LONDON: Scotland has come out strongly in support of Palestine urging the UK government to allow the country to open an embassy in London.

LONDON: British lawmakers have voted in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state, a symbolic move intended to increase pressure for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

HONG KONG: Dozens of police are removing bamboo barriers that pro-democracy protesters had erected overnight after they were attacked the previous day by a mob of masked men.

MURSITPINAR (TURKEY): At least 500 civilians who remain trapped in the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani are likely to be "massacred" if it falls to the ISIS group, the UN envoy to Syria warned on Friday, calling on the world to help avert a catastrophe as the extremists pushed deeper into the embattled town.

SAMARRA, Iraq: Islamic State militants executed an Iraqi news cameraman and 12 other people on Friday in several towns and villages north of Baghdad, officials, relatives and witnesses said.

ATHENS: Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras late Friday won a parliamentary confidence vote, which he called in a bid to rally support, but which provided him with only a narrow majority.

BEIJING/SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is in firm control of his government but has hurt his leg, a source with access to the secretive North's leadership said on Thursday, playing down speculation over the 31-year-old's health and grip on power.

IGUALA, Mexico: The case of 43 Mexican students missing since an attack by gang-linked police took another grim turn on Thursday with the discovery of new mass graves where suspects said some were buried.

HONG KONG: Crunch talks between Hong Kong's democracy protesters and the government have been called off, just hours after demonstrators vowed to ratchet up their occupation of key parts of the city if their demands were not met.

TOKYO: Japan and the United States are revising their mutual defence guidelines for the first time in nearly two decades to respond to China's military expansion and increase Japan's role in regional defence.