Cuba
A retired US state department official and his wife have admitted spying for Cuba for nearly three decades. The former official, Walter Kendall Myers, 72, had access to top-secret government information. Under a plea deal, Mr Myers will spend the rest of his life in jail while wife Gwendolyn, 71, will serve a term of no more than seven-and-a-half years. Myers was known as Agent 202, while his wife was Agent 123, according to court documents. Prosecutors say the couple were recruited three decades ago while living in South Dakota by a Cuban intelligence agent, who had met Myers during his previous role at the state department.

Yemen
Jordanian commandos have recently joined the state-led and Saudi-aided offensives against the Houthi fighters in northwestern Yemen, reports say. The Arab-language daily Sada-Najdhejaz reported on Saturday that the commandos, enlisted with the Jordanian military’s crack forces, had joined the fight in the northern Mount Al-Dukhan. The Houthi fighters have reportedly seized control of three mountains in a move that could give them notable strategic upper hand. The fighters conquered Mounts Al-Dukhan, Al-Ramih and Al-Doud on Saturday, the Yemeni news outlet Shamar Press reported.

Romania
Romanians will cast their ballots in the country’s first round of presidential elections following the candidates’ final campaign rallies. Romania will vote on Sunday to elect a president from amongst 12 contenders, with three of them considered as the main hopefuls. Incumbent President Traian Basescu holds a slim lead with about 33 percent compared with 30 percent for his main rival, Mircea Geoana, opinion polls showed. The third candidate, Crin Antonescu, has about 18 percent backing.

Mexico
Authorities in the western Mexican state of Michoacan are investigating the disappearance of a journalist who wrote about organized crime. Michoacan state’s attorney general says police are looking for people who had contact with Mexican reporter Maria Esther Aguilar before she disappeared on Nov. 11. The weekly newspaper El Cambio de Michoacan says Aguilar recently broken a series of stories on local corruption and organized crime for the paper. The Inter American Press Association says that nine journalists have been murdered or gone missing in Michoacan since 1991. Michoacan Attorney General Jesus Ramirez told W Radio about Aguilar’s disappearance on Friday.

Venezuela and Colombia
Venezuela has captured a leader of a right-wing Colombian paramilitary group. Magaly Janeth Moreno Vega was arrested by Venezuelan police on Thursday in Maracaibo near the country’s northern border with Colombia, Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami said, describing the 39-year-old who is wanted by Interpol as the “paramilitary chief” of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), AFP reported. “She is nicknamed … ‘The Pearl’ within the AUC” and “handles extremely important information,” El Aissami said. Bogota, however, promptly hailed her arrest, vowing to seek her extradition from Venezuela so that she can be tried for various crimes in her native Colombia. El Aissami said Moreno Vega was, along with a colleague, in charge of “relations between the AUC and Colombian security forces, that is, the DAS (the Colombian intelligence agency), army and police.”