Evidence now suggests that a bomb planted by the Islamic State militant group is the likely cause of last weekend's crash of a Russian airliner over Egypt's Sinai peninsula, US and European security sources said on November 4.

Russia does not see keeping Bashar al-Assad in power as a matter of principle, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said on November 3 in comments that suggested a divergence of opinion with Iran, the Syrian president's other main international backer.

A gunman on a motorbike shot dead a Pakistani journalist in the country's restive northwest on November 3 and hours later the Taliban claimed the killing, bringing to 71 the number of journalists and media workers killed in Pakistan since 2002.

Thousands of people protested across Romania on November 3, demanding cabinet resignations as the death toll from a nightclub fire reached 32, with dozens more people in hospital critically hurt.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold talks with his Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore on November 7 in the first such meeting of leaders from the two rivals since the Chinese civil war ended in 1949.

The Russian plane that crashed in Egypt was not struck from the outside and the pilot did not make a distress call before it disappeared from radar, a source in the committee analyzing the flight recorders said on November 2.

The US Navy plans to conduct patrols within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands in the East Sea about twice a quarter to remind China and other countries about US rights under international law, a US defense official said on November 2.

Eleven migrants including six infants drowned when their boat capsized off the Greek island of Samos, trapping most of them in the cabin, the coast guard said on November 1.

Islamic State fighters drove Syrian government forces from a western town on November 1, a monitoring group reported, as fighting escalated despite a flurry of diplomatic activity and talks between regional rivals.

Turkey's Islamist-rooted AK Party swept to an unexpected victory in elections on November 1, returning the country to single-party rule in an outcome that will boost the power of President Tayyip Erdogan but may sharpen deep social divisions.