South Africa: Eighteen people, including a baby, were killed Thursday when a minibus taxi collided head-on with a truck, causing both vehicles to burst into flames, a local safety official said.
The taxi was traveling to Johannesburg from neighbouring Mozambique when it veered out of its lane and slammed into the truck near the eastern South African town of Belfast, Mpumalanga public safety...
Russia: Senior Kremlin official held talks in the rebel Georgian region of South Ossetia on Thursday as Russia tried to defuse a political crisis sparked by the invalidation of leadership polls.
Russian presidential administration official Sergei Vinokurov met female opposition leader Alla Dzhioyeva, who launched street protests after the supreme court cancelled poll results which could have made...
Afghan: A 17-year-old Afghan girl and her family have been sprayed with acid, apparently after rejecting a marriage proposal, officials and the victims said Thursday.
The girl, Mumtaz, was seriously injured when acid was sprayed on her face by several masked gunmen who broke into her home in the northern city of Kunduz late Sunday, her father Sultan Mohammad said.
Her mother and four sisters also...
US: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday that Myanmar s leaders promised to carry out more reforms, but warned that action so far has been "insufficient" to warrant a breakthrough in ties.
After landmark talks with President Thein Sein in the capital Naypyidaw, Clinton called Myanmar s efforts "encouraging" and said members of the country s top brass "...
Britain: Britain will call for sanctions to financially isolate Iran at a European Union foreign ministers meeting Thursday following the storming of its Tehran embassy, Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
"I hope we will agree today additional measures that will be an intensification of the economic pressure on Iran, peaceful legitimate economic pressure particularly to increase the...
Ukraine: A Ukrainian court on Thursday started hearing an appeal against the jailing of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko for seven years which severely endangered Ukraine s chances of joining the EU.
The Kiev court of appeal opened an initial hearing into the appeal lodged by Tymoshenko s lawyers amid growing concerns about the health of the 51-year-old opposition leader.
She was not...
South Africa: South African petrochemical giant Sasol is shelving exploration plans for shale gas in the Karoo, at least for now, the company said Thursday.
The government has in any case imposed a moratorium on exploration in the semi-desert Karoo until February 2012, amid fierce opposition from environmental groups over the use of hydraulic fracturing drilling to release underground resources...
Britain: Britain is to urge the European Union to intensify economic sanctions against Iran following the storming of the British embassy in Tehran, Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday.
Hague, who is meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels, added that the EU had shown "tremendous solidarity" with France, Germany and the Netherlands all recalling their ambassadors from...
Syria: The brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, several ministers and telecom magnate Rami Makhluf are on a list of 17 senior figures to be targeted by Arab League sanctions, officials said Thursday.
Under the economic measures agreed this week by the 22-member organisation, they would be banned from travelling in the region and have any assets in Arab countries frozen, if the list is...
S. Korea: Six crematorium workers in South Korea have been arrested for stealing and selling melted gold teeth from the incinerated remains of the deceased, police said Thursday.
One suspect, identified only by his surname Lee, made about 20 million won ($17,700) from selling melted gold he collected from incinerators at the Seoul crematorium where he worked as a stoker, said the Seoul...
Yemen: Clashes between forces loyal to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and dissident tribesmen in the country s second-largest city Taez killed eight people, five of them civilians, on Thursday, medics said.
"Eight people, including five civilians, were killed and 30 wounded," a medic from the city s Al-Rawda neighbourhood said.
Witnesses said the fighting erupted before dawn as...
US: A US religious leader visiting Cuba on Wednesday met US contractor Alan Gross, jailed in Cuba for the past two years, and said he was concerned about Gross health.
Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the New York-based National Council of Churches, said he met with Gross for two hours in Havana.
Gross, 62, was in "good spirits" but has lost a lot of weight, Kinnamon told...
DUBAI: Qatar, the world's biggest natural gas exporter, has raised $5 billion with its first sovereign bond issue in two years, capitalising on investors' appetite for safe havens as the European debt crisis destabilises global markets.
The international bond sale, priced late on Tuesday, was the biggest from the Gulf this year. The tiny Arab state sold $2 billion in five-year bonds at a yield...
MUMBAI: India's rupee completed its biggest monthly loss in almost two decades as slowing economic growth and Europe's debt crisis hurt demand for the nation's assets.
The currency tumbled to a record low last week as bond yields in Greece and Italy surged to euro-area records. Asia's third-largest economy expanded 6.9 per cent last quarter from a year earlier, the smallest gain since 2009,...
Guatemala: As dusk falls on the dusty Guatemalan village of Tecun Uman, Javier Castillo prepares to sneak across the Mexican border to continue his perilous journey to the United States.
"Several of my family members live in the United States. They helped me pay for the trip. Now, seeing how things have turned out, it might be a challenge to get there," the 17-year-old from El Salvador...