Thirteen soldiers have been killed and 48 other military personnel injured in a car bomb attack in Turkey, military officials said.

Update 9.05pm: It is being reported at least 13 people have been killed following an explosion in Istanbul.

Nine soldiers and eight civilians have been killed when Kurdish militants detonated a car bomb outside a military checkpoint in south-east Turkey, the local governor said.

Update 10.36am: A bomb attack on an outdoor wedding party in south-eastern Turkey that killed 50 people and wounded dozens of others was the work of the so-called ‘Islamic State’ group, the country's president said.

At least 19 people were killed and about 20 wounded in a knife attack at a centre for disabled people near Tokyo last night - Japan's worst mass killing in generations.

Turkey sought to assure its citizens and the outside world that there would be no return to the deep repression of the past, even as President Tayyip Erdogan imposed the first nationwide state of emergency since the 1980s.

Four people have been injured in an explosion at a school in the Turkish city of Kilis, near the border with Syria.

Turkish police suspect militants planned New Year’s Eve attacks

Vladimir Putin has warned that the Russian military will “immediately destroy” any targets threatening its forces in Syria.

Kurdish opponents of president blame him for fatal attack on rally

Germany’s anti-immigrant movement Pegida isn’t some sinister Russian plot. Instead, it is striking for the ordinariness of the people it attracts and must be taken seriously, writes Lucian Kim

‘We experienced the Titanic — the only thing was we didn’t sink’.

At least 36 people are feared to have died after a Japanese volcano erupted without warning at the weekend, raining ash and stones on hikers, but the search for victims was abandoned

Turkish security forces have fired tear gas and water on dozens of Kurds in a village on the border with Syria where tens of thousands of Syrian Kurdish refugees have streamed into Turkey to escape the fighting with militants of the Islamic State group.

The bodies of the last two missing miners inside a coal mine in western Turkey have been located, raising the death toll to 301.

An explosion and a fire killed at least 151 workers at a coal mine in western Turkey and hundreds more remained trapped underground.

Turkey’s disaster management agency has raised the death toll from a mining accident in the west of the country to 70.

An explosion and fire at a coal mine in western Turkey has killed at least five people and trapped hundreds of workers underground.

A passenger on board an Istanbul-bound flight claimed there was a bomb on board and tried to hijack the plane to Sochi, Russia, where the Winter Olympics are kicking off, an official says.

A popular game show that was punished for its subtle support of last summer’s anti-government protests appears once again to have become the victim of Turkish media censorship as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government scrambles to contain a corruption scandal.

Protesters have set up barricades in Istanbul’s streets after Turkish riot police cleared out the occupation of a park at the centre of the strongest challenge to prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 10-year tenure.

Riot police fired water cannons and tear gas as they drove protesters out of Istanbul’s Taksim Square and neighbouring Gezi Park today, an intervention that came shortly after the prime minister warned that security forces “know how to clear” the area.

Thousands of people flooded Istanbul’s main square today after a crackdown on an anti-government protests turned city streets into a battlefield clouded by tear gas, in scenes reminiscent of the Arab Spring.

A US embassy employee accused of spying and ordered to leave Russia has flown out of Moscow, it is reported.

Two car bombs exploded in a Turkish town near the border with Syria today, killing around 40 people and injuring 100 others, the country's interior minister said.

Syrian rebels captured the country’s largest dam today after days of intense clashes, giving them control over water and electricity supplies for much of the country in a major blow to Bashar Assad’s regime.

Police have detained three people in connection with the suicide bomb attack on the US Embassy in Ankara, according to a Turkish news report.

A suicide bomber and a Turkish guard have been killed in an attack in front of the US Embassy in Ankara today.

At least two people have died in a suicide bomb attack at the entrance of the US Embassy in the Turkish capital Ankara, police say.

In a new sign of a widening crackdown on Russian opposition, a criminal investigation has begun into leftist leader Sergei Udaltsov and several other opposition activists for allegedly plotting mass riots.

Kremlin officials like to insist Russian President Vladimir Putin does not care for big birthday bashes and that he was to spend his 60th yesterday quietly celebrating with close friends and family in his home city, St Petersburg.

Government forces stormed a rebel-held town outside Damascus yesterday after days of fighting, killing at least 23 fighters, according to an activist group and a rebel spokesman.

A Japanese journalist has been killed while covering Syria’s civil war.

Syria said it shot down a Turkish military plane that entered Syrian air space, while Turkey vowed to “determinedly take necessary steps” in response.

A bomb exploded in Turkey’s largest city today, injuring 10 people and wrecking a police bus and nearby vehicles, authorities said.

The European Central Bank must take part in Greece’s debt swap, finance minister Evangelos Venizelos said yesterday, warning that a rescue package for Athens also hinges on other issues being resolved such as labour reforms and how Greek banks are to be recapitalised.

An outing of luxury sportscar enthusiasts in Japan ended in an expensive pile-up – smashing a stunning eight Ferraris, a Lamborghini and two Mercedes.

A gunman wounded a soldier and a security guard at the entrance to Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace today, before engaging in a shoot-out with Turkish police inside the palace courtyard, witnesses said.

Up to five gunmen identifying themselves as members of a Kurdish rebel group have hijacked a ferry with 19 passengers on board, a Turkish government minister said.