Wire World News

Close allies of Toronto Mayor Rob's Ford say they will release a letter that urges the mayor to address a purported video that apparently shows him smoking crack cocaine.

A security official says al-Qaida gunmen attacked a military position in a southern province, touching off fighting that left three militants and two soldiers dead.

An American man accused of killing his uncle, aunt and cousins in the Czech Republic was arrested after fleeing to the United States.

Ecuador's Rafael Correa is starting a third term as president under seemingly ideal conditions: extremely high popularity, a more than two-thirds majority in Congress, a stable economy and a badly splintered opposition.

World stocks edged lower on Friday, a day after markets around the world dropped sharply on concerns global growth is slowing and the Federal Reserve could start scaling back its monetary stimulus.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is in Switzerland to sign a free trade pact with the Alpine nation - the first comprehensive agreement the country has reached with a major western economy.

An advocacy group says patients at Kenya's only psychiatric hospital are often confined and immobilized using drugs that put them into a comatose-like state, factors that could have led to the recent escape of 40 male patients.

Two men were arrested on suspicion of endangering an aircraft Friday after a U.K. fighter jet was scrambled to divert their plane as it traveled from Pakistan to Britain, officials said. The incident further rattled the U.K. just days after a British soldier was brutally killed on a London street in a suspected terror attack.

The French government is trying to woo executives and entrepreneurs, amid concerns that it has antagonized the businesses needed to reinvigorate the economy.

A look at legislation passed in Turkey's parliament early Friday that would ban all alcohol advertising and tighten restrictions on the sale of such beverages, and how such a law could affect tourists and liquor companies in the mainly Muslim but secular country.

The U.N. nuclear agency responsible for probing whether Iran has worked on a nuclear bomb depends on the United States and its allies for most of its intelligence, complicating the agency's efforts to produce findings that can be widely accepted by the international community.

In a story May 21 about U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visiting Mozambique, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Mozambique became independent in 1974, instead of 1975.

A suicide bomber struck in the heart of the Afghan capital on Friday, sending a plume of smoke over Kabul in the second major attack in the city in little over a week, police said. The explosion was followed by an hours-long gunbattle in the central district.

An Egyptian security official says 10 male relatives have killed a mother and her two daughters on suspicion of moral offenses - so-called "honor killings."

A Zimbabwean human rights activist says he wants the nation's highest court to order prison authorities to ensure suspects in jail can receive their life-prolonging HIV/AIDS medications.

The U.S. Embassy says an American diplomat accidentally killed a pedestrian while driving in the Pakistani capital.

With the help of French special forces, Niger's military on Friday killed the last two jihadists holed up inside a dormitory on the grounds of a military garrison in the desert town of Agadez, and freed at least two soldiers who had been held hostage by the extremists, according to French and Nigerien officials.

Switzerland's top negotiator in talks to resolve disputes over tax evasion with Europe and the U.S. is stepping down.

The European Union's arms embargo to Syria should be extended while a political solution is sought in its civil war and to maintain the safety of U.N. peacekeepers in the Golan Heights, Austria's foreign minister said Friday.

The European Union has approved restrictions on three pesticides to better protect dwindling bee populations, to enter into force by December.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged Israel's government on Friday to prevent further settlement construction where possible to help revitalize Middle East peace hopes, but stressed that the Jewish state and Palestinians alike should remain focused on the larger goal of restarting direct negotiations.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry harshly criticized Iranian authorities on Friday for eliminating hundreds of presidential candidates, suggesting that Tehran is standing in the way of legitimate, representative democracy.

The slaying of a British soldier in southeast London cast a spotlight on radical preachers that influenced Michael Adebolajo, the attacker seen in videos with bloody hands holding a butcher knife. It also raised questions about the reach of the terrorist group al-Shabab, after a British government official said one of the two men tried to go to Somalia to train or fight with the group. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the police investigation.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in Myanmar on Friday on the first visit to the country by a Japanese leader in 36 years, as Tokyo bids to reassert its position as a top economic partner after decades of frosty relations with the previous military regime.

