Dazed Southerners on April 28 comforted one another and began the process of rebuilding after a barrage of storms claimed nearly 300 lives and reduced once-familiar neighborhoods to piles of bricks and lumber.

Morocco has launched an investigation into a bomb attack on a cafe in Marrakesh that left 14 people dead including 11 foreigners.

The United States took steps to throw a financial lifeline to rebels controlling eastern Libya while forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi focused their firepower on pockets of resistance in the west.

The leader of a militia that helped Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara defeat rival Laurent Gbagbo was killed in a gun battle on Wednesday after he and his men refused to obey a presidential order to disarm.

Thailand and Cambodia's armies have agreed to a ceasefire to end seven days of bloody clashes along their disputed border following a meeting of field commanders, a government spokesman said on Thursday.

Tornadoes and storms killed 45 people in Alabama on Wednesday bringing the total dead in storms and flooding across the U.S. South to at least 72 people over the last three days, authorities said.

China's population grew to 1.34 billion by 2010, according to census data, which showed an aging and more urban population that experts say is likely to spur calls for the "one-child" policy to be relaxed.

In the most extensive reshaping of the Obama administration's national security team to date, the president will name Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta as his nominee to succeed Robert Gates as defense secretary, top US officials said on April 27.

Eight US troops and a US contractor have been killed by an Afghan air force pilot at Kabul airport in an apparent argument, US officials say.

The Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas, which governs Gaza, have agreed a reconciliation deal, officials say.