Nigeria's government appoints a panel to negotiate with the Islamist group Boko Haram, which has been blamed for a series of recent attacks.

Bernardo Moreno, a senior aide to former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, is facing prosecution for allegedly organising illegal surveillance.

Egyptian authorities say the trial of deposed President Hosni Mubarak will be moved from a Cairo convention centre, for security reasons.

Two knife-wielding men kill six people in an attack in China's ethnically tense Xinjiang region, official media say.

The Syrian army begins an operation in the city of Hama, with troops moving into the city amid reports of intense gunfire.

A pleasure boat sinks on the Moscow river in Russia's capital, drowning five people and leaving five more missing, officials say.

Ten Afghan policemen and a child are killed in a suicide attack in the southern Afghan city of Lashkar Gah, officials say.

An Iranian man ordered to be blinded for carrying out an acid attack on a woman is reprieved at the last minute by his victim, state television says.