100 days from now, all eyes will be on London as the Olympic games get underway. The biggest sporting event on the planet will give the British economy a welcome boost. Local communities stand to benefit a great deal too, and not just in the short-term - regenerating London's deprived east end is a key part of the run-up to the Games. A year after violent riots across London made the headlines, the borough of Hackney will again be in the spotlight, but this time for all the right reasons.
Australia on Tuesday announced plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in 2013, a year earlier than planned, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard saying Afghan forces would be ready to take charge of local security earlier than expected.
Eleven Secret Service agents have been sent home over "misconduct" allegations after becoming embroiled in a prostitution scandal in Cartagena, Colombia as President Barack Obama attended the Summit of the Americas.
US and Afghan officials agreed on Sunday to put Afghan security in charge of night raids by special forces on insurgent hideouts. The raids have triggered anger among locals and been a source of rising tensions between Kabul and Washington.
The killing of a 47-year-old woman south of Paris on Thursday and three similar murders in the same area since late November has raised fears a serial killer is on the loose, prompting the deployment of hundreds more police to the Paris suburbs.
The French interior ministry expelled an Algerian Islamist and a Malian imam on Monday and is in the process of deporting three other suspected Islamist radicals as part of a government crackdown following last month's shootings in Toulouse.
In a massive early morning raid eight days after the death of Toulouse gunman Mohamed Merah, French police arrested over a dozen members of radical Islamist group Forsane Alizza. But are the group's actions as menacing as their rhetoric?
French police arrested at least 19 people early Friday morning over suspected links to militant Islamist circles in cities across the country, including Nantes, Le Mans, Toulouse and several suburbs of Paris.
Four high-profile Islamic clerics were banned from entering France Thursday over what the government said were concerns that their “calls for hatred and violence” posed a threat to public order.
