WELLINGTON — A mass of small volcanic rocks nearly the size of Belgium has been discovered floating off the coast of New Zealand.

The stretch of golf-ball-size pumice rocks was first spotted this week by a New Zealand air force plane about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) northeast...

 MAKHACHKALA - Five policemen and two militants were killed in gunbattles on Thursday in Russia's violence-plagued North Caucasus province of Dagestan, law enforcement authorities said.

The mostly Muslim province is beset by near-daily shootings and bomb attacks, many of them...

 WASHINGTON, - The U.S. Postal Service's net loss widened to $5.2 billion during the three months that ended in June, and the cash-strapped agency warned on Thursday that without help from the U.S. Congress it will face low cash and be unable to borrow money this fall.

The...

 ATHENS - Greece sacked the head of its state nickel producer LARCO on Thursday for refusing to reduce workers' pay, the first state company chief to lose his job in the fight to cut costs and stay hooked up to an international bailout.

The Finance Ministry said in a statement...

 MEXICO CITY - Assailants kidnapped and murdered 14 men and left their corpses in a Mercedes Benz van on a major highway in the state of San Luis Potosi in central Mexico, a prosecutor said Thursday.

The men had been kidnapped Wednesday in the northern state of Coauhuila, where...

 ALEPPO - President Bashar al-Assad named a new prime minister on Thursday to replace Syria's most senior government defector as his forces pushed rebels back from a strategic district in Aleppo.

Assad appointed Wael al-Halki, a Sunni Muslim from the southern province of Deraa...

 LONDON- Britain arrested a Spanish man in London on Wednesday suspected of being a member of the Basque separatist group ETA, British police and Spain's interior ministry said.

Kemen Uranga Artola, 43, was arrested in the north of London on a European arrest warrant.

...

 MOSCOW - Members of the Pussy Riot punk band likened themselves to Soviet-era dissidents on Wednesday, saying their trial for performing an anti-Kremlin stunt on a cathedral altar was unjust, but that nobody could take away their inner freedom.

To occasional bursts of applause...

 SANAA - Yemen has foiled a plot by an al Qaeda-linked cell to carry out attacks inside the capital Sanaa and seized 40 belts packed with explosives, the mayor said on Wednesday, highlighting the risks posed by Islamist militancy in the impoverished Arab state.

The Defence...

 ALEPPO, - Troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad assaulted rebel strongholds in Aleppo on Wednesday in one of their biggest ground attacks since rebels seized chunks of Syria's biggest city three weeks ago.

Assad must win the battle for Aleppo if he is to reassert his...