Jack Kim

Some leading Malawi rights groups said on Tuesday they could pull out of mass demonstrations scheduled for this week against President Bingu wa Mutharika as they await a court decision on whether the rallies would be legal.

South Africa's rand fell as much as 1.9 percent against the dollar on Tuesday, weighed down by a weak growth outlook for the country's main trading partner bloc and showing the worst performance among its emerging market peers.

Nigeria's headline inflation unexpectedly fell in July, data showed, reaching its lowest level for more than three years following an aggressive period of monetary tightening by the central bank.

A U.S. woman who underwent a full face transplant in May after being mauled by a chimpanzee in 2009 revealed her new face in a photo released on Thursday.

Israel's interior minister has given final approval for a plan to build 1,600 settler homes in East Jerusalem, a project whose announcement last year during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden caused a diplomatic rift with Washington.

Man threw smoke bomb, took two hostages A man fired shots and set off a smoke bomb at the Defence Ministry in Estonia's capital Tallinn and then was killed as police moved in, officials said on Thursday.

Syrian forces killed at least five people in an assault on two northern towns on Thursday, activists said, pursuing a military campaign to crush protests against President Bashar al-Assad despite new U.S. sanctions and regional calls to end bloodshed.

Zimbabwe has reduced penalties for foreign companies that violate a government mandate to sell a majority of their shares to locals, according to a government notice obtained on Thursday.

Egypt has begun procedures to end the country's three-decade old state of emergency, the government said on Thursday, a key demand of the protesters who toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February.

Rebel forces in western Libya pushed north toward the town of Zawiyah near the Mediterranean coast on Thursday, trying to get within striking distance of the capital, Tripoli.

Malawian activists are planning a mass protest for Wednesday after talks with the government on political reforms that could see the United States and Britain resume aid to the country became deadlocked.

The U.N.'s food agency said it has been able to reach more parts of famine-struck Somalia in the last month but there were still significant security challenges in Mogadishu even though Islamist rebels have left the capital.

Syrian forces killed at least 30 people and moved into a town near the Turkish border on Tuesday, an activist group said, even as Turkey's foreign minister pressed President Bashar al-Assad to halt assaults on protests against his rule.

An Egyptian judge on Monday asked to see minutes of a meeting when a decision was taken to cut mobile and Internet services during an uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, a move that could draw the ruling military into the controversy.

The European Union expressed concern on Monday about a second visit to Chad by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, saying he should have been arrested there under an International Criminal Court warrant.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has an unspoken pact with the Turkish electorate: he delivers rapid economic growth, jobs and money, and voters let him shape what kind of democracy this Muslim nation of 74 million people becomes.

A judge Monday refused to release former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from police detention, increasing political tension around her trial on a charge of abuse of office.

A helicopter that crashed two days ago, killing 38 people in the worst single incident in 10 years of war in Afghanistan, was carrying elite troops sent to help comrades in a firefight when it was likely hit by a rocket fired by the Taliban, NATO forces said Monday.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pressed on with a tank onslaught against a city on Monday, but was plunged deeper into international isolation by Arab neighbours who denounced his violent crackdown and recalled their envoys from Damascus.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy may get an enlarged role as coordinator and spokesman for the euro in an effort to impose greater policy discipline in the single currency area, EU sources say.

Colombian authorities have captured two leaders of a 20-ton-per-year cocaine operation that sent drug-laden submarines to the world's top drug consumer, the United States, local police said Tuesday.

The Japanese government plans to form a new nuclear safety agency under the Environment Ministry in order to separate its regulatory functions from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), according to the Nikkei business daily.

On a taxi ride to his farmhouse the day before he killed 77 people, Anders Behring Breivik talked easily of a future he must have known would never come.

Forces loyal to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi killed seven rebels in a counter-attack in a key town on Tuesday, hospital sources said as the leader's camp vowed to push on with a war to crush a five-month uprising.

The death toll in Syria's bloody crackdown on opponents of President Bashar al-Assad in the city of Hama and elsewhere climbed on Tuesday and Russia said it would not oppose a U.N. resolution to condemn the violence.

Libya's rebel military commander was shot dead in an incident that remained shrouded in mystery, dealing a blow to Western-backed forces labouring in a campaign to topple Muammar Gaddafi.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who escaped an attempt on his life by opponents, will only cede power through the ballot box and the country will descend into civil war if he is forced from office, his foreign minister said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao ordered on Wednesday a swift and transparent investigation into the weekend crash of two high-speed trains that has ignited public anger, and pledged the government would take "resolute" safety steps in its aftermath.

The United Nations airlifted emergency food for starving children into the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday as aid groups warned of a growing influx of hungry families from the famine-hit south of the country.