Whats New?

The scale of corruption in Europe is “breathtaking” and it costs the EU economy about 120bn euros (£99bn) annually, the European Commission says.
BBC News – Europe

Education Secretary Michael Gove says he wants to end the “Berlin Wall” divide between state schools and private in England.
BBC News – UK

Robert De Niro is among actors and filmmakers mourning the sudden death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, 46, who died after an apparent drug overdose.
BBC News – US & Canada

Nelson Mandela left an estate valued at some 46 million rand ($ 4.13m;£2.53m) plus royalties, a public reading of his will reveals.
BBC News – Africa

Player spending this season by Premier League clubs sets a new record of £760m, football finance experts from Deloitte say.
BBC News – Business

Ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi appears in court in the capital, Cairo, for trial on charges of inciting the killing of protesters.
BBC News – Middle East

Brazilian federal police in the Amazon region arrest five members of the Tenharim tribe accused of killing three contractors who have been missing since mid-December.
BBC News – Latin America & Caribbean

Ukraine’s foreign minister and a prominent opposition leader clash face to face at a security summit in Munich as unrest in Ukraine continues.
BBC News – Europe

Lib Dem schools minister David Laws accuses Conservation Education Secretary Michael Gove of removing the head of Ofsted for political reasons.
BBC News – UK

California’s water agency says it may for the first time be unable to supply water to many residents and big areas of farmland, as a drought worsens.
BBC News – US & Canada

The United Nations says it estimates 3.7 million people are in acute need of food in South Sudan as a result of the civil conflict there.
BBC News – Africa

Real wages have been dropping consistently since 2010 – the longest period of falls for at least 50 years, official figures show.
BBC News – Business

Syrian rival delegations end a week-long peace conference in Geneva by trading insults, as no deal emerges on how to end the conflict.
BBC News – Middle East

Mexican security forces arrest Ruben Oseguera Gonzalez, the alleged second-in-command in the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel.
BBC News – Latin America & Caribbean

Medical workers block police from questioning a Ukrainian protester, being treated in hospital after apparently undergoing severe torture.
BBC News – Europe

The family of murdered British student Meredith Kercher say they “are still on a journey to the truth”, after murder convictions were reinstated against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.
BBC News – UK

Canada’s spy agency collected data from travellers using an airport’s wi-fi system, CBC reports, quoting documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
BBC News – US & Canada

The medical charity MSF says 240 of its staff have been forced to flee into the bush in South Sudan to try to escape fighting.
BBC News – Africa

The US Federal Reserve reduces its monthly bond purchases from $ 75bn to $ 65bn in the second straight month of winding down stimulus efforts.
BBC News – Business

The Syrian authorities have “deliberately and unlawfully” demolished thousands of residential buildings, says Human Rights Watch.
BBC News – Middle East