Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday called "surreal" the judicial reasoning behind an appellate court's decision to uphold his guilty verdict and four-year jail term in a tax fraud case.

Gunmen killed at least seven soldiers in central Iraq on Thursday, officials said, in the latest episode of violence to hit the country in a particularly bloody month.

A spate of attacks by Islamic insurgents in Somalia's capital is forcing investors, businessmen and aid workers to have second thoughts about expanding operations in Mogadishu.

Police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in the latest confrontation between the ruling party and Togo's increasingly active opposition. Demonstrators were gathering to protest the death of an opposition member, who died in jail.

A massive fire broke out Thursday at a fuel depot on the northern outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, sending bright orange flames leaping high into the air and thick black smoking rolling upward and enveloping the area.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed Thursday that security must go hand-in-hand with development in Congo's troubled eastern city of Goma, arriving just hours after a rebel group halted fighting to allow the visit to proceed.

Ladies? Don't make him laugh.

Two brown bears have been released into a special sanctuary after being held in a 20-square-meter cage almost their entire lives to amuse visitors at a Kosovo restaurant.

A Canadian businessman caught up in a corruption probe in Cuba apparently went on trial Thursday, nearly two years after he was detained and his import company, Tri-Star Caribbean, was shuttered.

Financial markets around the world were roiled Thursday after Japanese stocks suffered their biggest slide since the country was hit by a devastating tsunami more than two years ago.

The EU has something important to say about its proposal to regulate olive oil on restaurant tables: Uh, never mind.

Dutch authorities on Thursday arrested the director of a meat-processing and wholesale company whose business is at the center of an investigation into undeclared mixing of horse meat with beef.

Unpublished until now, the poem “The Fall of Arthur” was Tolkien’s take on the legendary leader and aftermath of the fall of Camelot.

Syria's fighting has uprooted more than half of the country's 530,000 Palestinians - descendants of refugees from a Mideast conflict half a century ago - and their situation is becoming increasingly desperate, the head of a U.N. aid agency said Thursday.

A Ukrainian court on Thursday banned what would have been Ukraine's first-ever gay pride demonstration, upholding a suit by city authorities, who argued the rally would disturb annual Kiev Day celebrations and could spark violence.