Highlights of the AAP world wire Feb 9

An Australian woman freed by her al-Qaeda captors after several weeks hopes her husband who remains a hostage will soon be released as well so they can continue their charity work in the West African country.

ELSEWHERE:

LONDON - Barack Obama will ask the US Congress for more than $US1.8 billion in emergency funds to fight Zika at home and abroad and pursue a vaccine, the White House said on Monday, but the president also said there is no reason to panic over the mosquito-borne virus.

ISTANBUL - Coastguards have confirmed 27 migrants, 11 of them children, drowned off Turkey's Aegean coast as they tried to reach a Greek island.

DUBLIN - Nationalists opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process have claimed responsibility for last week's fatal shooting at a Dublin hotel, saying it was retaliation for the killing of an ally in 2012.

BANGALORE, India - A leopard has wandered into a school in southern India and injured three people as it tried to escape.

NEW YORK - One of the women who has accused former US president Bill Clinton of sexual assault says she has agreed to work for an anti-Clinton political group being formed by a former adviser to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

ATHENS - Greece's lenders still need to be persuaded that Athens can plug a bigger-than-expected fiscal gap when talks on reforms needed under an international bailout resume next week, the finance minister says.