Canadian soldiers have fired on Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq, in what is thought to be the war's first confirmed ground battle of Western forces.

Good Roman Catholics do not need to breed like "rabbits", Pope Francis says, but rejects birth controls being imposed in the developing world.

One of Libya's most senior energy officials, Opec representative Samir Salem Kamal, disappeared on Thursday, family members tell the BBC.

Political earthquakes could be in store for Europe in 2015, according to research by the Economist Intelligence Unit for the BBC's Democracy Day.

Guards enter a compound at an Australian offshore detention centre where asylum seekers had barricaded themselves in.

China's economic growth slows to 7.4% last year from 7.7% in 2013, marking its slowest pace of expansion in 24 years.

The International Monetary Fund has lowered its forecast for global economic growth for this year and next.

Monitors in eastern Ukraine warn of a serious deterioration in security as fighting intensifies in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.