Six people have been rescued from a house in Essex which collapsed in what is thought to have been a gas explosion.

Firefighters were called to the property in Wellesley Road, Clacton, just before 02:30 BST.

Japan has hanged three death row inmates in its first executions since July 2010.

Reports said the unnamed prisoners, hanged in separate prisons, had all been convicted of multiple murders.

Mexico's Supreme Court has said a Frenchwoman jailed for 60 years for kidnap should not be freed immediately.

But the court allowed for the possibility of a retrial of Florence Cassez, 37, saying there were violations in the case.

The former Penn State coach at the centre of a child abuse investigation that has shocked the US has admitted in an interview showering with young boys, but denies being a paedophile.

Jerry Sandusky told NBC News that he had "horsed around with kids", hugged them and touched their legs, but was innocent of the charges against him. In a phone interview, he said he should not have showered with the children.

Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been convicted and sentenced to a year in jail over an illegal wiretap.

At least 48 hostages are now thought to have died in a four-day siege at an Algerian gas plant, as reports say that 25 bodies found at the complex on Sunday were all those of captives.

Despite all the predictions of Mayan apocalypse, the world will probably not end by Saturday morning. How will the believers cope when life carries on?

The clock strikes midnight, the hallowed date arrives and, once again, the apocalypse fails to turn up on schedule.

There is no winner this year for the world's most valuable individual prize - the Mo Ibrahim prize for good governance in Africa.