Newsline 21 December 2009: Teenage sailor Laura Dekker went missing last week and has turned up on Saint Maarten. Unrest continues in South Sudan. An EU Commission report reveals Christmas lights can be very dangerous.

Missing teenage sailor found
Laura Dekker, the 14-year-old Dutch girl who gained international attention with her plan to sail solo around the world, has been found on a Carribean island after disappearing last week. Laura's hopes of becoming the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe single-handedly were dashed in October when the Dutch child protection agency made her a ward of court to stop her voyage. On Thursday, she left a note saying she was fed up with it all and vanished. After an international alert, she was spotted on the island of Saint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles and detained by local police. Newsline's Michael Blass asked Richard Bakker of the Dutch child protection agency how she came to be 8000 kilometres away.

Escalating violence in South Sudan
Five years after a peace deal was reached in South Sudan, a wave of armed conflicts broke out this year. The violence is said to be worse than in Darfur, with various rebel groups active - including the notorious Ugandan terror group the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA. Southern politicians see the hand of the North in this conflict, while others say the southern politicians themselves are to blame. One thing is sure: there are far too many weapons around. Our Africa correspondent Koert Lindijer travelled through South Sudan and sent us this report.

Faulty fairy lights
With just a few days to go till Christmas, families across Europe - and elsewhere - will be stringing lights around a tree to bring a festive note into their homes. But the European Commission has some alarming news. It tested lights in five of the twenty-seven member states and the majority didn't meet European safety standards. One in three lights even turned out to be really dangerous, with a risk of serious injury or worse. Perro de Jong blew a fuse finding out more.