INTERNATIONAL

Iraqi government forces are advancing into Tikrit on several fronts, forcing Islamic State militants to fall back to the centre of the city, officials say. Troops have reportedly taken the Industrial Zone and Celebrations Square near the city centre, after seizing the Qadisiya area further north. They also now hold the Teaching Hospital and New Ouja in the south, and ...

Two police officers have been shot in Ferguson, a Missouri town hit by riots over the killing of an unarmed black teenager last year. One officer was shot in the face and one in the shoulder, St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar said. Both suffered “very serious gunshot injuries” but were conscious, he said. They were shot during a ...

Colombia is to halt bombing raids against Farc rebels for a month, President Juan Manuel Santos says, in a further sign of progress in the country’s peace process. Mr Santos said the move was in recognition of the fact a unilateral ceasefire declared by Farc was holding. But operations against another guerrilla group – the National Liberation Army (ELN) – ...

Paramilitary troops in Pakistan have raided and sealed off the Karachi headquarters of the MQM, the biggest political party in the city. Soldiers recovered sophisticated weapons and detained a number of people wanted in criminal cases during the pre-dawn raid, Pakistan Rangers spokesman Col Tahir said. He called the two-hour raid a “purely information-based operation”. MQM has called a nationwide ...

Prosecutors in France have opened a manslaughter investigation after two helicopters crashed in Argentina, killing eight French nationals. Three well-known French sports personalities were among those killed in the collision, which also claimed the lives of the two Argentine pilots. French President Francois Hollande said it was “a cause of immense sadness”. Both helicopters were involved in the filming of ...

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says pro-Russian rebels in the east have withdrawn a “significant” amount of heavy weapons. Speaking on TV, Mr Poroshenko said his government forces had also pulled back “the lion’s share” of their rocket and heavy artillery systems. Under a ceasefire reached in February both sides were due to pull back heavy weapons by the beginning of ...

Ivory Coast’s former first lady, Simone Gbagbo, has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for her role in the violence that followed the 2010 elections. Gbagbo, 65, had been charged with undermining state security. Her husband, former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, is awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court. More than 3,000 people died in the violence that followed ...

Vladimir Putin has admitted for the first time that the plan to annex Crimea was ordered weeks before the referendum on self-determination. Crimea was formally absorbed into Russia on 18 March, to international condemnation, after unidentified gunmen took over the peninsula. Mr Putin said on TV he had ordered work on “returning Crimea” to begin at an all-night meeting on ...

A baby girl has been found alive in a car more than 14 hours after the vehicle plunged into a river in Utah. The 18-month-old was discovered hanging upside down above water in her car seat by a fisherman on Saturday afternoon, police said. She was rushed to a hospital in Salt Lake City, where her condition has been upgraded ...

A record-breaking attempt to fly around the world in a solar-powered plane has got under way from Abu Dhabi. The aircraft – called Solar Impulse-2 – took off from the Emirate, heading east to Muscat in Oman. Over the next five months, it will skip from continent to continent, crossing both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in the process. Andre ...