Mexico's president has denied a tweet by Justin Bieber saying the singer met with the president and his family prior to a show.

The death toll from days of flooding in southern and central Mexico has risen to 80, and new reports of landslides in a village near the resort of Acapulco threatened to drive the number of casualties even higher.

The death toll has risen to 47 from the unusual one-two punch of a tropical storm and a hurricane hitting Mexico at nearly the same time.

If the annual cheese roll in England or wife carrying competition in Finland is too boring for you, here are five very strange ones that might be worth visiting, even if it's just to tweet a pic from.

Seismic activity is continuing at the Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City and authorities say they have readied shelters and identified evacuation routes in case they should be needed.

There are hotel suites worldwide that are so fancy they can command an eye-watering annual wage to stay for just one night.

Authorities have blasted the actions of a group of yachties in Tauranga after a cargo ship had to take evasive action to avoid them.

Seat-of-the-pants expedition filmmaker Brian Armstrong has an eye for weird and wonderful alcoholic concoctions.

Forget plates piled high with nachos. Here are five yummy Mex dishes that locals swear by.

Bored of an evening? You could always create an Algae Biofuel Lab as one 17 year old student in the US did to win a $100,000 science prize.

Prime Minister John Key went a tad off-script in a speech in Santiago yesterday, and delivered New Zealand's economic history via a parable of wine.

The crystal skulls have spoken: The world is not going to end.

Here are some of the world's key doomsday destinations and other places marked by fear and fascination.

As Michael Juhran discovers, Chichen Itza is a genuine architectural and mathematical masterpiece that the builders, the Mayas, achieved.

Revellers celebrate Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) - when Mexicans traditionally visit the graves of dead relatives and leave offerings of flowers, food and candy skulls - in Mexico and the US.

The Mexican engineer whose wife and baby daughter fell 26 floors to their deaths is holding on to hope the tragedy could have been an accident.

A Mexican engineer lost his wife and 3-month-old daughter in a 26-storey fall soon after arriving in New Zealand to undertake a seismic research project.