
Full Article Al Jazeera
04 Jun 2013
The Syrian regime and rebel fighters are committing war crimes as the conflict reaches “new levels of brutality”, a report of the United Nations says. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said on Tuesday that military and government leaders must be held accountable for implementing a “concerted policy” of human rights violations. The UN human…

MUMBAI,
India — Mannequins displaying lingerie and other skimpy clothing may soon be banned in India’s cosmopolitan city of
Mumbai as an anti-rape measure. Connect With Us on Twitter
Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines….
photo: WN / Bhaskar Mallick

China is marking the
24th anniversary of the bloody
Tiananmen Square crackdown, amid tight security in
Beijing and stifling censorship on the web. Authorities every year work hard to prevent memorials and ban public discussion of the brutal military…
photo: AP / Andy Wong

photo: AP / Vincent Yu

A MISSILE strike near
Syria‘s biggest city
Aleppo killed 26 people and government warplanes pounded Qusayr, a watchdog said yesterday, as a regime offensive to retake the town entered its third week. Regime opponents also suffered a blow when one of…
photo: AP / Qusair Lens

North Korea is making “important” progress on reactivating facilities at its moth-balled
Yongbyon nuclear reactor, a US think-tank says. Start-up could be one to two months away, it said, but there was uncertainty over the availability of…
photo: AP / S. S. Hecker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
Secretary of State John Kerry urged
Israel and the
Palestinians on Monday to revive stalled peace talks, warning that the alternative was a “negative spiral of responses.” “We’re running out of time. If we do not succeed now,…
photo: AP / Jacquelyn Martin, Pool

KABUL,
Afghanistan — A suicide bomber targeting
U.S. troops outside an
Afghan government office killed nine children walking
home from school and two of the
Americans on Monday, the latest
sign that this year’s fighting season could be one of the…
photo: AP / Rahmat Gul
Full Article The Hindu
03 Jun 2013
In 2009 the American ambassador to Tunisia spent the evening at the home of Mohamed Sakher el-Materi, the President’s son-in-law. By any standards the dinner was lavish — yogurt and ice cream were flown in from St. Tropez — and the home was opulent. In a cable, made public by WikiLeaks, the diplomat wrote, “The house was…

Turkey’s
Prime Minister has rejected claims from protesters, who have taken to the streets across the country over the past two days, that he is an authoritarian leader, as thousands of people marched and reoccupied the centre of
Istanbul. Protesters…
photo: AP / Burhan Ozbilici

Officials across central
Europe issued disaster warnings and scrambled to reinforce flood defences as rivers swelled by days of heavy rain threatened to burst their banks. Several people have died or are missing in the floods in
Germany, the
Czech…
photo: AP / Matthias Schrader

REED SAXON
Associated Press=
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A wildfire that destroyed at least six homes, damaged 15 others and threatened hundreds more grew quickly Sunday as it triggered evacuations for nearly 3,
000 people and burned dangerously close to…
photo: AP / Reed Saxon

photo: AP / Manu Brabo

A strong earthquake jolted
Taiwan on Sunday, killing one person and injuring at least 18 others and causing panicked shoppers to rush out of a shaking multi-storey department store, officials said. Another earthquake jolted the southern
Philippines…
photo: Creative Commons / Howard61313 at zh.wikipedia

photo: AP / John Stillwell

CAIRO (AP) — An
Egyptian court has ruled that the nation’s Islamist-dominated legislature and constitutional panel were illegally elected. Sunday’s ruling by the
Supreme Constitutional Court also said that the legislature must be dissolved when…
photo: AP / Ahmad Hammad
02 Jun 2013
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling Americans should be forewarned that an item on President Barack Obama‘s wish list is another slippery slope. This time he wants the Pentagon to draw up a no-fly zone plan over Syria and its volatile, ongoing civil war.(1) In political terms, a slippery slope is a metaphor for accepting laws and…

CAIRO (AP) — An
Egyptian court has ruled that the nation’s Islamist-dominated legislature and constitutional panel were illegally elected. Sunday’s ruling by the
Supreme Constitutional Court also said that the legislature must be dissolved when…
photo: AP / Ahmad Hammad

photo: AP / Vahid Salemi

Turkish police have arrested more than 900 people during two days of protests, the most sustained anti-government outburst for years.
Interior Minister Muammer Guler said some of those arrested had since been released, others would be put on trial….
photo: AP / Thanassis Stavrakis
01 Jun 2013
SINGAPORE — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delivered a two-pronged message to Beijing — holding out hope for a slowly improving military relationship with the Asian giant while issuing a stern warning on cyberattacks coming from that country. But he was met with immediate skepticism from the Chinese delegation in the audience, who questioned…

