The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility for killing four Jewish settlers in the West Bank in an attack that blighted a Middle East peace summit before it even began in Washington on September 1.

US President Barack Obama has signed an executive order mandating new financial sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), senior administration officials say.

Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Iraq on August 30 to participate in a ceremony marking the end of the U.S. combat mission there, according to the White House.

A mortar attack on the presidential palace in the Somali capital has killed at least four African Union peacekeepers and critically wounded nine others.

Thousands of Indonesians were evacuated from the slopes of a volcano on August 29 after it erupted for the first time in more than 400 years, spewing out lava and sending smoke and dust 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) into the air.

An Aboriginal man has won a seat in Australia's House of Representatives, becoming the first indigenous person to do so in the country's history.

President Barack Obama's message this weekend that Iraq would "chart its own course" may have been welcome news for war-weary Americans, but it has fueled anxieties about the future among Iraqis.

A wave of bomb attacks has hit the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, where police are investigating the mass killing of 72 migrants.

A Venezuelan military helicopter crashed, killing 10 National Guard soldiers who were chasing suspected drug traffickers in a region close to the border with Colombia, an officer said on August 28.

Madagascar's exiled former president has been sentenced to life in prison with hard labour for ordering the killing of opposition supporters.