Japan's government on Friday approved a plan to help Tokyo Electric Power compensate victims of the crisis at its tsunami-crippled nuclear plant and save Asia's largest utility from financial collapse.

NATO on Thursday dismissed media reports that a NATO air strike damaged the embassy of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in Tripoli.

Visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged additional US$500 million to the war-torn Afghanistan on Thursday.

The death toll from a suicide bombing at a northwest Pakistan paramilitary force academy on Friday, the first major attack by suspected militants since Osama bin Laden was killed in the country on May 2, has climbed to at least 69, a police official said.

Police in New York City have arrested two men suspected of plotting terror attacks on the Empire State Building and a synagogue, it was announced here on Thursday.

President Barack Obama has a wide lead over potential Republican rivals for the presidential election in 2012, but faces serious doubts about his handling of the U.S. economy, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Wednesday.

A rare earthquake rocked the ancient town of Lorca in southeastern Spain on Wednesday causing homes to collapse, damaging historic churches and killing at least 10 people.

Four explosions in quick succession rocked Tripoli on Thursday morning as jets flew overhead, after Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi appeared on state TV for the first time in almost two weeks.

Pressing to break a two-month siege, rebels in the port city of Misrata said they had captured the local airport and pushed Muammar Gaddafi's forces ever further from the city's western outskirts.

Syrian tanks shelled residential districts in two towns on Wednesday and at least 19 people were killed across the country, rights campaigners said, as President Bashar al-Assad's forces fought to crush a seven-week uprising.