MANILA, Philippines -- The Philippine envoy to Taiwan on Friday advised thousands of Filipino workers there to eat at home and avoid the streets while emotions run high on the island over...
CAIRO -- Dozens of disgruntled border policemen forced the closure of Egypt's main crossing point into the Gaza Strip on Friday to protest the abduction of their colleagues by suspected militants, underscoring the country's lawlessness and its crisis of authority two years since the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
LISBON, Portugal -- Portugal's Parliament has passed a law allowing same-sex married couples to adopt their partners' children, but lawmakers rejected legislation granting gay couples the same adoption rights as heterosexuals.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who took power in a 1976 coup and led a military junta that killed thousands of his fellow Argentines in a war to eliminate "subversives," died Friday while serving life sentences in prison for crimes against humanity.
MILAN -- The Moroccan woman at the center of a sex scandal involving former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has testified that a young woman attending one of Berlusconi's "bunga bunga" parties dressed up like a nun, danced provocatively and stripped down to her underwear for the then-premier at his in-house disco.
YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar's president pardoned at least 20 political prisoners on Friday, just ahead of an historic state visit to the United States that will highlight the two sides' improved relations brought about by the former pariah nation's democratic reforms.
BEIRUT -- Rights activists have found torture devices and other evidence of abuse in government prisons in the first Syrian city to come under the control of the opposition, Human Rights Watch said in a report Friday.
BASRA, Iraq -- Hundreds of Iraqis attended the Friday funeral in a southern city of two Shiite fighters killed in Syria. Several such funerals have been held in recent months, the latest sign that the conflict has taken on a sectarian regional dimension.
MANAMA, Bahrain -- A main opposition group in Bahrain says police have searched the home of the Gulf nation's most senior Shiite cleric, who has strongly sided with anti-government protesters.
RAFAH, Egypt -- An Egyptian security official says policemen at the country's main crossing point into the Gaza Strip have closed the border on their own initiative to protest the abduction of their colleagues.
JERUSALEM -- An Israeli defense official says the head of the American CIA spy agency has made an unannounced visit to Israel.
KINGSTON, Jamaica -- In a bid to safeguard biodiversity and the Caribbean's tourism-based economy, regional political leaders and corporate executives will gather Friday on billionaire Richard Branson's private island with the aim of protecting 20 percent of the region's coastal resources by 2020.
BERLIN -- Authorities in Germany are investigating the death of a Japanese chef following a fight with two customers who had complained about his food.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelans scrambled to stock up on toilet paper Thursday as fears of a bathroom emergency spread despite the socialist government's promise to import 50 million rolls.
UNITED NATIONS -- Armed men broke into a U.N. outpost in a buffer zone separating Israel and Syria and abducted three U.N military observers, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said Thursday.
KINGSTON, Jamaica -- A Jamaican woman has been charged with fraud after allegedly swindling an elderly Canadian man in a lottery scam.
BERLIN -- Germany and France recognize that their cooperation is key to overcoming Europe's persistent economic crisis, but comments Thursday by the leaders of the continent's No. 1 and 2 economies suggested they still have diverging priorities.
LONDON -- A British parliamentary committee recommended Friday that the government permit an expansion of Heathrow Airport, rather than allowing the construction of a new airport east of London.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Sitting on a dirty straw mat on the parched ground of southern Afghanistan, Masooma sank deeper inside a giant black shawl. Hidden from view, her words burst forth as she told her side of what happened to her family sometime before dawn on March 11, 2012.
TOKYO -- An outspoken Japanese mayor who outraged many with remarks about Japan's wartime and modern sexual services stood by his comments Thursday, but said he may have lacked "international sensitivity."