Reuters

Cuba began releasing prisoners from its jails on Friday just hours after its communist-run government announced a sweeping amnesty coinciding with the most intense pressure campaign applied by the U.S. in decades.

Burkina Faso's military leader, who seized power in a coup in September 2022, told journalists that "people need to forget about democracy" and that "democracy kills", the latest sign he aims to rule for the long term. 

German sculptor Jacques Tilly, the creator of a carnival float showing Russian President Vladimir Putin and Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill engaging in a sex act, was sentenced in absentia by a Moscow court on Thursday to eight years and six months in prison.

Hundreds of Serbian students clashed with police on Tuesday during a protest against a police search of University of Belgrade offices, which inflamed tensions between authorities and anti-government activists that have flared up regularly for more than a year.

London's mayor Sadiq Khan called on British diplomats stationed around the world on Tuesday to help counter what he described as "disinformation and lies" about the capital amplified by U.S. President Donald Trump.

At least 70 people were killed and 30 injured during an attack near Petite-Riviere in Haiti's breadbasket Artibonite region, a human rights group said on Monday, significantly higher than official estimates which put the death toll at around 16.

Myanmar's military leadership is set for a reshuffle following an annual armed forces parade on Friday, state media reported, in a rare public signalling of transition by the secretive institution that has dominated the Southeast Asian nation

Hungary's centre-right opposition Tisza party has widened its lead over Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz in March, a poll showed on Wednesday, ahead of an April 12 election where the veteran nationalist is seeking re-election.

Peruvian presidential candidates Keiko Fujimori and Rafael Lopez Aliaga remain ahead in voter preferences, a new poll showed on Wednesday, pointing to a rightward tilt ahead of April's general election despite a crowded field of 35 contenders.

Exit polls on Monday suggested Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had narrowly lost a referendum on her flagship reform of the judicial system, dealing a potential blow to the ruling coalition ahead of next year's general election.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives face their second electoral test this month on Sunday when they hope to unseat the centre-left Social Democrats, their coalition partner at the national level, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

A cross-border drone attack from Sudan killed 17 people in Chad including mourners attending a funeral service, the Chadian government and local sources said on Thursday, and the country's president vowed to retaliate for any further attacks.