US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on April 27 in New York, a senior State Department official said on April 26.

The United States will send disaster response and rescue teams to Nepal and has authorized an initial US$1 million in aid after a major earthquake killed hundreds in the mountainous Asian nation, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on April 25.

Nepal ramped up efforts on April 25 to rescue people trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings after an earthquake devastated the heavily crowded Kathmandu valley, killing at least 1,800, and triggered a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest.

ASEAN senior officials convened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on April 25 for preparatory meetings for the upcoming 26th ASEAN Summit. 

A shallow earthquake measuring 7.9 magnitude struck west of the ancient Nepali capital of Kathmandu on April 25 causing buildings to collapse, injuring many and leaving a pall of dust over the city, witnesses said.

The Statue of Liberty was declared safe on April 24 after a bomb scare forced the evacuation of thousands of tourists from the New York Harbor landmark, the National Parks Service said.

The formation of the ASEAN Community by the end of this year will be the top priority at the 26th ASEAN Summit, which will take place in Kuala Lumpur and on Langkawi Island, Kedah state, from April 26-27. 

Fighting between Yemen's warring factions raged in southern and central parts of the country and air strikes hit Houthi militia forces in Aden on April 25, but there were no fresh moves toward dialogue.

US Under Secretary Wendy Sherman and Tehran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met in Vienna on April 23 in the latest push to secure a final nuclear deal by a June 30 deadline, Iranian media said.

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.

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 Senior Officials Meeting (SOM), part of the 60th Asian-Africa Conference (AAC), opened at the Jakarta Convention Centre in Indonesia on April 19.

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.

Thousands of people marched on streets in Europe on April 19 in protest against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a planned free trade deal between Europe and the United States.

As many as 700 people are feared dead after a boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast overnight, in one of the worst disasters seen in the Mediterranean migrant crisis, officials said on April 19.

Yemen's government has rejected a four-point peace plan for the country that Iran submitted to the United Nations, a spokesman said on April 18.

Pakistan looks forward to being upgraded into an ASEAN full dialogue partner during Malaysia's chairmanship of the regional grouping this year, said a senior Pakistani official.

A suicide bomb blast in Afghanistan's eastern city of Jalalabad killed 33 people and injured more than 100 outside a bank where government workers collect salaries, the city's police chief said on April 18.

Iran's foreign minister on April 17 submitted a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon outlining a four-point peace plan for Yemen, where Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have been targeted for three weeks by Saudi-led air strikes.

The race to become the 45th US President in 2016 is heating up. To appear on the ballot for the general election in 2006, announced candidates must first vie with each other to become the representative of their party.

A car bomb killed three people on April 17 outside the US consulate in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region, a ally of Washington in the war against Islamic State, which claimed the attack.

ASEAN is committed to joining efforts to ensure the elimination of sexual violence and enhance the role of women in peace processes and international and regional security, Ambassador Nguyen Phuong Nga, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the United Nations, has said.

Yemen's newly-appointed Vice President Khaled Bahah said on April 16 he hoped to avert a Saudi-led invasion to restore unity to the country.

The US military option to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and encourage a diplomatic solution, remains intact despite Russia's decision to deliver its S-300 missile defense system to Tehran, the top US general said on April 16.