Angela Merkel stands alone

The America's Cup fleet sailed into the Grand Canal, in front of Venice's St Mark's Square, yesterday as the event nears its end.

A wealth of newly released evidence relating to the killing of a young black man by a neighbourhood watch "captain" has further muddied the waters in a case that has sparked civil rights protests and gun law debates in America.

A Frenchman who lost all his limbs in an accident has swum from Papua New Guinea to Indonesia in the first part of a challenge to swim between five continents. Philippe Croizon, who lost his limbs in 1994 after receiving a powerful electric shock while adjusting a television aerial, took seven-and-a-half hours to swim the 12-mile stretch.

Shortly after 9pm on a cold winter evening in December, a group of Kurdish villagers was approaching the Turkish border from Iraq when the buzzing of a drone was heard overhead.

The war criminal and former Liberian President, Charles Taylor, accused the international court that convicted him of crimes against humanity of being manipulated by the West, and said prosecutors had paid witnesses to testify against him.

While thousands of impoverished people in the crisis-hit countries of Europe have been marching in opposition to more spending cutbacks and austerity measures, rather different scenes will soon be played out in an Athens courtroom.

Shortage of homes forces desperate tenants to live in illegally built cramped structures

Disease, malnutrition and poverty make for toughest conditions in world to raise children

Tides rose and the night was bright when a "supermoon" graced the skies in the early hours of yesterday morning. The Moon appeared in its biggest and brightest form this year as it came within 221,802 miles from our planet.