Co Limerick-based international oil and gas exploration company Circle Oil has reported a 53% increase in profits in the first half of the year.

At least 78 people were killed when a Moroccan military transport plane crashed into a mountain in the south of the country during bad weather, the military said.

NINE radical Islamists jailed for their links to the 2003 Casablanca suicide bombings that killed 45 people broke out of a Moroccan top security jail yesterday, the Justice Ministry said.