Police say a suicide bomber walked up to a vehicle owned by an Afghan religious leader in northwestern Pakistan and set off his explosives, killing three people.

A senior American official on Friday praised India for reducing oil imports from Iran and said the U.S. government will decide soon on New Delhi's request to renew a waiver from sanctions on Tehran.

The price of oil was knocked below $94 a barrel Friday by a combination of ample supplies and lukewarm demand.

A top North Korean envoy delivered a letter from leader Kim Jong Un to Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday and told him Pyongyang would take steps to rejoin stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament talks, in an apparent victory for Beijing's efforts to coax its unruly ally into lowering tensions.

Silvio Berlusconi's figure looms large over Rome's mayoral elections this weekend, even though the former premier isn't among the 19 candidates running.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni fired his top military commander Friday, the ouster apparently linked to turmoil over Museveni's alleged plan to have his son succeed him as head of state.

An American man accused of killing a family of four in the Czech Republic has been arrested in the United States, police said Friday.

The 25,000 people at the soccer stadium and the millions more watching at home waited 90 minutes before the Australian evangelical preacher got to the message he had come to Communist-ruled Vietnam to deliver.

President Barack Obama's speech on the use of drones and the fate of Guantanamo prisoners was largely welcomed Friday in two key countries affected by the policies- Pakistan and Yemen.

France's president says his country must fight harder against terrorists in Africa, after two suicide bombings apparently staged by extremists angry over the French military intervention in Mali.

A British Airways jet made an emergency landing at London's Heathrow Airport Friday after developing a technical problem after takeoff. TV footage showed smoke streaming from one of the engines.

The Syrian government has agreed to a conference on the country's future proposed by Russia and the United States, Russia's foreign ministry said Friday

Turkey's parliament has passed legislation to ban all advertising of alcohol and tighten restrictions on sales in the mainly Muslim but secular country.

A powerful earthquake on Friday hit Russia's Far East with tremors felt as far away as Moscow, about 7,000 kilometers (4,400 miles) west of the epicenter.

South Korean police say a suicidal man jumping to his death killed a 5-year-old girl by falling on her as she walked with her parents outside the apartment building.

Japan's All Nippon Airways, the launch customer for Boeing's 787 "Dreamliner," will resume commercial flights of the aircraft on Sunday, just over four months after the jets were grounded due to smoldering batteries.

The price of oil was knocked lower Friday by a combination of ample supplies and lukewarm demand.

Five climbers including two Hungarians and a South Korean are missing on the world's third-highest mountain and feared dead, a mountaineering official said Friday.

Four Indian army soldiers and a suspected rebel were killed in fighting in the Indian portion of Kashmir on Friday, officials said.

Two Korean former sex slaves demanded the resignation of an outspoken Japanese mayor and canceled a meeting with him Friday for justifying Japan's wartime practice of forcing tens of thousands of Asian women into prostitution for its military.

Canada said Thursday that it is considering retaliatory measures against the United States in a dispute over meat-labeling rules that Ottawa and the World Trade Organization consider discriminatory.

Syria’s political opposition met Thursday in Istanbul to elect new leadership, choose a government-in-exile and deliberate on a negotiating stance for peace talks, but it hit a controversy when the immediate past president of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, a Muslim cleric who no longer holds any post in the group, presided over the opening session and released a surprise peace initiative without consulting the group.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said it was "imperative" that Europe's leaders create a new agency with powers to restructure busted banks in order to help the region leave its economic and financial crisis behind it once and for all.

Brazil's Federal Police say nine people have been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing Indians girls in the northern state of Amazonas.

Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, will certainly lose his job in September – and like his predecessor, retired Gen. Pervez Musharraf, he’s likely to face criminal charges under the government of newly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The Syrian government has agreed "in principle" to attend a conference proposed by Russia and the United States on ending the country's civil war, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Friday, the first confirmation that President Bashar Assad's regime would be willing to take part in the talks with the opposition.