A 78-year-old man has killed himself inside the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris in the French capital, police say, causing its evacuation. (Read Full Article Here)

The Eiffel Tower in Paris has been evacuated after an anonymous phone-call threatening an attack. An estimated 1,400 people were visiting the site when France’s anti-terrorism police made the decision to clear it. (Read Full Article Here)

The prosecution case against Oscar Pistorius began to unravel Wednesday with revelations of a series of police blunders and the lead investigator’s admission that authorities have no evidence challenging the double-amputee Olympian’s claim he killed his girlfriend accidentally.

Detective Hilton Botha’s often confused testimony left prosecutors rubbing their heads in frustration as he misjudged distances and said testosterone — banned for professional athletes in some cases — was found at the scene, only to be later contradicted by the prosecutor’s office. (Read Full Article Here)

The casualties are still being counted from last week’s attack on an Algerian gas plant by Islamist militants. The four-day siege left dozens of people dead. The group warned of more such attacks against any country backing France’s military intervention in neighboring Mali. For a perspective on Mali, Renee Montagne talks to Vickie Huddleston, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Mali from 2002 to 2005. (Read Full Article Here)

The known death toll from the hostage siege in Algeria rose on Monday, news reports said, after Algerian officials said that ‘a good 20 bodies’ had been found. (Read Full Article Here)

ProPublica’s reporting last year about the search for perpetrators of the Dos Erres masscare led to the discovery that an ex-colonel who is a leading suspect had lived openly in an upscale Guatemala City neighborhood. (Read Full Article Here)

Harassed for years by her husband and his relatives, an Indian woman was finally kidnapped, raped, strangled and tossed into a ditch. For more than a year, the woman’s father has tried without success to get the police to arrest those accused of killing her, including her husband, who were charged but remain at large. The father, Subedar Akhileshar Kumar Singh, an army officer, says he believes his daughter was killed because her in-laws were not satisfied with her dowry, according to an article on Thursday in The Indian Express. (Read Full Article Here)

French airstrikes in Mali appeared to halt an Islamist rebel advance, France said Saturday, as West African nations authorized what they said would be a fast deployment of troops in support of the weak Malian government. (Read Full Article Here)

The Greek police on Saturday were looking for the people responsible for detonating makeshift bombs at the homes of five journalists in Athens, the latest in a series of actions taken against reporters in Greece that have raised questions about a deteriorating climate for media freedom. (Read Full Article Here)

Just before dawn, the rangers were hunched over in prayer, facing east. They pressed their foreheads into the dry earth and softly whispered Koranic verses, their lips barely moving. A cool wind bit at their faces.

All of a sudden, Djimet Seid, the cook, said he heard “one war whoop — or maybe it was a scream.”

And then: “K-k-k-k-k-k-k,” the angry bark of a Kalashnikov assault rifle, opening up on fully automatic. (Read Full Article Here)