Former President Nelson Mandela has been admitted to hospital in South Africa with a lung infection. A presidential spokesman said he is in a “serious but stable condition”, although he was able to breathe on his own – a “positive sign”. Mr Mandela, 94, has been ill for some days but deteriorated overnight and was […]

More than 80 people have been killed by two blasts in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, activists and officials say. The explosions reportedly struck an area between the University of Aleppo’s halls of residence and the architecture faculty on the first day of exams. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll […]

One of the men who murdered soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south-east London, has been ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison. Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, drove into Fusilier Rigby with a car before hacking him to death in May last year. Adebolajo was given a whole-life term; Adebowale […]

American forces are “ready” to launch strikes on Syria if President Barack Obama chooses to order an attack, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel says. “We have moved assets in place to be able to fulfil and comply with whatever option the president wishes to take,” Mr Hagel told the BBC. US Secretary of State John […]

South Africa’s first black president and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela has died, South Africa’s president says. Mr Mandela, 95, led South Africa’s transition from white-minority rule in the 1990s, after 27 years in prison. He had been receiving intense home-based medical care for a lung infection after three months in hospital. In a statement on […]

Two men have been found guilty of murdering soldier Lee Rigby outside Woolwich barracks in south-east London in May. Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, struck Fusilier Rigby with a car before hacking him to death. Adebolajo had claimed he was a “soldier of Allah” and the killing was an act of war. The […]