APRNEWS - President Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director said on Monday it was unacceptable for French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to accuse the Turkish president of playing political games in the case of the slain Saudi journalist.

APRNEWS - Every three minutes, a girl between the ages of 15 and 19 is infected with the virus that causes AIDS, said a UN report Wednesday that warned of a “crisis” fuelled by gender inequality.

APRNEWS - World Cup finalists, Kylian Mbappe and Luka Modric have been nominated to challenge Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi’s stranglehold on the World Footballer of the Year title as announced by FIFA yesterday. They are among 10 candidates shortlisted for the title currently held by Ronaldo.

APRNEWS - Arrests skyrocketed by more than 730 percent last year in China's far-western Xinjiang as the government ramped up a security crackdown in the traditionally Muslim region, activists said Wednesday.

APRNEWS - An ultra-conservative journalist and MP who once said only God or Stalin could save Russia is set to be appointed head of the country's culture committee in parliament's lower house, media said Wednesday.

The nomination of Elena Yampolskaya to the high-profile post has provoked a mixed reaction in the country's arts community.

APRNEWS - A string of Islamic State group suicide attacks in southern Syria has killed at least 40 people, mostly pro-regime fighters, in one of the jihadists' deadliest assaults in months, a monitor said Wednesday.

APRNEWS - Catalonia's deposed president Carles Puigdemont, who has been in Germany for four months, said Wednesday he will return to Belgium after a Spanish judge dropped a European arrest warrant for him.