AFP, ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his celebrated rhetorical skills to save a life on Friday, preventing a man from jumping off Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge. The man was apparently preparing to jump to his death when Erdogan’s motorcade was passing over the bridge…

AFP, TEHRAN: More than 12,000 candidates have signed up for Iranian parliamentary elections due in February, the most since the Islamic revolution in 1979, official media said Saturday. The number of people who registered to stand before a Friday deadline was up nearly 100 percent compared with the…

AP, United Nations: When international negotiators reached a first-of-its kind climate change agreement in Paris this month, the United Nations’ normally low-key leader, Ban Ki-moon, celebrated onstage, arms raised in victory and more exuberant than many had ever seen him before. Nearly nine years…

AFP, MIAMI:  At the start of the Cuban revolution, Javier Llorens was one of thousands of children who left the island unaccompanied for the United States, thinking it would be temporary. He is now 64 -- and is still in the United States. Like many of the Cuban children who headed to America as…

The world’s most obese man has died at the age of 38, passing away on the morning of Christmas Day while on his way to hospital, reports The Telegraph.…

AFP, WASHINGTON: Arson is suspected in a fire that broke out at former US president Bill Clinton’s birthplace early Friday morning, damaging the historical site, police said. “It’s pretty logical it was purposely set,” J.R. Wilson, the police chief in Hope, Arkansas, told AFP.…

AFP, MADRID: African migrants rioted in a southern Spanish beach city on Friday, setting fire to garbage bins and cars, after a man from Guinea-Bissau was stabbed to death, local officials said. Manolo Garcia, a city councillor in Roquetas del Mar in the province of Almeria, said the killing of the…

AFP, KABUL: A 6.3-magnitude earthquake centred in the Hindu Kush jolted Afghanistan and Pakistan late Friday, leaving dozens of people injured just two months after a killer quake struck the same mountainous region. The tremor hit at a depth of 203.5 kilometres (126 miles), the US Geological Survey…

AFP, ADEN: Assailants shot dead a senior Yemeni intelligence officer in Marib city east of the capital Sanaa on Friday, a security source said. Commander Jarallah Salhi was gunned down in the centre of the city controlled by forces loyal to the government in the conflict against Iran-backed Shiite Huthi…

AFP, KATHMANDU: Nepal has appointed a new chief for its reconstruction authority which will allow the body to finally start rebuilding and disbursing aid after April’s massive earthquake, officials said Saturday. Months of political bickering over leadership of the body had paralysed reconstruction,…

AFP, BAGHDAD: Iraqi forces on Saturday clashed with diehard jihadists from the Islamic State group defending the former government complex in the heart…

AFP, MELBOURNE: A bushfire which flared on Christmas Day has destroyed more than 100 homes in southern Australia, officials said Saturday, as they warned the losses could have been worse. The blaze hit two towns southwest of Melbourne, Wye River and Separation Creek, where many of the 116 houses lost…

AFP, DAMASCUS: A plan to evacuate thousands of jihadist fighters and civilians from three besieged districts of Syria’s capital was on hold Saturday, a day after an air strike killed a rebel leader. Zahran Alloush, 44, was the commander of the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) movement, the predominant…

AFP, JERUSALEM: A man allegedly tried to stab an Israeli police officer on Saturday near Jerusalem’s Old City and was killed, a police spokeswoman said. “Police officers spotted a man who aroused their suspicions and approached him to check,” she said. “The terrorist pulled out…

AFP, BEIJING: China confirmed the imminent expulsion of a French journalist in the first such case since 2012, accusing her of “flagrantly championing” terrorist acts in a statement on its foreign ministry’s website Saturday. Ursula Gauthier, a Beijing-based correspondent for French…

AFP, AJACCIO, France: Demonstrators ransacked a Muslim prayer hall and set fire to copies of the Koran on the French island of Corsica Friday, police…