Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro emerged from seclusion on April 19 to muse about death and provide encouragement to his followers, in a rare speech at the closing of a Communist Party congress in Havana.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is unlikely to call a snap election after deadly earthquakes on southern Kyushu island and may postpone ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement until the next session of parliament, the Sankei newspaper reported on April 20.

Russian and NATO envoys are unlikely to ease the worst tensions since the Cold War very much when they meet on April 20 in their highest-level talks on security in almost two years.

Syrian peace talks appeared all but doomed on April 19 after air strikes killed about 40 people in a crowded vegetable market in rebel territory, with the opposition saying a truce was finished and it would keep out of negotiations indefinitely.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on April 19 discussed ways of ensuring that last year's historic nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers is implemented the way it was originally envisioned.

The death toll from a Taliban attack on a government security agency's building in the Afghan capital on April 19 has risen to at least 28, the Kabul police chief said, with more than 320 wounded.

Syrian peace talks came close to collapse on April 18, with the mainstream opposition announcing a pause in talks at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, although it agreed to keep its negotiating team in the city.

The United States will send more troops to Iraq and will put them closer to the front lines of battle there to advise Iraqi forces in the war against Islamic State militants. 

Touring a city ravaged by the earthquake that killed at least 413 people, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on April 18 contemplated a rebuilding costing billions of dollars and a potentially "huge" impact on the fragile OPEC economy.

The United States will respond strongly in the case of a further Democratic People's Republic of Korean (DPRK) nuclear test, US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on April 18.