Dalai Lama was honoured with an international human rights award in the Slovak capital on Wednesday for his promotion of human rights and his leadership in the nonviolent Tibetan freedom struggle.

The Sudanese government freed journalist Lubna Hussein after she was convicted of public indecency for wearing pants and refused to pay a fine. She says the government was "unnerved" by her presence in prison because she would report on conditions inside.

Construction of new Jewish housing in the West Bank has been approved by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ahead of a planned freeze, officials said.

Patches of white ash on parched earth are the latest markers of the Tanzanian government's efforts to evict indigenous Maasai cattle herders from their settlements in the name of conservation.

NATO troops released a kidnapped British reporter for the New York Times in northern Afghanistan in a commando raid before dawn on Wednesday, but his Afghan interpreter was killed

Two Norwegian men have been sentenced to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo after being convicted of murder.

ISTANBUL - Flash floods roared across a major highway and a commercial district in Istanbul on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people and forcing dozens to scramble

Sri Lankan authorities have ordered a senior United Nations official to leave the country over comments he made during the war with Tamil Tiger rebels. James Elder's visa has been cancelled over his "propaganda in support of the Tigers",

A ferry carrying nearly 1,000 passengers sank in the southern Philippines early Sunday, leaving at least five dead and more than 60 missing. The Superferry 9 began to list before dawn about nine miles (15 kilometers) off Zamboanga del Norte

A leading television channel aligned with Venezuela's opposition said Monday that it could be shut down amid a new investigation of alleged violations of broadcasting laws. Globovision TV -- the last major channel on Venezuela's regular airwaves