Leaders from the 75-nation Francophonie were to begin their biennial summit Friday in DR Congo, a country that encapsulates Africa's many woes but also its growing stake in a body searching for a raison d'etre.
India's favourite film star Amitabh Bachchan turned 70 on Thursday, marking his birthday with a lavish celebrity party and drawing hundreds of fans to cheer their hero outside his home.
Costa Rica has banned the import of shark fins, closing a legal loophole and targeting a link in a global production chain stretching to Asian markets, where shark fin soup is seen as a delicacy.
Astronomers using a powerful Chile-based telescope on Wednesday released a rare image of a spiral shell of cosmic dust and gas surrounding a red giant star.
Turkey seized "objectionable cargo" aboard a Syrian passenger plane which it intercepted en route from Moscow to Damascus on Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
The leaders of France and Spain vowed concerted action on the eurozone as they met on Wednesday amid IMF calls for new measures to control the debt crisis threatening the global economy.
For the recent 15 years the oil shipment capacities have grown fourfold and the Company is responsible for transportation of 60% of all the crude produced in Kazakhstan.
Two teenage gang rape victims said they had seen a "judicial shipwreck" after a French court acquitted 10 youths and handed down light sentences to four others.
With just hours to go before the Nobel Literature Prize laureate is announced in Stockholm, speculation has hit fever pitch with Canada's Alice Munro and Japan's Haruki Murakami often cited as possible winners.
A member of the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot freed unexpectedly from prison on Wednesday vowed defiantly hours later that the group's protest actions would continue.
President Hugo Chavez vowed Tuesday to keep supporting Bashar al-Assad, calling him Syria's legitimate president and blaming the United States for the war that has raged on for nearly 19 months.
The alleged filmmaker behind the video that sparked violent protests across the Muslim world is due to appear in court again on Wednesday in a separate case, officials said.
