Turkey

The trial of prominent Turkish columnist Cengiz Çandar, accused of "insulting" President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an in seven opinion pieces, was opened and immediately adjourned in Istanbul on April 6. 

Pope Francis will next week make a brief trip to Lesbos, the Greek island on the frontline of Europe's migrant crisis, the Vatican confirmed on April 7.
 

In a brazen assault near the Syrian capital, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants on April 7 abducted 300 cement workers and contractors in an area northeast of Damascus, Syrian state TV reported as fighting elsewhere in the country also worsened.
     

Around 250 Syrian civilians are feared kidnapped after an attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group on a cement factory east of Damascus, residents told AFP on April 7.  

Venezuelan workers will get Fridays off for the next two months as part of an emergency plan to save electricity, the president said.

Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves but its economy is a mess, with rampant inflation, shortages of goods as basic as soap and toilet paper and constant blackouts.

Turkey will not go through with an agreement to take back refugees if the European Union does not fulfill its pledges, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday, as Reuters reports.

Five security officials, including two police chiefs and a major, have been killed in an attack by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Nusaybin district of the southeastern province of Mardin amid ongoing security operations. 

One police officer was killed on April 7 in an outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) attack in the Nusaybin district of the southeastern province of Mardin amid ongoing security operations.

A group of men are protesting urging the women of their village to stop rejecting them and get married to them.

A Video posted on CNNTurk.com shows the men of the Turkish village Uzumlu carrying banners and shouting from the rooftops, asking Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erodogan to intervene and fix the problem so as the women stop refusing to marry.

The United States' top diplomat has called on militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to lay down their arms, while recognizing the legitimacy of the Turkish government's security operations due to "terrorist attacks and declarations of autonomy" by the PKK.