At least 50 people are feared to have been buried by a landslide in the Colombian city of Medellin on December 5.

Six world powers are due to hold their first talks with Iran in more than a year on December 6, hoping the meeting will lead to new negotiations over a nuclear programme the West believes is aimed at making atom bombs.

Euro zone finance ministers meeting on Monday will face pressure to increase the size of a EUR750 billion (US$1,006 billion) safety net for crisis-hit members in order to halt contagion in the single currency bloc.

The "major sources" of a deadly Israeli wildfire have been extinguished, police said on December 5, as the Israeli cabinet approved a plan to speed aid to those affected.

Ivory Coast is in a major political crisis, after rival presidential candidates swore themselves in.

Two people were killed and more than 80 others injured when a passenger plane rolled off the runway after making an emergency landing at a Moscow airport, Russian officials say.

At least 12 people have been killed in rural Haiti during the past week on accusations they used "black magic" to infect people in a fast-spereading cholera epidemic, police say.

Azerbaijani authorities have confirmed a bird flu outbreak in western regions of the country where poultry farms have already reported numerous deaths from the disease.

A massive fire is raging in northern Israel for a second day, with firefighters admitting that so far they have failed to contain the blaze.  

President Barack Obama told US troops in Afghanistan they are making crucial "progress" against insurgents.