BANGKOK – Human rights groups are calling on Thai authorities to drop charges against four activists who expressed dissent against the country’s military rulers and are now being tried in a military court. Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that the junta should stop prosecuting peaceful critics in the military courts, …

ADEN, Yemen – Forces loyal to Yemen’s former president stormed the international airport in the southern port city of Aden on Thursday, triggering an intense, hours-long gunbattle before security forces loyal to the current president repelled them. The fighting forced the airport’s closure, and passengers on a flight to Cairo …

SINGAPORE – As the health of Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew deteriorated on the weekend, thousands of Singaporeans visited his hospital and a community center to leave flowers, gifts and emotional messages of support. Lee, 91, was hospitalized in early February with severe pneumonia. In the past week …

ROME – Key dates in the case of Amanda Knox, the U.S. student who was convicted then acquitted then convicted in the slaying of her British roommate Meredith Kercher. Italy’s high court took up her appeal Wednesday. — Nov. 2, 2007: Kercher, 21, is found dead in Perugia apartment. Investigators …

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The deputy governor of Saudi Arabia’s investment authority says the country faces challenges attracting foreign investment outside its oil and gas sectors, but that several initiatives in place are helping to change investors’ perceptions. Prince Saud al-Faisal told The Associated Press in an interview Monday …

PARIS – The last of the 12 victims slain in the terror attack on the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo was a police officer — the son of immigrants from mainly Muslim North Africa — who was shot dead on the sidewalk by one of the assailants as they started their …

CAIRO – Britain launched its largest trade mission to Egypt in over a decade on Tuesday, involving more than 40 companies from the top foreign investor in the Arab world’s most populous country. The meeting in a palace-turned-hotel focused on developing the energy, real estate and construction sectors, as well …

SYDNEY – Beaches at the Australian city of Newcastle were closed for a seventh day on Friday after at least two large sharks were sighted in coastal waters. A 5-meter (16-foot) great white shark estimated to weigh 1.7 metric tons (1.9 tons) had been spotted daily since last Saturday until …

JERUSALEM – A West Bank official says the Palestinian government has paid only partial salaries to its civil servants after Israel’s freezing of the transfer of taxes it collects for the Palestinians according to a previous agreement between the sides. Abd El Rahman Bayatneh, a spokesman for the Palestinian finance …

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – An international human rights organization says the planned flogging of a Saudi blogger convicted of insulting Islam has been delayed for a second straight week. The London-based Amnesty International says that around eight doctors carried out medical tests on Raif Badawi and recommended that he …