World

At least 22 foreign hostages remained unaccounted for on Friday after Algerian forces stormed a desert gas complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist gunmen.

Pakistan's interior minister on Wednesday warned an anti-government Muslim cleric and thousands of protesters camped out near parliament to disperse, saying they were at risk of attack by militants.

Heavy monsoon rain triggered severe flooding in large swathes of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Thursday, bringing the city to a halt with many government offices and businesses forced to close because staff could not get to work.

Islamist fighters have opened an international front in Mali's civil war by taking dozens of Western hostages at a gas plant in the Algerian desert just as French troops launched an offensive against rebels in neighboring Mali.

The United States is pushing hard for tough sanctions against North Korea, one of its top envoys for Asia said on Wednesday, although diplomats at the United Nations said it appeared unlikely that the North's ally, China, would support them.

Two explosions tore through one of Syria's biggest universities on the first day of student exams on Tuesday, killing 83 people and wounding dozens, a monitoring group said.

France pledged on Tuesday to keep troops in Mali until stability returned to the West African country, raising the specter of a long campaign against al Qaeda-linked rebels who held their ground despite a fifth day of air strikes.

Brazil is urging Venezuela's government to hold elections as quickly as possible if President Hugo Chavez dies, senior officials told Reuters on Monday, a major intervention by Latin America's regional powerhouse that could help ensure a smoother leadership transition in Caracas.

Pakistani security forces fired shots in the air on Tuesday to quell supporters of a populist Muslim cleric calling for the resignation of the beleaguered government while the interior minister dismissed his demands as unconstitutional.

West African defense chiefs will on Tuesday approve plans to speed up the deployment of African troops against Islamist rebels in northern Mali, with some regional soldiers seen arriving next week.

The chief of the United Nations nuclear agency said on Friday he was not optimistic about talks with Iran next week on getting access to a military base Western powers suspect is being used for atomic-weapons related work.

President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will hold a critical round of talks on Friday that could help determine how fast the United States withdraws troops from Afghanistan and whether it leaves a residual force after 2014.

President Barack Obama is slated to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday, the White House said in a statement, a meeting that comes as the United States tries to determine how quickly to draw down troops in Afghanistan after more than a dozen years of war.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rejected peace talks with his enemies on Sunday in a defiant speech that his opponents described as a renewed declaration of war.

A U.S. drone strike killed a key Taliban commander, his deputy and eight others in northwest Pakistan, intelligence sources and tribal leaders said Thursday, deaths that could substantially alter the power balance in the Taliban heartland of Waziristan.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is aware that his condition is complicated following a fourth cancer operation in Cuba, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday, as the OPEC nation watches for clues to the socialist leader's health.

The leaders of Sudan and South Sudan will meet on Friday to discuss how to improve border security and resume vital oil flows, both sides said on Tuesday as the feuding African neighbors signaled possible concessions.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is in stable condition and spent Monday with his daughters, the cancer-stricken leader's son in law said in an appeal for supporters to ignore rumors about his condition.

A top Afghan peace negotiator said he was cautiously optimistic about prospects for reconciliation with the Taliban and that all sides now realized a military solution to the war was not possible.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for an end to confrontation between the two Koreas, technically still at war in the absence of a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict, in a surprise New Year speech broadcast on state media.