SEOUL: North Korea confirmed that leader Kim Jong-un will be a candidate in next month's parliamentary elections, which will be closely watched for clues on power shifts in Pyongyang.

WASHINGTON: US Vice President Joe Biden urged Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Tuesday to pursue dialogue and compromise to end the country's crisis as he called for the "immediate" pulling back of riot police.

NEW YORK: Tests have confirmed there was heroin in at least some of the scores of plastic packets in the New York City apartment where Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead, a law enforcement official said Monday, and authorities are working to determine whether the drug was mixed or tainted with anything else.

 RIYADH (Saudi Arabia): Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah issued a royal decree on Monday that punishes citizens who fight in conflicts outside the kingdom, with prison sentences ranging from three to 20 years in jail.

CAIRO: Al-Qaida's central leadership broke with one of its most powerful branch commanders, blaming him for bloody infighting among Islamic factions in Syria, in an apparent attempt to impose control over militant factions in the country's civil war.

FLORIDA: A paraplegic man in the US state of Florida made away with a vehicle from a car showroom, and was chased by police across three state counties.

GENEVA: Syria's warring sides traded barbs over the failure to achieve concrete results at peace talks in Geneva, amid doubts over the regime's participation in a planned new round in February.

WASHINGTON: The United States warned has China against any move to declare a new air defence zone over parts of the South China Sea including disputed islands.

BOSTON: US prosecutors on Thursday announced they will seek the death penalty against 20-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston Marathon bombing, instantly raising the stakes in what could be one of the most wrenching trials the city has ever seen.

WASHINGTON: The US Air Force said on Thursday that 92 nuclear missile officers are now implicated in a widening scandal over cheating on exams as officials cited "systemic problems" in the force.