S. Korean boat sinks

A South Korean fishing boat sank in the Antarctic Ocean's cold waters on Monday, with 22 sailors feared killed in the open sea.

Five sailors were confirmed dead and 20 survivors were rescued shortly after the 614-ton vessel went down 2,250 km south of New Zealand, about halfway to Antarctica.

The boat had 42 people on board when it sunk. Four Chinese sailors were missing while four other Chinese were rescued.

Children hostages

Masked French gendarmes* detained a 17-year-old who took a class full of preschoolers hostage on Monday, releasing all the children safely after hours of tense negotiations that drew nationwide attention.

All 20 children who had been taken hostage and their teacher were released safely. The hostage-taker was detained. His motives were unclear.

Explosions in Sweden

Swedish police said on Sunday that two explosions in central Stockholm were an act of terrorism by what appeared to be a suicide bomber, who killed himself and injured two people on a busy shopping street.

A Swedish news agency said it received an e-mail threat just before the blast in which the writer claimed to have visited the Middle East "for jihad," and referred to the country's soldiers in Afghanistan and a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad that outraged* the Muslim world.

Climate talks end

The world's governments agreed on Saturday to modest steps to combat climate change and to give more money to poor countries, but they put off until next year tough decisions on cutting greenhouse gas emissions*.

The deal includes a Green Climate Fund that would give US$100 billion a year in aid to poor nations by 2020, measures to protect tropical forests and ways to share clean energy technologies.

Snow chaos

Scotland's Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson quit on Saturday following harsh* criticism of his handling of the travel chaos* caused by the winter cold snap*.

Scotland's main airports faced shutdowns last week and road and rail journeys were severely disrupted, with a large stretch* of the motorway linking the main cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh completely closed.

Chile prison fire

A fire broke out at a prison in Santiago, the Chilean capital, last Wednesday, killing 81 inmates* and injuring many more, including a firefighter, prison officials said, in the worst-ever accident in the country's jail system.

WikiLeaks founder arrested

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange surrendered* to London police last Tuesday as part of a Swedish sex-crimes investigation, the latest blow to an organization that faces legal, financial and technological challenges after releasing hundreds of secret U.S. files.

The legal troubles for Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, stem* from allegations against him by two women he met while in Sweden over the summer. Assange is accused of rape and sexual molestation* in one case and of sexual molestation and unlawful coercion* in another.