The UN’s Mideast envoy said Wednesday that after recent contacts with Syrian officials, he believes Damascus is interested in restarting peace talks with Israel.

Bulgaria on Thursday officially requested the transfer from Libya of six medical workers whose death sentences for infecting children with HIV have been commuted to life imprisonment.

Ahead of general elections on Sunday, the leader of Turkey’s hardline nationalists flung a hangman’s noose from a podium to make a point during a political rally: the prime minister is soft on terrorism and should hang the imprisoned leader of Kurdish rebels.