Armenia and Azerbaijan have each accused the other of beginning an exchange of fire around the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region that resulted in deaths on both sides.

Human rights groups and opposition politicians in Thailand are criticizing the government for forcibly repatriating three men who were reportedly members of an anti-government resistance movement in military-ruled Myanmar.

A spate of killings in Chile spurred lawmakers to swiftly pass new legislation giving police greater protections. The government said that $1.5bn in additional security spending, along with new laws to combat organized crime and drug trafficking, which were signed last Thursday, will aid the fight against the rising violence.

But human rights groups have said one of the laws, which gives police more leeway to use force when their lives are under threat, could increase police abuses and put more people at risk. Critics have dubbed it the “quick trigger” law.

Women and children have been raped and subjected to other abuses during a mass expulsion of migrant workers from Angola to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a doctor, officials, and the United Nations say.

Saudi officials were in Yemen’s capital Sunday for talks with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, as part of international efforts to find a settlement to Yemen’s nine-year conflict, officials said.

A vessel with around 400 migrants and refugees onboard is adrift between Italy and Malta as it awaits rescue from Italian coastguard, according to sea rescue support service Alarm Phone.

Dozens of Russian journalists and rights activists on Monday called on the authorities to free a prominent opposition politician facing up to 25 years in jail for alleged treason and other charges which they said were politically motivated.

Afghan religious scholars Saturday criticized a ban on female education, as a key Taliban minister warned clerics not to rebel against the government on the controversial issue.

Fierce fighting between the Myanmar military and armed ethnic rebels has forced about 5,000 people to flee across the country's border into Thailand this week, officials and media said on Thursday.

Honduras' government on Friday extended until late May emergency powers that suspend some constitutional rights, part of an anti-gang push implemented by leftist President Xiomara Castro in the Central American country's largest cities.