Rio Ferdinand has quit international football, the Football Association (FA) said today.

The Galatasaray striker was targeted in the Istanbul derby

A French family, – including four young children – taken hostage on the Cameroon-Nigeria border two months ago, has been released unharmed.

Nigerian security forces surrounded the kidnappers of a French family in north-east Borno state in an operation to rescue the hostages.

French special forces have arrived in Cameroon in a bid to track down four children and three adults from the same family who have been kidnapped by Islamist militants. The four children, who were seized on Tuesday, have been separated from their parents according to the Cameroon government.

Seven members of a French family, three of them children, have been abducted in Cameroon three days after seven other foreigners were taken away at gunpoint in neighbouring Nigeria, raising fears that Islamist militants have started a campaign of capturing Western hostages in the region.

A French family of seven - three adults and four children - have been kidnapped in northern Cameroon, President Francois Hollande confirmed

Assou-Ekotto has struggled to break into the team since returning from injury

Advancing rebels are 45 miles from capital of Central African Republic

The Cameroon international has been out for three-months

Queens Park Rangers 1 Aston Villa 1

The Cameroon defender headed a late equaliser to earn the Canaries a 1-1 draw at Everton

Liverpool assistant boss Colin Pascoe insists the club's players are fully focused on tomorrow's Europa League clash with Anzhi Makhachkala and that they will not be distracted by thoughts of the Merseyside derby.

Roger Hammond, who has died of cancer at the age of 56, was an environmental educator for whom "environment" meant everything, and "education" meant leading people from darkness. He trained as a teacher in Birmingham, and then rose swiftly to become head of science at a large secondary school. He was meanwhile involved in setting up the Urban Wildlife Group and enrolled for a doctorate in plant sociology, acquiring knowledge that would one day give rise to many native hedges and wildflower meadows.