The African National Congress comfortably won almost two-thirds of the total vote in South Africa's recent elections, to retain power at the national level and in eight of the country's nine provinces. It's strongest challenge came from the Democratic Alliance (DA) party led by Helen Zille, who steered her party to victory in the Western Cape.

Water from a storage pond at Barrick Gold's North Mara mine in Tanzania has overflowed into the Tigithe River, provoking local villagers to fear for their health.

Egypt's parliament is set to review a long-overdue draft law to regulate organ transplant operations. If passed, the legislation could make more human organs available for transplant, and curtail the country's booming organ trade.

'I can see migrants are the source of many problems,' says Maria Nafpliotou, an employee at a music store in the city centre. 'Nobody is happy to see them living around here, but I doubt slaying them is a solution.'

A rare species of bats is in danger in western India because it has been denied Protected Area status.

International donors and African governments are likely to cut health budgets due to the global financial crisis. Health experts fear that increasing unemployment and poverty will lead to less food security and quality of nutrition, which will in turn put more stress on already weak health systems.

Human rights advocates are furious at President Barack Obama’s decision to prosecute some Guantanamo detainees through the same military commissions he criticised during his campaign as a 'flawed' system that 'has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9/11 attacks'.

A day before he enters what some Middle East analysts are calling not the Oval office but the lion's den, Benjamin Netanyahu, re-incarnated as Israel's leader, is determined not to be easy meat but also, on the other hand, not to become a bone in the throat of his host, President Barack Obama.

By winning convincingly in India’s month-long general election, the ruling Congress party’s policy of reforms combined with a commitment to India’s rural masses and secularism seems to have paid off.

While journalists welcomed a pledge by the government to reform the country’s closed media space, fears run deep over a horde of laws that continue to make Zimbabwe a media minefield where a ‘wrong’ story can land a journalist behind bars.