A pilot lost control of his aircraft while taking off at a flight show in southern Germany and crashed into a group of spectators, killing one person and injuring 38.

Congo fired its transport minister tonight as emergency workers extinguished the last flames from a plane crash which killed at least 50 people, finding still more bodies in the wreckage.

The Sudanese government has launched a major offensive against rebels in war-torn Darfur in recent days, human rights activists and African Union officials said tonight.

SUDAN yesterday denied Darfur rebel reports that its troops had attacked their camps, breaking a ceasefire and a peace deal signed this month to end the conflict which has killed tens of thousands.

A Nato helicopter searching for an Afghan jet that disappeared during a snowstorm with 104 people aboard, found what appears to be the wreckage of the plane today in the forbidding mountains east of the capital, officials said.

Almost a 100 people were killed and wounded in a Sudanese air force bombardment in South Darfur on Wednesday, a UN spokeswoman said today.

Companies reporting in Britain in the week beginning February 24 include:

A military plane carrying 302 members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards has crashed in the country’s south-eastern mountains, killing everyone on board, state-run media reported.

China has signalled it will release the US spy plane held since a collision with a fighter jet.