BEIJING -- A massive blast ripped through an explosives factory Monday in eastern China, killing at least 12 people and leaving others buried in the debris, state media reported.
ANKARA, Turkey -- Two hot air balloons collided mid-air during a sightseeing tour of volcanic rock formations in Turkey on Monday, causing one of them to crash to the ground, officials said. One Brazilian tourist was killed while 24 other people on board were injured.
BEIRUT -- Syrian troops pushed into a rebel-held town near the Lebanese border on Sunday, fighting house-to-house and bombing from the air as President Bashar Assad tried to strengthen his grip on a strategic strip of land running from the capital to the Mediterranean coast.
NEW DELHI -- Just weeks after a tense border standoff, China's new premier visited India on Sunday on his first foreign trip as the neighboring giants look to speed up efforts to settle a decades-old boundary dispute and boost economic ties.
KAIROUAN, Tunisia -- Around 11,000 police officers and soldiers blocked an annual conference Sunday at Tunisia's main religious center by a radical Islamist movement that has been implicated in attacks across the country, prompting clashes with angry youths that resulted in one death.
ACCRA, Ghana -- A rising star in Britain's Labour Party, described by some as the "British Barack Obama," Chuka Umunna urged the United Kingdom to more aggressively forge ties with West Africa's fast-growing economies.
CAIRO -- Seven men purported to be the members of Egypt's security forces kidnapped by suspected militants last week appeared in a video posted online Sunday and urged the government to secure their release by meeting their captors' demands.
BEIRUT -- Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won't step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics, raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war.
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Two bombs hidden in a motorcycle and a car exploded inside an elite gated community linked to the family of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday evening, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 70 near the southern city of Kandahar, an official said.
UNITED NATIONS -- A U.N. expert panel's report says North Korea is still trying to import and export nuclear and ballistic missile-related material but financial and trade sanctions are slowing progress on their prohibited weapons programs.
TORONTO -- A video purportedly of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack has caused an uproar in Canada. Ford called the allegations "ridiculous."
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Bombs that exploded outside two mosques in a village in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 15 people Friday, underlining the challenge of militant violence facing a new government set to take power under the leadership of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
BAGHDAD -- Bombs struck Sunni areas in Baghdad and surrounding areas Friday, killing at least 76 people in the deadliest day in Iraq in more than eight months, officials said, as a spike in violence has raised fears the country could be on the path to a new round of sectarian bloodshed.
BRUSSELS -- The small glass bottle filled, and refilled, with golden olive oil has long been a staple on many restaurant tables across Europe. Now, the European Union is going to ban it.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Bombs that exploded outside two mosques in a village in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 13 people Friday, underlining the challenge of militant violence facing a new government set to take power under the leadership of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
TOKYO -- An adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ended a visit to North Korea on Friday but would not give details of his talks with leaders in Pyongyang.
BEIRUT -- Rights activists visiting abandoned government prisons in the first Syrian city to come under rebel control have found torture devices and other evidence that detainees were abused there, Human Rights Watch said in a report Friday.
BEIJING -- Chinese authorities say rainstorms that battered southern China this week have killed 33 people and left 12 people missing.
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide car bombing tore through a U.S. convoy during rush hour in the Afghan capital on Thursday, killing at least 15 people, including six U.S. military advisers and two children, officials said. U.S. soldiers rushed to the scene to help, including some wearing only T-shirts or shorts under their body armor.
BEIRUT -- A Syrian activist group says rebels have withdrawn from a prison in the northern city of Aleppo after heavy fighting with government troops.
