Bakou - Azerbaijan has frozen the bank accounts of the country's only independent news agency, its director said Friday, in a step that could shutter the outlet.

Bakou - Azerbaijan on Thursday sentenced a Russian-Israeli travel blogger who wrote in support of Armenian separatists to three years in jail for visiting the disputed territory of Nagorny Karabakh.

Bakou - Azerbaijan has destroyed an Armenian air defence system in the breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region, officials in Baku said Tuesday, as separatist authorities vowed retaliation, raising tensions in the festering conflict.

Filipino-American chess player Wesley So has won the 2017 US Chess Championship title in a tightly-fought match held at the The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis in St Louis, Missouri, USA.

Bakou - Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday appointed his glamorous wife as first vice president, the latest move seen as tightening the family's iron grip on the oil-rich Caspian nation.

Bakou - Azerbaijani security services have killed two men suspected of plotting "terrorist attacks" in the secular ex-Soviet country with a mainly Muslim population, authorities said Friday.

Bakou - Azerbaijan on Tuesday sentenced a pro-democracy activist to 10 years in prison as the ex-Soviet state faces growing criticism over its crackdown on dissent.

Bakou - Pope Francis has agreed to speed up the path to sainthood for French Catholic priest Jacques Hamel, murdered by two teenaged jihadists in July, Vatican sources said Sunday.

Bakou - Pope Francis on Sunday called for a "stable peace" as he visited mainly Muslim Azerbaijan, several months after pushing for an end to a festering territorial feud while in arch-foe Armenia.

Bakou - Azerbaijanis have overwhelmingly backed constitutional changes extending President Ilham Aliyev's grip on power in a referendum denounced by opposition and rights groups as a ploy to cement the Aliyev family's dynastic rule.

Bakou - Azerbaijan on Wednesday released jailed prominent investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, who was convicted of corruption charges last year, triggering an international uproar.

Bakou - Azerbaijani rights activists Leyla and Arif Yunus travelled to the Netherlands Tuesday for medical treatment after authorities lifted a travel ban in place since they were released from prison last year.

Bakou - Two ethnic Armenian troops died in fighting with Azerbaijani forces Friday as the archfoes accused each other of breaching a ceasefire that halted the worst outbreak of violence in decades over a disputed breakaway region.

- Azerbaijani and Armenian forces on Wednesday said they were largely observing a truce that halted four days of clashes which claimed scores of lives in the worst outbreak of violence in decades over the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region.

Stepanakert - Azerbaijan and Armenian separatists in Nagorny Karabakh on Tuesday announced a ceasefire after four days of bloodshed, as international powers scrambled to end the worst violence in decades over the disputed region.

- Clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces rumbled on Sunday, despite Baku announcing a ceasefire after the worst outbreak of violence in decades over the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region sparked international pressure to stop fighting.

Bakou - Azerbaijan on Friday sentenced five men to up to 13 years in prison for beating to death a journalist who had criticised an Azeri football team player on Facebook.

Bakou - Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Thursday freed 14 jailed rights activists and opposition politicians in an amnesty, a move welcomed by the European Union and rights activists.

Bakou - Azerbaijan has finally extinguished a blaze at an offshore oil rig in the Caspian Sea which caught fire nearly two weeks ago, averting "a major oil spill", officials said Thursday.

Bakou - Azerbaijan on Wednesday released top rights campaigner Leyla Yunus from prison because of her deteriorating health, less than a month after freeing her activist husband.