the world. The parrots vanished from the wild in 2000 and have been conserved in breeding programs.
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Andy Murray unveils a terracotta statue of himself at the 2011 Shanghai Masters tournament at the Qizhong Tennis Center in Shanghai on October 11.
Murray is not the only tennis star to be immortalised in clay by the Chinese. I'm pretty sure I recognize three of the players in the photo below, but I'm stumped as to the others. Can you identify all five?
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A gardener pushes a lawnmower past a statue of a peasant farmer watering his crops, in Beijing, China, on October 11. Water pricing reform is under discussion by central government with a view to controlling wastage of the increasingly scarce resource.
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Cosmo Power Co.'s President Shoji Tanaka stands next to the company's personal flotation device, "Noah," which is designed to survive both an earthquake and the tsunami that might follow, at a port in Hiratsuka, south of Tokyo, on October 3.
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Cairo, Egypt: A woman mourns on the coffin of Coptic Christian Mina Daniel, who was killed during clashes with soldiers and riot police on Sunday
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Mombasa, Kenya: Port workers load 15,000 tonnes of rice supplied by the International Crescent and Red Cross on to a Somalia-bound ship to help in the humanitarian crisis
