North Korea has reportedly publicly executed up at least 50 people this year, including several party officials for watching soap operas.

WASHINGTON: One day this month, as the nation shuddered with fears of an Ebola outbreak and as American warplanes pounded Sunni militants in Syria, US President Barack Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, invited a group of foreign policy experts to the White House Situation Room to hear their assessment of how the administration was performing.

CAIRO: One day after an evacuation order, Egyptian Army bulldozers began demolishing houses along the border with Gaza on Wednesday, the first step in establishing what officials say will be a buffer zone intended to stop the passage of militants and weapons across the frontier.

WASHINGTON: An unmanned Antares rocket exploded seconds after liftoff from a commercial launch pad in Virginia on Tuesday, marking the first accident since Nasa turned to private operators to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, but officials said no one was hurt.

TEHRAN: Mohammad Heydarian, an Iranian contractor, still has work finishing off a single-family home. But things look bleak after that, he said. He has already fired his workers, and he is struggling to make ends meet, providing for his wife and two teenage children.

BOSTON: One in six female undergraduates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been sexually assaulted, though fewer than five per cent reported a sex crime, a survey by MIT showed, as pressure mounts for US campuses to curb sexual violence.

WASHINGTON: US health authorities on Monday issued new guidelines for health workers returning from Ebola-hit nations after a firestorm of criticism over state quarantine restrictions, including from the UN chief.

BAGHDAD: From the battlefield near Baiji, an Islamic State jihadist fired a heat-seeking missile and blew an Iraqi Army Mi-35M attack helicopter out of the sky this month, killing its two crew members.

SAO PAULO/BRASILIA: Brazil's leftist President Dilma Rousseff narrowly won re-election on Sunday after convincing voters that her party's strong record of reducing poverty over the last 12 years was more important than a recent economic slump.

TUNIS : Tunisians expressed tentative hope for the future as they lined up on Sunday to choose their first five-year parliament since they overthrew their dictator in the 2011 revolution that kicked off the Arab Spring.