A French climber scaling a glacier off Mont Blanc got more than satisfaction for his efforts when he stumbled across a treasure trove of emeralds, rubies and sapphires.
Venezuela has arrested 22 people including eight military staff in a smuggling case in which 1.3 tons of cocaine were flown from Caracas to Paris on an Air France jet.
Britain on Wednesday gave an extra $160 million to help Syrian refugees as the European Union urged the UN Security Council to do more to ensure humanitarian access.
Lawmakers from Silvio Berlusconi's party threatened late Wednesday to resign en bloc if a senate committee votes to oust the former prime minister from parliament over a tax fraud conviction.
A French mother who held down her four-year-old son while he was raped by his stepfather in a prison visiting room was sentenced Wednesday to a maximum 20 years in jail.
Spain will stick to its path of austerity in 2014 with the government due to approve its draft budget for the year on Friday, subjecting pensioners and public workers to more cutbacks despite a slowly improving economy.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle welcomed a "new tone" from Tehran during a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif on Tuesday in New York.
Spain's King Juan Carlos underwent a hip-replacement operation Tuesday, his eighth operation in just three years, but this time with the spectacle of a naked protester outside his Madrid hospital.
Nine people are being held in France and Venezuela in connection with the seizure of 1.3 tonnes of cocaine stashed in suitcases on an Air France flight.
Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev has congratulated German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the victory of the Christian Democratic Union in the parliamentary elections.
Thousands of Romanians took to the streets on Sunday in a fourth week of protests against a Canadian company's plan to open Europe's largest gold mine in a picturesque Transylvanian village.