JUBA, South Sudan (AP) – South Sudan’s government agreed on Friday at a meeting of East African leaders to end hostilities against rebels accused of trying to overthrow the young country, but the cease-fire was quickly thrown into doubt because the head of the rebellion was not invited.

An army spokesman suggested the fighting could go on despite the announcement by politicians in a faraway capital.

At the meeting in Kenya, South Sudan agreed not to carry out a planned offensive to recapture Bentiu, the capital of oil-producing Unity state, which is controlled by troops loyal to Riek Machar, the former vice president vilified by the government as a corrupt coup plotter.

“We are not moving on Bentiu as long as the rebel forces abide by the cease-fire,” said Michael Makuei Lueth, South Sudan’s information minister.

But no one representing Machar was at the Nairobi meeting – a move possibly meant to deny him any elevated status that could also slow the search for peace.

China formalises easing of one-child policy

BEIJING (AP) – State media say China’s top legislature has sanctioned the ruling Communist Party’s decision to allow couples to have a second child if one parent is an only child.

It’s the first major easing in three decades of the restrictive national birth planning policy.

Implemented around 1980, China’s birth policy has limited most couples to only one child, but has allowed a second child if neither parent has siblings or if the first born to a rural couple is a girl.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the standing committee of the National People’s Congress approved a resolution yesterday to formalise the party decision.

It says the national lawmaking body has delegated the power to provincial people’s congresses and their standing committees to implement the new policy

US boy, 9, is youngest to reach Aconcagua summit

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A nine-year-old boy from Southern California has become the youngest person in recorded history to reach the summit of Argentina’s Aconcagua mountain, which at 22,841 feet (6,962 metres) is the tallest peak in the Western and Southern hemispheres.

Tyler Armstrong of Yorba Linda reached the summit on Christmas Eve with his father Kevin and a Tibetan sherpa, Lhawang Dhondup, who has climbed Mt Everest multiple times. They were in fine spirits Friday as they left Aconcagua, whose sheer precipices and bitter cold have claimed more than 100 climbers’ lives.

“You can really see the world’s atmosphere up there. All the clouds are under you, and it’s really cold,” Tyler said, describing the summit to The Associated Press. “It doesn’t look anything like a kid’s drawing of a mountain. It’s probably as big as a house at the summit, and then it’s a sheer drop.”

Only 30 percent of the 7,000 people who obtain permits to climb Aconcagua each year make the summit, said Nicolas Garcia, who handled their logistics from down below. No one under 14 is usually allowed, so the family had to persuade an Argentine judge that Tyler could safely accomplish the feat.

Zimbabwe man fistfights crocodile to save child

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — State media in Zimbabwe says a villager fought a crocodile with his bare hands to free his son from its jaws in northeastern rural Mutoko.

The Herald newspaper reported Tafadzwa Kachere and his 11-year-old son Tapiwa were trying to cross a river on Christmas Eve when the crocodile attacked the boy. It reported that Kachere jumped onto the crocodile’s back and tried to force open its jaws, beating at its head with his fists and poking at its eyes with reeds.

The crocodile released the child and turned on Kachere who wrestled free of its grasp. The newspaper says the child lost a leg and his father’s arm was severely gored. Both survived.

Artillery hits funeral tent in Yemen, killing 13

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Artillery shells hit a funeral tent Friday in a southern Yemeni city killing 13 people, following a day of clashes between the government and local gunmen, according to a security official and a witness.

Four shells landed near mourners paying condolences to the family of a man killed in Thursday’s fighting in Dali, in which security forces battled fighters affiliated with southern Yemeni regional movement, said the official and local political leader Adnan Abdo, who says he was at the site of the attack.

The deaths may inflame regional sentiment in southern Yemen, where a strong movement already demands greater autonomy from the north after what it describes as two decades of marginalization and discrimination. South Yemen was an independent state until unification in 1990.

Thursday’s clashes were on the sidelines of protests demanding self-rule for the south. The president formed a committee to investigate the deaths today.

Family finds facility to take ‘brain-dead’ girl

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The family of a 13-year-old girl declared brain dead said late Friday that it has found a second nursing home willing to provide for her long-term care, after another facility backed out.

The new facility is in Southern California, said the family’s lawyer, Christopher Dolan, but he wouldn’t provide its name.

“We’re afraid they’ll be inundated with press” and decide to back out as well, he said.

Time is short for the family, as Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo on Tuesday ruled that the Children’s Hospital Oakland may remove Jahi McMath from life support at 5:00 pm tomorrow unless an appeal is filed.

Jahi underwent tonsil surgery at Children’s Hospital on December 9 to treat sleep apnea. After she awoke from the operation, her family said, she started bleeding heavily from her mouth and went into cardiac arrest. Doctors at Children’s Hospital concluded the girl was brain dead on December 12 and wanted to remove her from life support. The family said they believe she is still alive.

Before Jahi can be transferred, she must undergo two more medical procedures – the insertion of a breathing tube and a feeding tube, both of which would be necessary for her long-term care but which the nursing home is not equipped to perform.

The hospital has refused to perform the procedures.