Reuters

By Issifou Djibo, Alessandra Prentice and David Lewis

AGADEZ, Niger (Reuters) - At the bus station in Agadez, a town in northern Niger that serves as a gateway to the Sahara, a dozen men – their faces masked by turbans and sunglasses – clambered onto the back of a battered pickup truck headed across the desert to Libya.

Several men with legs dangling over the side of the vehicle shouted "Italy, Italy!", gripping short wooden poles... (continue reading...)

LONDON (Reuters) - The United Nations world food price index rose for a third consecutive month in May, as higher cereals and dairy product prices outweighed decreases in prices for sugar and vegetable oils.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) price index, which tracks the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 120.4 points in May, up 0.9% from its revised April level, the agency said on Friday.

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ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russia alleged on Friday that Ukraine had used U.S.-supplied rockets to kill women and children in a region of southern Russia, and said that Washington was to blame.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the deaths had occurred last week in the Belgorod region after the United States agreed to let Ukraine fire U.S.-supplied weapons into Russian territory for the defence of Ukraine's Kharkiv region.

By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber

GENEVA (Reuters) - Unemployment in the Gaza Strip has reached nearly 80% since the war with Israel erupted last October, the United Nations labour agency said on Friday, bringing the average unemployment rate across Palestinian territories to more than 50%.

Unemployment in the Gaza Strip has reached 79.1%, while the West Bank has seen joblessness hit nearly 32%, the International Labour Organization (ILO)... (continue reading...)

By Greg Torode and James Pomfret

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Two senior British judges resigned from Hong Kong's top appeals court on Thursday, as international concerns mounted over the city's rule of law following the recent convictions of 14 prominent democratic activists amid a national security crackdown.

One of the judges, Lawrence Collins, said in a statement that the "political situation" in Hong Kong had sparked his move but added that... (continue reading...)