Niger's security forces have arrested more than 100 people in the Sahara desert who were trying to illegally cross the country's northern border into neighboring Algeria, security sources said April 25.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned on April 25 the execution of a Canadian hostage by Abu Sayyaf militants in the Philippines, calling it "an act of cold-blooded murder."

After weeks stranded at a closed border in northern Greece, migrants and refugees are seeking out new, irregular routes to get into Macedonia, clambering through forests and over hills under the cover of darkness.

Rockets pounded the Turkish town of Kilis near the Syrian border on April 24, a Reuters witness reported, killing one person and injuring 26, a day after the government promised to protect the area from repeated attacks by Islamic State militants.

President Barack Obama will announce on April 24 he plans to send as many as 250 additional U.S. troops to Syria, a sharp increase in the American presence working with local Syrian forces fighting Islamic State militants, U.S. officials said.

A trade deal between Britain and the United States could take five to 10 years to negotiate if Britain votes to leave the European Union at a June 23 referendum, US President Barack Obama told the BBC in an interview broadcast on April 24.

Germany is seeking the creation of "safe zones" to shelter refugees in Syria, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on April 23, an idea Turkey has long championed in the face of UN caution.

At least 12 people were killed on April 23 in two separate car bomb attacks in Baghdad targeting security forces, police sources said.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile off its east coast on April 23, the Republic of Korea (RoK) said, amid concerns that the isolated state might conduct a nuclear test or a missile launch ahead of a ruling party meeting in May.

Panamanian investigators on April 22 raided a property used by Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the center of a massive leak of offshore financial data, removing bags full of shredded documents as evidence, a local prosecutor said.