Slovenia's government won a confidence vote on Thursday over its efforts to avert an international bailout, even as the imminent cost of a bank clean-up risks tipping the euro zone country's finances over the edge.

Myanmar released 69 political prisoners on Friday in an amnesty the government described as an act of "loving kindness" in line with President Thein Sein's promise to free all prisoners of conscience by year-end.

The death toll from a powerful typhoon that swept the central Philippines nearly doubled overnight, reaching 4,000, as helicopters from a U.S. aircraft carrier and other naval ships began flying food, water and medical teams to ravaged regions.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino was under growing pressure on Thursday to speed up the distribution of food, water and medicine to desperate survivors of a powerful typhoon and to revive paralyzed local governments.

The killing of one of Pakistan's most wanted Islamic militants in a U.S. drone strike has exposed centuries-old rivalries within the group he led, the Pakistani Taliban, making the insurgency ever more unpredictable and probably more violent.

Deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said on Wednesday he was kidnapped by the Republican Guard and then held at a naval base the day before the military formally ousted him in July.

Desperation gripped Philippine islands devastated by Typhoon Haiyan as looting turned deadly on Wednesday and survivors panicked over delays in supplies of food, water and medicine, some digging up underground water pipes and smashing them open.

A U.S. aircraft carrier set sail for the Philippines on Tuesday to accelerate relief efforts after a typhoon killed an estimated 10,000 people in one coastal city alone, with fears the toll could rise sharply as rescuers reach more isolated towns.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif hit back at U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry late on Tuesday and blamed divisions between Western powers for the failure of talks over Tehran's disputed nuclear program in Geneva last week.

For many of Japan's oldest nuclear refugees, all they want is to be allowed back to the homes they were forced to abandon. Others are ready to move away, severing ties to the ghost towns that remain in the shadow of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear

Dazed survivors of a super typhoon that swept through the central Philippines killing an estimated 10,000 people begged for help and scavenged for food, water and medicine on Monday, threatening to overwhelm military and rescue resources.

The strongest typhoon in the world this year and possibly the most powerful ever to hit land battered the Philippines on Friday, forcing more than a million people to flee, cutting power lines and blowing apart houses.

Israel utterly rejects a mooted world powers deal with Iran aimed at ending a long-running row over its nuclear ambitions and will not be bound by such an accord, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday.

Global chemical weapons watchdog inspectors using footage from sealed cameras have verified one of two remaining sites declared by Syria, the organization said on Thursday.

The military commander of Congo's defeated M23 rebel movement, Sultani Makenga, has surrendered and is being held in Uganda at an undisclosed location, a senior Ugandan military officer told Reuters on Thursday.

Payments problems, chaos and corruption are hampering Libyan importers from making big deals to buy wheat, another setback as the country spins out of control two years after dictator Muammar Gaddafi was toppled by rebels and NATO warplanes.

When armed men appeared at a home in the northern Damascus district of Rukn al-Din, they told the elderly woman who answered the door they were state security forces carrying out a routine inspection.

U.N. nuclear agency chief Yukiya Amano plans to visit Tehran on November 11, Iranian state television reported on Tuesday.

Russia said on Tuesday Iran must be invited to a proposed peace conference on Syria, reiterating its stance after the main Syrian opposition leader said his coalition would not attend if Iran took part.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's M23 rebel group declared an end to its 20-month rebellion on Tuesday and said it was ready to disarm and demobilize troops and pursue a political solution to end the crisis in the east of the country.

Suspected Islamist militants fired on a convoy of people returning from a wedding party in northeastern Nigeria, killing 30 of them, including the groom, local government authorities said on Monday.

The trial of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi was adjourned on Monday, state media reported.

China's domestic security chief believes a fatal vehicle crash in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in which five died was planned by a Uighur separatist group, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and United Nations.

Indonesia summoned Australia's ambassador on Friday to explain media reports his embassy in Jakarta was used to snoop on Southeast Asia's biggest country as part of a U.S.-led global spying network.

An Israeli air strike killed three militants in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the Islamist group Hamas said, after an overnight clash left a fourth Palestinian gunman dead and five Israeli soldiers wounded.

International powers are unlikely to meet their goal of convening peace talks on Syria in Geneva next month as differences emerge between Washington and Moscow over opposition representation, Arab and Western officials said.

Chinese state media demanded severe punishment on Thursday for those behind what China has said is a holy war aimed at Beijing, which it has blamed on Islamist militants from the restive Xinjiang region.

Sheikh Mansour Hamid al-Imara clutches his prayer beads and watches a huge new oil facility nearing completion across the road from his village, hoping that Russian operator Lukoil will offer his poor tribesmen a better way of life.

A suicide bomber blew himself up on Wednesday in the Tunisian resort of Sousse without causing other casualties, and police seized a would-be suicide bomber at the tomb of former President Habib Bourguiba, security sources said.

Four Frenchmen held hostage in the Sahara desert by al Qaeda-linked gunmen for three years left Niger on a French government plane on Wednesday morning.