Paris / AFP Paris was on high alert for more street clashes on Thursday as unions prepared another march against labour market reforms in a three-month protest campaign which has been marred by violence. The march is to take place after the another round of bitter negotiations in which the embattled Socialist government tried to ban the protest over security …

Nigeria / AFP Three Australians, a New Zealander and a South African have been kidnapped along with two locals in Nigeria’s southeast after their vehicle was attacked, officials said on Thursday. The hold-up, in which the driver was shot dead, happened in the Akpabuyo district near the capital of Cross River state, Calabar, at about 7 am (0600 GMT) on Wednesday, …

  Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank has reduced its public speaking as it battles the opposing forces of a housing boom and weak inflation. The Reserve Bank has more than halved the number of on-the-record speeches it gives a year, from 18 in 2014 to eight last year and four so far in 2016. Of those, Governor Graeme Wheeler gave …