World News Headlines

CAIRO (Reuters) - Leaders of Muslim nations called on Thursday for a "serious dialogue" between Syria's government and an opposition coalition on a political transition to end nearly two years of civil war, but pinned most of the blame for the bloodshed on the state. A two-day summit of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic …

QUITO (Reuters) - Leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has maintained a huge lead over his nearest opposition rival in the run-up to the February 17 elections, recent polls show. Correa's popularity has remained above 50 percent throughout his six years in office, buoyed by his personal charisma as well as his government's …

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's parliament has approved a long-awaited anti-terrorism financing law two weeks ahead of a deadline which could have seen it expelled from an international watchdog, parliamentary officials said on Thursday. Turkey is on a "grey list" of countries drawn up by the 36-member Financial Action Task …

SEOUL (Reuters) - A famine in a key North Korean grain-growing region in 2012 may have killed thousands of people at the same time as the country was staging mass celebrations to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the state's founder, according to a news agency based in Japan. It was impossible to verify …

KIDAL, Mali (Reuters) - Around 1,000 troops from Chad led by the president's son advanced towards the mountains of northeast Mali on Thursday to join French search-and-destroy operations hunting Islamist jihadists. A column of 100 Chadian armored vehicles, jeeps and supply trucks rolled out of Kidal, the Saharan town 1,200 …

YEONCHEON, South Korea (Reuters) - As North Korea prepares a third nuclear test, South Korean soldiers on the world's most heavily armed border now have orders to shoot back immediately if they come under attack, a move that risks escalating any small-scale conflict. Stung by criticism three years ago of the time it took …

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Yemen has asked the U.N. Security Council to investigate a ship that Yemeni authorities said they seized with a cargo of Iranian-made missiles, rockets and other weapons, the U.N. envoy to the impoverished Mideast nation said Thursday.

CAIRO (AP) — One hardline Muslim cleric on an Egyptian TV station justified sexual assaults on women protesters. Others issued religious edicts saying opposition leaders must be killed. Television screeds by ultraconservative sheiks are raising fears of assassinations here a day after a top anti-Islamist politician was …

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — American proposals for direct talks with Iran are pointless while Washington is "holding a gun" to the country through sanctions, Iran's supreme leader said Thursday, quashing a possible breakthrough in contacts with the West over the nuclear standoff.

HONG KONG (AP) — For many of the richest people in Hong Kong, one of Asia's wealthiest cities, home is a mansion with an expansive view from the heights of Victoria Peak. For some of the poorest, like Leung Cho-yin, home is a metal cage.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Fawad Mohammadi has spent half his life peddling maps and dictionaries to foreigners on a street of trinket shops in Kabul. Now the 14-year-old Afghan boy with bright green eyes is getting ready for a trip down the red carpet at the Oscars.

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's prime minister faced uproar, derision and even lawsuits Thursday after he blamed health problems of babies in impoverished villages on nursing mothers who "out of ignorance" don't clean their breasts and talked of village women getting raped in the fields.

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — The powerful Soviet Union may still exist after all — at least on paper.

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia sank deeper into political crisis Thursday, as the ruling Islamist party rejected its own prime minister's decision to replace the government after the assassination of a leftist politician led to a wave of angry protests.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — In a country where one in four women is raped and where months-old babies and 94-year-old grandmothers are sexually assaulted, citizens are demanding action after a teenager was gang-raped, sliced open from her stomach to her genitals, and left for dead on a construction site last week.

BEIRUT (AP) — A video posted online purportedly shows Syrian soldiers taking a break from the country's civil war by bopping around to American R&B; star Usher's hit song "Yeah!"

With turmoil in Egypt and militias in Libya, Tunisia has stood out among Arab Spring peers for the comparative smoothness of its progress toward democracy. But now, a day after a politician’s murder plunged the country into crisis, Tunisian leaders are scrambling to keep things on track.

The imprisonment of a Somali journalist and the conviction of a rape victim who told him her story have raised a storm of international protest with critics claiming the cases fly in the face of promises from the country’s new government to safeguard human rights.