EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has warned of an alarming lack of progress in talks on Greece's bailout, as Germany raised the spectre of a tumultuous Greek exit from the euro.
Jeremy Clarkson, the controversial presenter of hit BBC programme "Top Gear", joked about his suspension as an online petition for him to be reinstated gathered more than half a million signatures.
Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut returned to Earth aboard a Soyuz space capsule after spending six months at the International Space Station.
Two years after Pope Francis swept into the Vatican vowing to shake up the Church, his opponents are playing a waiting game as they seek to put the brakes on his reform drive.
Britain's Prince William met China's Communist President Xi Jinping before strolling through the Forbidden City, the former home of the country's deposed imperial dynasties.
Tens of thousands of people marched in central Moscow to honour the memory of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was gunned down near the Kremlin in the highest-profile assassination of Vladimir Putin's rule.
Pope Francis denounced the "intolerable brutality" being inflicted on Christians and other minorities in Iraq and Syria by Islamic State group militants.