Torture, humiliation and coerced confessions are rampant in North Korea's pretrial detention system which treats people as worth "less than an animal", a rights group said Monday in a report on the country's opaque legal processes. US-based Human Rights Watch drew on interviews with dozens...

Belgium imposed a nationwide overnight curfew on Monday as Switzerland made wearing face masks compulsory in indoor public spaces, the latest desperate measures by European governments to fight a powerful second coronavirus wave. More than 250,000 people have died of the virus in Europe but...

Calls have been growing inside Libya and abroad for holding legislative and presidential elections in the conflict-ridden country, instead of staging a new 18-month transitional period. Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), has earlier called for...

A new ceasefire in the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh appeared to be in jeopardy on Monday, with ethnic Armenian forces and Azerbaijan accusing each other of renewed shelling. The ceasefire was agreed Saturday after a deal brokered by Russia a week earlier failed to halt the worst...