The foreign ministers of Iran and six world powers met on Monday in a final push for a preliminary nuclear accord less than two days before their deadline as Tehran showed signs of backing away from previous compromise offers.
Saudi Arabia's navy evacuated dozens of diplomats from Yemen on Saturday and the United Nations pulled out international staff after a third night of Saudi-led air strikes trying to stem advances by Iranian-allied Houthi fighters.
The European Union urged Israelis and Palestinians on Wednesday to quickly restart peace talks that collapsed last year, as the bloc's new foreign policy chief seeks to reinvigorate European involvement in the negotiations.
Iran's top leader voiced mistrust on Saturday of U.S. efforts to reach a nuclear deal, even as Washington and its allies spoke of real progress and urged Tehran to take "difficult decisions".
"Boko Haram is finished" shouted a jubilant soldier from Niger as his comrades danced and waved their rifles in the air to celebrate the liberation of the northern Nigerian town of Damasak.
President Barack Obama told Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that Washington would "reassess" its options on U.S.-Israel relations and Middle East diplomacy after the Israeli prime minister took a position against Palestinian statehood during his re-election campaign, a White House official said.
Islamic State militants have desecrated another ancient Iraqi capital, the government said on Wednesday, razing parts of the 2,700-year-old city of Khorsabad famed for its colossal statues of human-headed winged bulls.
The United Nations said on Saturday talks with Libya's warring factions had made progress and delegates would return to Morocco next week for more negotiations after consultations at home on forming a unity government.
The United Nations, the United States and Britain demanded during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Friday that Russia release Ukrainian military pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, but Russia defended her detention as legal.
Iran had a "deeply troubling" number of executions last year and did not keep a promise to protect ethnic and religious minorities, the United Nations said on Tuesday in its annual report on Tehran's human rights record.
China on Friday questioned the logic behind a U.S. push to create a United Nations sanctions regime for South Sudan while warring parties there negotiate a power-sharing deal to end the conflict in the country, the world's newest state.
The African Union on Monday urged the Congolese government to accept help from U.N. forces to defeat rebels in the country's east, after a row over human rights derailed plans for joint operations.
North Korea said on Monday it is not worried about a threat to refer the country to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, because it is not guilty and wants to attend a U.S. meeting on its rights situation to defend itself.
The United Nations Security Council on Sunday demanded Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen withdraw from government institutions, called for an end to foreign interference and threatened "further steps" if the violence does not stop.
Democratic Republic of Congo failed to meet a U.N. deadline to remove two generals accused of rights abuses and will now be formally notified that peacekeepers will not support its offensive against Rwandan rebels, a U.N. official said on Saturday.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has responded to overtures from U.S. President Barack Obama amid nuclear talks by sending him a secret letter, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
United Nations support for a planned military operation against Rwandan rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo could be in doubt because Congo named a general accused of rights abuses to head the offensive, diplomats and officials said on Friday.
Australia's highest court ruled on Wednesday that the detention of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka on the high seas for almost a month was lawful, a win for the government's tough immigration policy.
A doctor in Egypt was jailed on Monday for two years after the death of a 13-year-old girl on whom he performed genital mutilation (FGM), the first conviction since the practice was outlawed in 2008, the prosecutor said.
A parliament set up in Libya to rival the elected assembly has suspended U.N.-sponsored peace talks because of what it called fresh violence from the country's recognized government, a spokesman said on Wednesday.
Pope Francis said a huge open-air Mass for a rain-drenched crowd of millions in the Philippine capital on Sunday, after appealing to the world to "learn how to cry" over the plight of poor, hungry, homeless and abused children.
