A plan by California and Canadian universities to build the world's largest telescope at the summit…

1. video Astronaut Chris Hadfield demonstrates the physics of tears in space (1:24)

A powerful storm unleashed tornadoes and peeled the roofs from homes in America's Deep South and heaped snow on the Midwest…

1. Tornado rips through Hokitika

David Beckham's promise of his football wages for poor kids has yet to materialise.

1. video Romeo Beckham for Burberry (0:34)

Check out the day's news in photos from New Zealand and around the world.

Behind the counter, amid the Mussolini clocks, swastika badges, fascist recipe books and busts of Hitler…

1. Northern Ireland police to deploy drones for G-8

North Koreans crowded a Pyongyang flower show, packed theatres and pledged loyalty to their leader Friday ahead of a key…

1. video Korean peninsula is headed for 'thermo-nuclear' war (2:13)

Former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard's continuing justification for sending Australia to war against Iraq in 2003 has…

1. video The Iraq war, 10 years on (1:57)

A strong earthquake shook Japan on Saturday near the southwestern city of Kobe, leaving 22 people injured, seven of them…

1. Risk of nuclear accident at crippled Fukushima still high

Like his father Kim Jong Il, North Korea's new young leader Kim Jong Un is viewed by much of the outside world with a mix…

1. video No panic in Sth Korea despite talk of missile test (1:19)

The British and the Americans are quarrelling - tongue in cheek - over territory again, this time over…

1. Marathon: Council's track ban mystery to runners

The White House is trying to tamp down concern over a new intelligence report showing North Korea could arm a ballistic…

The Amish schoolhouse quiets as students in first through eighth grades settle into tight rows of scuffed metal desks to…

More members of an Ohio Amish community, convicted of hate crimes in hair and beard cutting attacks are entering federal…

The suburban home boasts four bedrooms, an updated kitchen and the chance to own a slice of Russian spy history. The US…

1. Soviet Mars spacecraft possibly spotted in photos

Tiny battle lines are being drawn in a whimsical British-American dispute over which country has the…

Check out the best in today's news photos from New Zealand and around the world.

Vietnam's city centres are unrecognisable from even a decade ago. "What's the first designer item you ever bought?" I ask…

1. China urged to stop North Korea

President Bashar al-Assad has exploited his greatest advantage in the Syrian civil war - his air power - to push back rebel…

1. video Raw: Syrian woman caught in gun battle (2:15)

Papua New Guinea must tackle the scourge of sorcery-related murder, the United Nations said yesterday, after an elderly…

1. Beheadings in Papua New Guinea for sorcery

Madonna's trip to Malawi this month should have been a straightforward affair: visit her charitable…

1. Malawi government blasts Madonna

When John Key met his second Chinese vice-premier in two days yesterday, he and Wang Yang shared a joke about the photo…

1. North Korea: Fresh round of war talk

The Obama administration is expected to give Syrian rebels broader nonlethal military assistance, including body armor and…

1. video Raw: Kerry makes surprise Iraq visit (0:31)

Secretary of State John Kerry worked Monday to corral Israeli and Palestinian leaders into a new and ambitious peace process…

1. Six Americans killed in Afghan attacks

Tauranga lawyer Belinda Pidwell will never forget a Bosnian man tell how he and his family were lined up and shot.