Barack Obama cuts short holiday to tackle budget crisis as country faces breaching its $16.4tn debt limit
Fastjet takes EasyJet low-cost model into African airspace
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s low-cost African airline is ready for takeoff in Tanzania
Greek MPs approve hefty budget cuts
Thousands gather in protest as parliament votes to pass new austerity measures in 2013 budget
The great mobile technology leap forward
Sales of smart tech devices are soaring as the traditional PC declines. Observer writers look at their impact, which is already helping children to learn, spreading literacy, improving healthcare, boosting harvests in Africa – and making the web giants sit up
Striking South Africa platinum miners agree deal with Lonmin
Miners to return to work after pay rise ends five weeks of bitter industrial action during which 45 people were killed
Striking South African miners cut wage demands
Hopes rise for end to bitter dispute that has left 45 people dead as Lonmin closes in on deal with platinum miners
How one co-operative is lending to support fair trade farmers
Shared Interest is defying conventional lending prudence in order to provide fair trade farmers’ and producers’ groups
Lonmin set to breach loan agreements over South African mine strike
Company warns investors shutdown of mine, where police shot 34 workers, will lead to debt covenants being breached
South African miners’ families back Julius Malema’s call for nationalisation
Jacob Zuma is criticised as former ANC youth leader says the president sided with mine owner when 34 were killed
South African police ‘shot miners to protect themselves’
Police chief says officers opened fire and killed 34 strikers because they were being charged at with dangerous weapons
The Marikana action is a strike by the poor against the state and the haves
The shooting at Lonmin’s Marikana mine exposes weaknesses at the heart of South African society
Miners’ wives rage at South African police brutality after ‘massacre’
Women performing apartheid-era toyi-toyi dance condemn mine company as they wait for news of victims of police shootings
South African police shoot dead striking miners
Up to 18 people killed at Lonmin platinum mine where strike over pay has escalated into alleged turf war between unions
Sudan reaches agreement on aid access to rebel-controlled areas
Deal between Sudan and South Sudan paves way for relief supplies into two border states for first time in more than a year