World

Argentina's last dictator, Reynaldo Bignone, 82, was Tuesday sentenced to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of ordering torture and illegal detentions during his 1982-1983 rule.

UNESCO is calling on its member states to ”reaffirm and implement their international commitments to guarantee and promote freedom of information”.

European governments opened the continent's airspace to new flights from Tuesday giving hope to passengers around the world trapped by the cloud of volcano ash that has grounded airlines there.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has approved the sites for new uranium enrichment plants in Iran, a close aide to the hardliner said on Monday, but the United States cast doubt on the claim.

Relief supplies poured into a remote Tibetan region in northwest China Monday as two women and a girl were rescued from the rubble more than five days after a quake that killed more than 2,000.

Shashi Tharoor, a former top UN diplomat who became a prominent minister with a large Twitter following, has resigned over allegations of corruption in India's lucrative premier cricket league.

EU transport ministers were to hold a video conference Monday on the volcanic ash cloud blowing across Europe, which has left millions of passengers stranded around the globe.

Airlines urged a re-think of flight restrictions as a volcanic ash cloud made Europe a virtual no-fly zone for a fourth straight day Sunday with nearly seven million passengers affected.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq is rigging houses and shops with explosives in a new tactic that has killed and maimed civilians in recent weeks and defied the thousands of security forces in Baghdad, officials say.

Pope Benedict XVI wept as he met Maltese victims of the paedophile priest scandals rocking the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday and expressed his own "shame and sorrow".

Iran is hosting a two-day nuclear disarmament conference in Tehran starting on Saturday that will be attended by several foreign ministers and UN representatives.

Satire and ridicule can help win the fight against Al-Qaeda by stripping it of its glamour and mystique, a team of researchers argue in a report released in London and in comments to AFP .

The death toll from a strong quake that rocked a remote Tibetan region of China surged past the 1,000 mark on Friday, as tonnes of food, clothes and other vital supplies started pouring in.

Air travellers were facing at least two days of delays after a huge cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano provoked the most extensive shutdown of airspace since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Thai security forces surrounded a hotel Friday where leaders of the "Red Shirt" protest movement were holed up, but failed to make any arrests after the suspects fled, officials said.

Pakistani authorities could have prevented the 2007 murder of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto and deliberately failed to properly investigate her death, a UN-appointed independent panel said.

Britain's party leaders clashed Thursday in a first-ever live pre-election TV debate, but there was no killer blow -- although the head of the third party emerged as a clear winner.

A violent volcanic eruption in Iceland spewed clouds of ash into the air for a second day Thursday, blanketing large parts of the Nordic country in the potentially toxic dust and disrupting air traffic across northern Europe.

Who were the shadowy gunmen firing on troops in Bangkok's bloody
riots last weekend, and who fired the grenades?

Six major powers wrapped up what they said was a "very constructive" meeting on fresh UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but diplomats cautioned against expecting early adoption.

Six major powers wrapped up what they said was a "very constructive" meeting on fresh UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but diplomats cautioned against expecting early adoption.

Poland faced a spiralling row Thursday over a decision to bury president Lech Kaczynski in a castle alongside past kings, a move that has sparked protests and cracked the grieving nation's unity.

Rescue workers were Thursday digging through rubble as they struggled to reach survivors of a quake in a remote region of northwest China which killed nearly 600 people and injured 10,000.

Thailand's "Red Shirts" prepared Wednesday to escalate their anti-government protest, ending an uneasy calm and sparking fears of a return to the worst civil unrest in two decades that left 21 dead.