West and Central African ministers have pledged to cooperate to halt the spread of sea piracy in the region at a meeting in Benin, West African bloc ECOWAS said Wednesday.

President Barack Obama notified Congress Wednesday that it would launch trade talks with the European Union aimed at forging the world's largest free-trade area.

Lawmakers from both sides of the US political divide expressed optimism this week about striking a deal on immigration reform in 2013, but a potential pathway to citizenship remains a hurdle.

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades is to present on Thursday to party leaders a Plan B aimed at securing an EU-IMF bailout for the near-bankrupt island, state television said.

Hundreds of relatives and former Khmer Rouge fighters are expected to gather Thursday for the cremation of regime co-founder Ieng Sary, who died last week while on trial for genocide.

US and Japanese officers are discussing worst-case contingency plans for retaking disputed islands in the East China Sea if China moves to seize them, US officials said Wednesday.

Colorado's governor signed landmark gun laws Wednesday following the Aurora theater massacre, hours after the US state's prison chief was shot and killed on his own doorstep.

Two Irish republicans were found liable on Wednesday for the 1998 Omagh bombing that killed 29 people in the worst single attack of Northern Ireland's three decades of sectarian conflict.

Bangladesh President Zillur Rahman, a veteran ruling party politician named to the largely ceremonial post in 2009, died Wednesday in a Singapore hospital, officials said. He was 84.

US stocks recorded solid gains Wednesday as the Federal Reserve held steady on its policy of economic stimulus.

The Federal Reserve kept its easy monetary policies in place Wednesday, saying high unemployment and the government's sharp spending cuts remain barriers to full recovery from the 2008 crash.

The International Criminal Court will not drop the crimes against humanity charges against Kenyan president-elect Uhuru Kenyatta, The Hague-based court's chief prosecutor said Wednesday.

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday pledged an "eternal" alliance with Israel in the face of the Iranian threat, saying he accepted the Jewish state would not defer to Washington on the question of how to handle it.

The income gap between the richest and poorest people in Spain has widened by 30 percent since 2006 due to the country's sharp economic downturn, the Spanish branch of Catholic charity Caritas said Wednesday.

Paris was scrambling Wednesday to verify a claim by Al-Qaeda's north African branch that it has executed a French hostage in retaliation for France's military intervention in Mali.

Cyprus ordered banks to stay shut for another five days as ministers scrambled Wednesday to draw up a Plan B aimed at securing a bailout after parliament rejected a controversial tax on savings.

Venezuela said Wednesday it has suspended a "channel of communications" with Washington as it ratchets up tension ahead of elections to replace the late president Hugo Chavez.

Rebels in the Central African Republic on Wednesday rejected as insufficient President Francois Bozize's efforts to stave off renewed fighting by giving in to some of their key demands.

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday warned the Damascus regime it would be held accountable for any use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria in a move which would spark an international response.

A Zimbabwean magistrate on Wednesday denied bail to four aides to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and their lawyer, whose arrests marred a constitutional referendum last weekend.