Four days after up to 900 desperate people drowned trying to reach Europe from Libya, EU leaders agreed on April 23 to triple its naval search mission in the Mediterranean, restoring its funding to last year's level.

A US drone strike in January targeting an al Qaeda compound in Pakistan near the Afghan border inadvertently killed an American and an Italian who had been held hostage for years by the group, US officials said on April 23.

The Republic of Korea said on April 22 it will raise the Sewol ferry that sank a year ago, killing more than 300 people, most of them children, yielding to pressure from mourning families who have called for a deeper investigation into the disaster.

Saudi-led coalition warplanes bombed Yemen on April 22 despite an announcement by Riyadh that it was ending its campaign of air strikes, while renewed fighting erupted on the ground between rebels and forces loyal to the exiled president.

Vietnam is changing rules to allow foreign investors bigger stakes in local banks in its latest move to rebuild a financial sector battered by bad debt, according to the country's prime minister.

Saudi Arabia announced on April 21 it was ending a month-long campaign of air strikes against the Houthi rebels who seized large areas of Yemen and said it would back a political solution to bring peace to its war-ravaged neighbor.

The Republic of Korea's Prime Minister, who has denied an allegation that he took illegal funds from a businessman who committed suicide, has offered to resign, Yonhap news agency said on April 21.

The European Union proposed doubling the size of its Mediterranean search and rescue operations on April 20, as the first bodies were brought ashore of as many as 900 people feared killed in the deadliest known shipwreck of migrants trying to reach Europe.

The US Navy has sent an aircraft carrier and a guided-missile cruiser into the waters near Yemen, officials said on April 20, heightening the US maritime security presence as concerns mount over Yemen's escalating conflict.

A video purportedly made by Islamic State and posted on social media sites on April 19 appeared to show militants shooting and beheading about 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya.