The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Vietnam received official recognition last month, granting the church in the Southeast Asian nation legal status to operate, church officials said.

Hundreds of previously illiterate Mozambican adults are reading and writing after completing the first part of a four-level literacy program last week.

Romanian national president Traian Basescu visited a Seventh-day Adventist Church in Madrid, Spain earlier this month, drawing attention to the country's significant Romanian immigrant population -- 6,000 of whom are Adventists.

Jere D. Patzer, North Pacific Union Conference president since 1996, died October 26 following a lengthy battle with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He was 61.

The death toll from a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe nears 300 as the water and sanitation situation "worsens", the UN says.

US dominance is likely to weaken by 2025 as India and China grow stronger, a new Washington intelligence report says.

Shares in Citigroup, one of the biggest banks in the US, fell sharply on Friday amid ongoing uncertainty over its future.

The former head of Mexico's anti-organised crime agency is held as part of a probe into alleged links to drug cartels.