Doctors Without Borders (MSF) delivered a petition signed by 547,000 people to the White House Wednesday demanding an independent investigation into a deadly U.S. strike on one of its hospitals in Afghanistan.

The October 3 bombing of the hospital in the northern city of Kunduz killed 30 people and forced the charity to close the trauma center -- the only one in the region -- while sparking global condemnation.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will seek at a party congress Monday to stamp out dissent in her conservative Christian Democratic Union over a record refugee influx after months of corrosive infighting.

The expected arrival to Europe's top economic power this year of one million people fleeing war and poverty has scrambled the German political map, making the long-mighty Merkel look vulnerable and reviving a nearly defunct right-wing populist party.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un's uncle has described how fear of the deadly power politics in Pyongyang drove him and his wife to defect to the United States nearly 20 years ago.

In a telephone interview with South Korea's Yonhap news agency, Ri Kang said the couple had been deeply concerned what might become of them in any power struggle that followed the eventual death of Kim's father Kim Jong-Il.

The U.S. administration backs a bill that would make it harder for visitors to Iraq, Syria and countries listed as supporting terrorism to travel visa-free to the United States, the State Department said Wednesday.

The House of Representatives voted 407 to 19 on Tuesday in support of the Visa Waiver Program Improvement Act of 2015, a measure the White House supports on the heels of deadly attacks in Paris that were conducted by extremists who could have traveled to the United States without a visa.

The election was three days ago, but near the crisp white facade of Venezuela's presidential palace hundreds of noisy voters are still in campaign mode.

"Struggle! Battle! Victory, my friends!" yells a man with a loudspeaker.

Ivory Coast's parliamentary speaker, who is at the center of a diplomatic dispute between his country and France over a court investigation, left Paris for Abidjan on Wednesday evening, a spokesman said.

Guillaume Soro, who is also a former rebel chief, had been summoned by a Paris judge in connection with a complaint filed by Michel Gbagbo, son of former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo, who was ousted in 2011 and is currently awaiting trial in The Hague.

Business-friendly conservative Mauricio Macri takes office as Argentina's next president Thursday in a ceremony boycotted by his predecessor Cristina Kirchner, irate over a protocol tiff that escalated into a court battle.

Macri's inauguration marks the start of a new era for Argentina: a tilt to the right after 12 years under Kirchner and her late husband Nestor, the left-wing power couple that led the country back to stability after an economic meltdown in 2001.

The Scottish government sacked U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump as a business ambassador and a university revoked his honorary degree on Wednesday after he called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.

A petition to bar the Republican frontrunner from Britain reached more than 358,000 signatures amid an outcry over comments by the tycoon, who owns golf courses in Scotland and has family links to the country.

FARC guerrillas freed Wednesday a Colombian soldier held by the Marxist rebels for two weeks, the defense ministry said, in a move that will inject fresh life into the peace process.

The release of Jesus Rojas came after the Red Cross intervened and is a timely boost to the peace talks between the government and rebels, with both sides vowing to reach a final deal by the end of March to end a five-decade conflict that has killed more than 220,000 people.

Cuba has handed over a fugitive wanted by the United States in a first such move since a diplomatic thaw between the former Cold War foes, officials said.

Shawn Wegmann fled to Cuba by boat and was detained by authorities there on October 31, who subsequently notified their U.S. counterparts.