SOUTH AFRICA

Gold Fields Limited (NYSE: GFI), the world's fourth largest gold miner, said Thursday its first-quarter profit rose 70 percent, beating Wall Street's expectations. But the Johannesburg, South Africa-based miner also said its extraction capacity in 2012 will be at the lower end of its previously stated range.

More than four million people in South Sudan -- about half of the country's population -- face hunger and food shortages as clashes with Sudan along the border continue, according to the United Nations.

India's emergence as an economic superpower has been accompanied by a disturbing and unexpected phenomenon: an apparent increase in sexual assaults on women.The actual number of rapes in Delhi -- and India as a whole -- is likely to be dramatically higher than indicated by published statistics.

The 51 beauties of the Miss USA pageant balanced themselves in high heels through a rocky cruise of the Hudson river, for a charity sightseeing trip. The event was part of a full-day media blitz in advance of the June 3 competition.

Senator Richard Lugar, who recently lost a primary election for the first time in 36 years, is a legend for his efficacy as a bipartisan politician. Now 80 years old, he will retire from the Senate and pursue other means of public service.

Gabriel Shumba, chief of ZEF and a Zimbabwean human rights attorney, praised the ruling.

Violet D'Mello, a British woman from Aberdeen, was visiting the Kragga Kamma reserve in South Africa with her husband Archie when she was mauled by a cheetah.

Ernst & Young projects that by 2015, money flowing to Africa will reach $150 billion, which will create 350,000 new jobs annually.

Charles Taylor's conviction at the Hague was important for Sierra Leone, but it represents only a single step in the country's long journey toward lasting peace.

Keeping up an old tradition, Germany has threatened to boycott the upcoming Euro 2012 soccer tournament in protest of the imprisonment and alleged mistreatment of Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.

India and Russia have chosen to boycott Zimbabwe's 53rd International Trade Fair this year to express their deep discontent with the country's new policies to nationalize and seize control over foreign companies.

The African Union has given Sudan and South Sudan an ultimatum in hopes of preventing a new war between the neighboring nations.

Shares of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), the world's most valuable technology company, skyrocketed 10 percent before the markets opened Wednesday on forecasts of further recordbreaking earnings. That sent overall U.S. markets up.

Mining asteroids for natural resources could make space travel cheaper, Planetary Resources Inc., a startup company backed by several billionaires, said on Tuesday.

Gold prices steadied near $1,640 an ounce in Europe on Tuesday as a softer tone to the dollar arrested the previous session's slide, but traders largely stuck to the sidelines ahead of a key monetary policy meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Swiss food group Nestle is to buy drugmaker Pfizer's baby food business for $11.85 billion, beating out French rival Danone in the battle for dominance of fast-growing emerging markets.

Global brewer SABMiller said its European chief Alan Clark will succeed long-standing Chief Executive Graham Mackay in July 2013 in series of top management changes that will see the 62-year old Mackay take over as chairman.

China produces 97 percent of the world's rare earths, minerals that are critical for the production of everything from cell phones to missiles -- and now it wants to keep more of them for itself. The world is worried, but there may be little it can do.

The Group of 20 nations on Friday pledged more than $430 billion to better than double the International Monetary Fund's lending capacity and protect the global economy from the euro zone's debt crisis.

The Group of 20 nations on Friday were poised to commit at least $400 billion to bulk up the International Monetary Fund's war chest to fight any widening of Europe's debt crisis.

South African championship bodyboarder David Lilienfeld was killed by a great white shark measuring anymore between 13-feet and 16-feet long Thursday in Kogel Bay near Cape Town.