President Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday dismissed calls for Turkey to close a military base in Qatar and said a wider list of demands issued by four Arab states was an unlawful intervention against the Gulf emirate's sovereignty. In his strongest statement of support for Qatar in the nearly three-week-old crisis centered on the Gulf state, Erdogan said the call to withdraw Turkish forces was disrespectful and that Doha - which described the demands as unreasonable - was taking the right approach.

Two weeks into her new life as a full-time Washingtonian, Melania Trump is staying true to her reputation as more homebody than social butterfly. Her top priority has been settling in 11-year-old son Barron - the first boy in the White House since John F. Kennedy Jr. more than 50 years ago.

Two giant pandas have received a celebrity welcome in Berlin from the mayor and Chinese ambassador after they weathered a long flight from China. Meng Meng and Jiao Qing flew the animal equivalent of first class on their 12-hour flight from Chengdu in south-west China to the German capital.

Far-right English Defence League demonstrators were met by anti-fascist groups amid a heavy police presence as they marched through central London. Around 50 EDL protesters made their way from a pub near Trafalgar Square to a rally on the Victoria Embankment on Saturday afternoon.

Some 27 high-rise buildings in 15 local authorities across the country have failed fire cladding safety tests in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster, the Department for Communities and Local Government has announced. The revelation comes as more than 3,000 residents of the Chalcots Estate in Camden, north London, are facing weeks in temporary accommodation after four tower blocks were evacuated.

The CIA's director held a secret negotiation with Syria's intelligence chief this year as part of efforts to free a US journalist taken hostage in the Arab country five years ago, according to reports. The phone conversation between CIA boss Mike Pompeo and Syria's Ali Mamlouk occurred in February, the New York Times reported, citing unidentified US officials.

A Swiss journalist has died from injuries she suffered in a mine blast in Mosul earlier this week while reporting on the fight against the Islamic State group. Veronique Robert died in a Paris hospital on Saturday, Sophie Pommier, a French Embassy spokeswoman, told the Associated Press.

Pressure mounted on the U.S. Defense Department on Friday after multiple U.S. senators called for investigations into reports that U.S. military interrogators worked with forces from the United Arab Emirates who are accused of torturing detainees in Yemen. John McCain, Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the ranking Democrat, Jack Reed, called the reports "deeply disturbing."

Ivanka Trump must testify in a dispute with an Italian shoemaker over one of her company's shoe designs, a judge said Friday. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest rejected a request by the senior White House aide's lawyers that she be blocked from submitting to a deposition in the trademark infringement lawsuit brought by Aquazzura Italia SRL against her and her company IT Collection LLC. The Florence, Italy-based company sued President Donald Trump's daughter last year, saying her Hettie shoe was a "virtually identical" knockoff of its popular Wild Thing Shoe, including nearly the same color, shape and tassel on the heel.

Pope Francis will preside over a reconciliation ceremony between Colombian victims and former guerrillas during a September visit aimed at consolidating the peace process to end Latin America's longest-running armed conflict. Francis will also pay homage to the patron saint of slaves, the 16th century Jesuit priest St. Peter Claver, when he travels to the former slave-trading hub of Cartagena.

At least 35 people have been killed and nearly 100 wounded in three separate bomb attacks in two major Pakistani cities, officials said. A suicide bomber was involved in the first car bombing near the office of the provincial police chief in the south-western city of Quetta that killed at least 11 people and wounded 20. Hours later twin bombings, minutes apart, hit a crowded market in a Shiite-dominated city in Parachinar, the main city in the Kurram tribal region, and killed 24 people, mostly minority Shiite Muslims, according to government administrator Zahid Hussain.

Two frigates and a submarine launched six cruise missiles at IS installations in Syria's Hama province, destroying command centres and ammunition depots, the ministry said in a statement. It did not say when the missiles were launched.

A police officer in Indian-controlled Kashmir's main city was beaten to death after he fired at a group of people who suspected him of spying on worshipers during the holiest night of the year for Muslims, police and witnesses said. The lynching occurred outside Jamia Masjid, the main mosque in Srinagar, late Thursday during the celebrations of Laylat al Qadr, or "Night of Power," which commemorates the night the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

North Korea has denied it cruelly treated or tortured a US student who was detained for more than year and died days after being released in a coma. The article published by the official Korean Central News Agency was Pyongyang's first reaction to the death of Otto Warmbier.

Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries that have cut ties to Qatar issued a steep list of demands Thursday to end the crisis, insisting that their Persian Gulf neighbor shutter Al-Jazeera, cut back diplomatic ties to Iran and sever all ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Amnesty International is calling for a review of hate crime laws and improvements in training for police on how to deal with the offences. In a briefing published a year on from the EU referendum, the organisation raises the alarm about incidents in which victims were targeted based on disability, race, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity.

In this Jan. 25, 2017, file photo, Choi Soon-sil, center, the jailed confidante of impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye, shouts upon her arrival at the office of the independent counsel in Seoul, South Korea. A South Korean court on Friday, June 23, 2017 sentenced the longtime friend of ousted President Park to three years in prison for using her presidential ties to unlawfully get her daughter into a prestigious Seoul university.