Independent

Germany held a memorial service today for the victims of the Love Parade techno music festival, where 21 people were crushed to death and 500 injured in a tunnel that was the only entrance to the event.

About 30 people have died in the last three days as massive forest fires wiped out villages and vast areas of woodland in Russia, state television reported today.

Former Vice President Al Gore was cleared yesterday of allegations he groped and assaulted a masseuse in a luxury Portland hotel room in 2006, closing a case that could have tarnished the Nobel prize winner's reputation.

Rescuers trying to reach thousands of Pakistani flood victims were hampered by deluged roads and damaged bridges today, though there were signs waters were receding in parts of the country.

Pakistan's intelligence agency cancelled planned talks with security experts in the UK in protest at David Cameron's claim that elements within the country were promoting the export of terror, it was reported today.

The House of Representatives has approved a bill to boost safety standards for offshore drilling and remove a liability cap for oil spills, but a partisan fight in the Senate will likely delay action on a response to the Gulf oil spill until Congress returns from its summer recess.

Hamas said a senior commander of its military wing has been killed in an Israeli air strike.

Authorities imposed an indefinite curfew across violence-wracked Indian Kashmir today as anti-India protests and clashes between Kashmiri Muslims and government forces continued.

The two surviving daughters of multiple-baby killer Dominique Cottrez have described her as a doting mother who selflessly devoted herself to her family.

A former chief constable in Sweden, who was known for lecturing on gender equality and sexual harassment, has been jailed for six and-a-half years for rape and other sex crimes.

The two surviving daughters of multiple-baby killer Dominique Cottrez have described her as a doting mother who selflessly devoted herself to her family.

Forest fires burned across Russia yesterday, destroying villages, surrounding one southern city and killing at least 25 people, including three firefighters.

Soldiers killed a top leader of the Sinaloa cartel in a raid on his hideout, dealing the biggest blow yet to Mexico's most powerful drug gang since President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against organised crime in 2006.

The Aymara priest who blessed the Bolivian President Evo Morales at his inauguration ceremony has been arrested in possession of 240kg of cocaine.

Paramilitary soldiers fired on thousands of demonstrators in Kashmir yesterday, killing three men and wounding at least 80 others, as protests against Indian rule spread across the disputed region.

The death toll from three days of flooding in Pakistan reached at least 430 yesterday, as rains bloated rivers, submerged villages, and triggered landslides.

A new plot is being dug at Zimbabwe's Heroes Acre cemetery after the death of Robert Mugabe's younger sister, Sabina.

On the face of it, Heather Naylor is no different from any other bright young thing who dreams of reality TV fame.

It is, depending on your point of view, the sad downfall of a loveable rogue – or comeuppance for a Congressional baron with an outsized sense of entitlement, who had long lost touch with the voters he was supposed to serve.

Israel's three-year blockade of Gaza has thrust its residents into the embrace of the Islamist group Hamas and created a generation of Palestinians hostile to the Jewish state, according to the departing British ambassador.