The BBC World Service has announced it's to close five of its language services. The BBC's Global News Director Peter Horrocks said the
closure
s were due to a 16% cut in British government funding. Torin Douglas has the details.
It's been known since the government's spending review last October that many World Service posts and some services would be cut. Tonight the BBC has confirmed that it will close the Albanian, Macedonian and Serbian language services as well as Portuguese for Africa and the English for Caribbean service. Further cuts and changes will be announced to staff tomorrow. It's expected that around 650 jobs will be lost from a current total of 2,400, most of them in the first year.
The authorities in Arizona in the United States say they've
smash
ed a gun-running network that was trying to smuggle hundreds of weapons to Mexican drugs gangs. At least 17 people have been arrested in and around the city of Phoenix. They are accused of conspiring to buy firearms for Mexico's powerful Sinaloa cartel.
American scientists working in the Arctic have recorded what they believe is the longest-ever swim by a polar bear. They fitted a female bear with a radio collar and then tracked her as she swam non-stop for nine days. She covered nearly 700km northwards from Alaska in icy waters and then travelled a further 1,600km, sometimes walking on the ice. The scientists say that as more sea ice melts, polar bears have to swim greater distances in search of food.