France pledges to overhaul its medical regulatory system after a failure to ban a diabetes drug that may have killed up to 2,000 people.

Germany shuts over 900 poultry and pig farms, as fears over the contamination of dioxin in animal feed continue.

US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords - who was shot in the head by a gunman a week ago - is taken off a ventilator, doctors in Arizona say.

Tunisia swears in a new interim leader as looting and deadly jail riots rocked the country after President Ben Ali was swept from power.

A Mexican police commander has been kidnapped in Veracruz, a state which had been spared much of the drug-related violence rampant in some northern Mexican states.

Thousands of foreign tourists are trapped in southern Chile due to strikes and road blockades by locals protesting against a rise in fuel prices.

Australia's third largest city, Brisbane, starts to clear away putrid mud and debris as the devastating floodwaters begin to recede.

Haiti marks the anniversary of the powerful earthquake that killed 250,000 people and devastated much of the country.