San José, Costa Rica | AFP | A conservative, evangelical lawmaker who fiercely opposes same-sex marriage emerged as the frontrunner to become Costa Rica’s next president, according to preliminary results from a first round election Sunday. Fabricio Alvarado of the right-wing National Restoration Party received 25 percent of the vote, …

Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet Pope Francis on Monday, with a protest ban imposed in central Rome as feelings run high over Turkey’s offensive against Kurdish militia inside Syria. For the first such visit by a Turkish leader for 59 years, …

Nador, Morocco | AFP | Moroccan rescue services have recovered the bodies of 16 migrants off the coast of Spain’s enclave of Melilla, Moroccan and Spanish officials said Sunday. Three women were among the dead taken to a morgue in the Moroccan city of Nador, a medical official there told …

Jerusalem, Undefined | AFP | Israel began warning thousands of African migrants Sunday that they must leave by the end of March, officials said, under a plan that could see them jailed if they refuse. On January 3, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced implementation of a plan to deport about …

Yaoundé, Cameroon | AFP | Cameroon security forces have killed four civilians in the country’s restive English-speaking west, local sources said Sunday. One person was shot dead late Saturday in Bamenda, the main regional town where he was enjoying a night out, his family said. “We were going home when …

Washington, United States | AFP | US job creation accelerated in January, as the labor market continued to absorb workers at a robust pace, unemployment clung to a record low and wages moved higher, the government said in a key report Friday. And with a near 10-year record in wage …

Washington, United States | AFP | Republican legislators released Friday a highly contentious memo alleging that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice abused their powers to spy on President Donald Trump’s election campaign. – Key findings – Based on classified materials, the four-page memo claims that …

Washington, United States | AFP | Apple overtook Samsung in the fourth quarter as the largest smartphone producer in a declining global market for handsets, research firm IDC said Friday. A survey by IDC showed Apple — which reported its quarterly data Thursday — led all vendors with 77.3 million …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | The UN imposed sanctions on a Congolese general on Friday for supporting the massacre of civilians by a suspected militia in eastern DR Congo. General Muhindo Akili Mundos, an ally of President Joseph Kabila, is one of four names to be added on to …

Rabat, Morocco | AFP | Thousands of people staged a protest Friday in an impoverished Moroccan city over the latest fatality in the region’s “mines of death”, the third such victim since December, witnesses said. The protest was staged outside the morgue of the hospital in the northeastern town of …