Italy has granted political refugee status to the family of a Kazakh tycoon, who is in prison in France fighting an extradition order from Russia and Ukraine where he is wanted for massive fraud, lawyers said.
A strong 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck off Papua New Guinea's Bougainville Island Saturday but there was no risk of a widespread tsunami, seismologists said.
Haruki Murakami's first collection of short stories in nine years hit the shelves in Japan on Friday with some excited fans queuing for the midnight launch.
Oscar-winning actress, comedienne and talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg sang the praises of marijuana inhaled through a pocket vaporizer on Thursday as she made her debut as an online pot columnist.
Interethnic relations are not a field for political games, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev stated in his speech at the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan.
Iran's crude oil exports have hit 1.2 million barrels per day, almost doubling from eight months ago when the country elected a new president, a top government official said.
A citrus disease spread by a tiny insect has devastated Florida's orange crop, which is expected to be the worst in nearly 30 years, and sent juice prices soaring on New York markets.
Clashes in Algeria's restive Kabylie region between security forces and youths opposed to Thursday's presidential election wounded around 70 people, local sources said.
Prominent Israeli crime boss Charlie Abutbul was found dead on Thursday at his home near Tel Aviv, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, public radio said.
British hate preacher Abu Hamza was a "global exporter" of violence and terrorism intent on waging war against non-Muslims, prosecutors said Thursday as the Egyptian-born cleric's trial opened in New York.
A fourth US Navy officer has been charged with leaking information to a foreign defense contractor in exchange for cash and other gifts in a widening bribery scandal, officials said Thursday.
America's former first daughter Chelsea Clinton announced in New York on Thursday that she is pregnant with her first baby, giving her parents Bill and Hillary a long-awaited grandchild.
Peruvian authorities began evacuating 4,000 people Thursday from villages near a volcano that has seen significantly increased activity, spewing smoke and ash.
Thousands of people flocked to rural fields in the Philippines on Friday to witness the gruesome spectacle of men being crucified in their annual Easter re-enactment of the death of Jesus Christ.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel-winning Colombian author who used magical realism to tell epic stories of love, family and dictatorship in Latin America, died Thursday at the age of 87.
