World

ROME – Italian officials say an Italian doctor kidnapped in Libya in January has been freed. An official at the Foreign Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that Ignazio Scaravilli had been freed and was in good condition in Tripoli, awaiting his return to Italy. The official, speaking …

PARIS – French far right scion Jean-Marie Le Pen is taking the party that he helped create to court, protesting the National Front’s decision to suspend him. Le Pen, 86, is in an intense feud with his daughter Marine, who now leads the party and wants to distance herself from …

BEIJING – China says it will make it even easier for Taiwanese to visit, in the latest appeal to voters ahead of crucial presidential elections on the island in January. State media reports Monday say Taiwanese visitors will no longer have to apply for entry permits and their travel passes …

MINSK, Belarus – Negotiators say progress has been made at the latest round of talks on resolving the Ukraine conflict but there has been no breakthrough. The so-called Contact Group of representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation met Tuesday in the Belarusian capital along with …

BERLIN – German authorities say a billionaire businessman’s son was kidnapped and held overnight before being released unharmed without payment of the millions of euros demanded. Markus Wuerth, the 50-year-old son of the Wuerth tool and hardware company chairman Reinhold Wuerth, was abducted on Wednesday in an area northeast of …

An Afghan Red Cross worker who was arrested last spring for converting to Christianity has been released from an Afghanistan prison. The worker, Said Musa, 46, was released from prison last week “after aggressive international diplomacy engaged Afghanistan’s government,” International Christian Concern, an organization that worked directly with his case, …

ROME – Police say they have arrested a Pakistani man suspected of helping organize the 2009 attack on a market in Peshawar that killed more than 100 people, the latest arrest in a decade-long investigation into an Italy-based terror network with ties to al Qaida. State police said in a …

ESKI MOSUL, Iraq – Inside the Islamic State’s realm, the paper testifying that you have “repented” from your heretical past must be carried at all times. Many people laminate it just to be safe. It can mean the difference between life and death. Bilal Abdullah learned that not long after …

TAIPEI, Taiwan – The death toll in a blaze at a Taiwan water park party over the weekend has risen to two with 200 still in intensive care. Taiwan’s Central News Agency says 19-year-old college student Liu Chih-wei died early Thursday after suffering burns over 90 percent of his body. …

MAPUTO, Mozambique – Mozambicans reacted cautiously to the government’s decision to do away with a colonial-era anti-gay law. In a statement on Friday LAMBDA, a Mozambican LGBT rights group, said the southern African nation was now “on the right side of the history of humanity.” Earlier this week, Mozambique scrapped …