WARSAW, Poland (AP) - A two-day security conference in Warsaw was supposed to be a crowning achievement for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stamping a seal on his long-held goal of pushing his behind-the-scenes ties with Arab leaders into the open. Instead, the publicity-seeking Israeli leader made one embarrassing misstep after another, distracting attention from his main mission and sending his aides into a nonstop cycle of damage control.
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) - Brutal sexual violence committed with "pervasive impunity" and a level of "premeditation" persists in South Sudan's northern region, the United Nations said on Friday.
LONDON (AP) - The Latest on Britain's exit from the European Union (all times local): 5:45 p.m. British Prime Minister Theresa May has suffered an embarrassing parliamentary defeat on Brexit as lawmakers remain resistant to her EU divorce plan. The House of Commons voted 303 to 258 on Thursday against a motion reiterating support for May's approach to Brexit - support expressed by lawmakers in votes just two weeks ago.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - President Donald Trump's senior Middle East adviser, son-in-law Jared Kushner, said Thursday that the Trump administration would unveil its much-awaited Mideast "Deal of the Century" after the Israeli elections on April 9.
SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) - North Macedonia observed the first of two days of national mourning Thursday after a bus drove an embankment and overturned, a crash that killed 14 people and left 30 others injured. The bus was carrying mostly students and office workers from Skopje to the western city of Gostivar on Wednesday night when it went down the 5-meter (16-foot) embankment and rolled into a field 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) west of the capital.
MADRID (AP) - A former Catalan official accused by Spanish prosecutors of leading a violent rebellion to create an independent republic testified at a top court in Madrid on Thursday that he considers himself "a political prisoner." Oriol Junqueras, who was the vice president of the Catalan Cabinet that went ahead with a banned secession referendum in October 2017, was the first of a dozen separatist leaders to testify in the much anticipated Supreme Court trial.
JOHANNESBURG (AP) - The South African government is reporting progress in the fight against rhino poaching. The environmental affairs ministry said Wednesday that poachers killed 769 rhinos last year, a 25 percent decrease from the number killed for their horns in 2017. Authorities attribute the decrease to better security and other nationwide efforts to protect rhinos. The new data shows fewer rhinos killed in most provinces in South Africa, home to most of the world's rhinos.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Israel's prime minister on Wednesday sent out a belligerent rallying cry to his Arab partners at a U.S.-backed Mideast conference, saying he planned to focus on the "common interest" of confronting Iran. Netanyahu made the comments during an off-the-cuff interview with reporters on a Warsaw street, shortly after meeting Oman's foreign minister.
AL-OMAR OIL FIELD BASE, Syria (AP) - Islamic State group militants, many of them foreigners, surrendered to U.S.-backed fighters in eastern Syria on Wednesday, bringing the Kurdish-led force closer to taking full control of the last remaining area controlled by the extremists, a Kurdish official and activists said.
ROME (AP) - Italian news agency ANSA says a monsignor who had worked as a senior Vatican accountant has been convicted of corruption in connection with a failed cash-smuggling plot. ANSA said a Rome appeals court Wednesday convicted the Rev. Nunzio Scarano of corruption and sentenced him to three years in prison.
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) - Nigeria's president and his top challenger in Saturday's election renewed a pledge for peace on Wednesday ahead of a vote marked by accusations that have alarmed some observers, while some of their supporters kept the heated rhetoric flowing.
CAIRO (AP) - Egypt's Parliament began deliberations Wednesday over constitutional amendments that could allow President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to stay in office till 2034 - 12 more years after his current, second term expires in 2022. The development comes amid concerns that Egypt is slipping back into authoritarianism, eight years after a pro-democracy uprising ended autocratic President Hosni Mubarak's nearly three-decade rule.
