The "Panama Papers" have laid bare how readily bad actors can circumvent global sanctions via the maze of anonymous shell companies set up in banking havens, as documented in the massive leak.

Terror groups, drug cartels, and pariah countries like North Korea -- not just tax evaders -- use them to hide flows of money that would otherwise be blocked by sanctions, experts say.

Anger over labor reforms has spawned a protest movement dubbed "Up All Night" that is taking over French city squares, with young people gathering until dawn demanding social change.

Spreading from Paris to the western cities of Nantes and Rennes as well as Toulouse in the southwest, the protesters have been occupying central squares overnight until police disperse them at daybreak.

Libya's U.N.-backed unity government was shoring up its authority in Tripoli on Wednesday on the basis of a power-sharing agreement signed in December in the Moroccan resort of Skhirat.

The Libyan Political Agreement, signed by some representatives of Libya's rival parliaments, established a Government of National Accord (GNA) headed by prime minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj.

Four decades after his brother was killed during a rescue operation in Uganda, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is embarking on an African mission of his own -- but with very different aims.

Galvanized by a growing demand for Israeli security assistance and his government's search for new allies, Netanyahu has put a fresh focus on improving ties with African nations.

With bad blood flowing between Turkey and Russia since Ankara shot down a Russian warplane in Syria in November, the latest wave of violence in Nagorny-Karabakh could have wider implications.

Azerbaijan and Armenia-backed rebels in Karabakh -- which was seized from Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s -- agreed Tuesday to a ceasefire to stop the worse violence in decades that has claimed at least 64 lives since Friday.

A French warship ploughs through the sparkling waters between Africa and Arabia on a joint training drill with the U.S. that highlights Djibouti's growing strategic role for the world's militaries.

On the sun-blasted rocky shores of the tiny Horn of Africa nation, some 500 French troops march alongside 50 U.S. Marines near the town of Arta, wearing full kit in the baking heat.

In the garage of his home in a rough-and-tumble Havana neighborhood, Rolando Alfonso is fixing up a 1960 Oldsmobile he hopes will be a ticket to a more profitable future: Driving tourists around Cuba.

After President Barack Obama's visit to the city last week, he's more optimistic than ever that his vision might become reality.

Legal experts and historians have reacted with outrage to the controversial war crimes acquittal of firebrand Serb Vojislav Seselj, saying it overturns international law and rewrites the history of the Balkans conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bid to turn Israel into a natural gas exporter has hit a major snag over a court ruling, but he still has room for maneuver, analysts say.

The supreme court on Sunday struck down a complex agreement intended to lead to the development of a large gas field in the Mediterranean.

The worst fears of Pakistan's Christians came true with the carnage in Lahore on Easter Sunday, said activists who had braced for a backlash since thousands took to the streets over the execution of a murderer feted as an Islamist hero.