Striking South African workers at a chrome mine owned by German chemicals group Lanxess have signed a deal to end a week-long illegal walkout, after winning a one-off payment from the latest company to give in to militant labour pressure. The dispute at the mine in Rustenburg, 120 km (70 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, added to long-running friction in the so-called platinum belt that has caused mining pr ...

A French court has decided not to place the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, under investigation over a payout made when she was finance minister. Ms Lagarde was instead made an assisted witness in the case, meaning she will be called upon to testify but is not directly under suspicion. Some 400m euros (£342m; $516m) was paid to disgraced tycoon Bernard Tapie in 2007. Ms Lagarde h ...

French special forces took part in an operation at an army base in Niger on Friday to flush out Islamist militants suspected of involvement in an attack the previous day, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said. At least 21 people were killed and dozens wounded on Thursday in coordinated dawn assaults on a uranium mine run by French company Areva at Arlit and the military base in the city of Agadez in nort ...

Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano continued to erupt with the region still on yellow phase three alert, the third-highest warning on the centre's seven-step scale. Daily routines continued as usual for nearby town Santiago Xalizintla, in the central state of Puebla, which has been covered in ash as the volcano continues to spew heavy clouds of smoke. With up to 50,000 residents across 24 towns at risk from volc ...

A Cuban court has continued with testimony for a second day in the graft trial of a Canadian businessman; Sarkis Yacoubian whose prosecution in a corruption crackdown that plagued the country business community. Sarkis Yacoubian's trial has shaken the country's foreign business community coupled with the corruption trials of at least three other Canadian and British executives, all of them arrested shortly ...

The United Nations compound came under attack in Kabul on today by Taliban insurgents who set off several explosions and then shot at police after holing themselves up in a nearby residential building. Four suicide attackers wanting to carry out an assault on the United Nation Assistance Mission for Afghanistan House used a residential house and opened fire on the UNAMA building, All the foreigners who were ...

An update on the British soldier, Lee Rigby who was hacked to death by two Britons of Nigerian descent shows that the 25-year-old father feared that his girlfriend, a soldier serving in Afghanistan might lose her life in the line of duty. Ironically, Rigby became a victim of Islamic extremists who killed him in broad daylight, in the Woolwich neighbourhood of London. Rigby’s girlfriend, whose name is yet un ...

Former neighbours and schoolmates of Michael Adebolajo, one of the two men involved in the brutal murder of a British soldier, Lee Rigby, in Woolwich, South East London, have continued to reveal what they know about Adebolajo’s character. While his former schoolmates said they remembered him as a "good guy" who would help anyone in need, some former neighbours of his maintained they remembered him as a teen ...

Britain's security services faced questions on Friday over whether they could have done more to prevent the murder of a soldier hacked to death in a busy London street after it emerged that his suspected killers were known to intelligence officers. The two suspects, Michael Adebolajo, 28 and Michael Adebowale, 22, are under guard in hospitals after being shot and arrested by police after the murder of 25-ye ...

Part of a four-lane freeway bridge over a river in rural Washington state collapsed on Thursday, sending vehicles and drivers tumbling into the frigid water, authorities said. Two of the three people rescued from the river were hospitalized with hypothermia, said Given Kutz, a spokesman for Skagit County in the northern part of the state. There were apparently no fatalities. "They (rescuers) don't expect an ...