The United States said on May 29 that thousands of vulnerable migrants adrift in Southeast Asian seas needed urgent rescue, as countries gathered in Bangkok to discuss the regional crisis.

A heat wave in India has killed more than 1,100 people this week as temperatures soar above 47 Celsius (116.6 Fahrenheit), and doctors' leave has been canceled to help cope with the sick.

Greece's government on May 27 said it is starting to draft an agreement with creditors that would pave the way for aid, but European officials quickly dismissed that as wishful thinking.

The world's most popular sport was plunged into turmoil on May 27 as seven senior soccer officials were arrested on US corruption charges and faced extradition from Switzerland, whose authorities also announced a criminal investigation into the awarding of the next two World Cups.

Iraq's Shi'ite paramilitaries said on May 26 they had taken charge of the campaign to drive Islamic State from the western province of Anbar, giving the operation an openly sectarian codename that could infuriate its Sunni Muslim population.

Malaysian police forensic teams, digging with hoes and shovels, on May 26 began pulling out bodies from shallow graves found in abandoned jungle camps where an inter-governmental body said hundreds of victims of human traffickers may be buried.

Greece intends to make good on its debt obligations but needs aid urgently to be able to do so, the government said on May 25.

President Barack Obama heralded the first US Memorial Day in 14 years without a major ground war in an annual ceremony of remembrance on May 25 for fallen American forces.

Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations will discuss recent foreign exchange movements when they meet in Germany this week, a senior Canadian official said on May 25.

Sweden's Mans Zelmerlow won the final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna on May 24, beating Russia and Italy in the world's biggest international music show.