TOKYO — In a story May 8 about the use of sex slaves during World War II, The Associated Press reported erroneously that then-Prime Minister Yohei Kono issued a 1993 statement expressing remorse for suffering caused to sexual slaves of Japanese…

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – More than 1,
000 people were killed in attacks in
Iraq during May in the worst spike in violence since the country’s sectarian civil war five…
photo: AP / Khalid Mohammed

BRIAN MURPHY
Associated Press= TEHRAN,
Iran (AP) —
Iranians have seen it before: A youngish presidential candidate firing up crowds with fist-waving rants against the
West, then displaying his Islamist bona fides with courtesy calls to hard-line…
photo: AP / Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Mehdi Dehghan

Turkey is braced for a second day of protests after clashes between police and demonstrators left dozens of people injured in
Istanbul on Friday.
Police have been drafted in from other provinces, parts of Istanbul are cordoned off and traffic is…
photo: AP

MANILA,
Philippines : The death toll from a powerful explosion that ripped through an upscale apartment complex in the
Philippine capital has risen to six, including the crew of a passing delivery van that was hit by debris, authorities said…
photo: AP / Bullit Marquez

An asteroid wider than nine ocean liners sailed safely past
Earth today (May 31), making its closest flyby of our planet for at least the next 200 years. Asteroid
1998 QE2, which is about 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) wide, cruised within 3.6 million…
photo: NASA / NASA/JPL-Caltech

By ILONA BILLINGTON And BRIAN BLACKTONE Enlarge
Image Close The euro-zone economy showed further signs of deterioration as unemployment hit a fresh record and retail spending fell in the bloc’s largest economies, offering little hope the region’s…
photo: AP / Andres Kudacki
31 May 2013
Nigerian authorities have have arrested three Lebanese men in northern Nigeria on suspicion of being members of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah. Soldiers uncovered a hidden arms cache that authorities believe belonged to members of the Shia political party and armed group, the military and secret police said on Thursday….

photo: US DoD / Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

TODD PITMAN
Associated Press= LASHIO,
Myanmar (AP) — More than 1,
000 Muslims who fled Myanmar’s latest bout of sectarian violence huddled in a
Buddhist monastery guarded by army soldiers as calm returned to this northeastern city, though burnt out…
photo: AP / Gemunu Amarasinghe

photo: AP / Jacques Brinon

Former Cambodian head of state
Khieu Samphan apologises directly to individuals who lost relatives in 1975-79 genocide Khieu Samphan at the genocide tribunal in
2011.
Photograph: AP Former leaders of
Cambodia‘s
Khmer Rouge being tried by a UN-backed…
photo: AP / Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

May 30: A series of bombs battered
Shi’ite and
Sunni Muslim neighborhoods across
Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 25 people in the worst wave of sectarian violence since civil war five years ago. The bloodletting reflects increasing conflict…
photo: AP / Khalid Mohammed
Full Article BBC News
31 May 2013
Voters in Bhutan are taking part in elections on Friday to determine which two out of four parties will go on to participate in the second and decisive stage of the vote on 13 July. The winner of the July vote will form the government and the runner-up will become the opposition. The election is the second to be held in Bhutan since the country…

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a lobbyist working on his gun control campaign received threatening letters that tested positive for the deadly poison ricin.
Police said Wednesday that one of the letters was received on Friday and was…
photo: Creative Commons / David Shankbone

The man fatally shot by an
FBI agent during questioning about his ties to one of the
Boston Marathon bombing suspects was unarmed, according to reports. Ibragim Todashev, a 27-year-old Chechen immigrant, had been questioned for hours on May 22 in…
photo: AP / Nati Harnik
Full Article BBC News
30 May 2013
So-called killer robots are due to be discussed at the UN Human Rights Council, meeting in Geneva. A report presented to the meeting will call for a moratorium on their use while the ethical questions they raise are debated….

Syria has already received the first shipment of an advanced
Russian air defence system, Syria’s
President Bashar al-Assad is reported to have said in a Lebanese TV interview.
Russia vowed to go ahead with sending the weapons soon after an EU…
photo: Creative Commons / Xabier Eskisabel

By DANIEL INMAN And WEI-ZHE
TAN Tokyo stocks suffered another brutal loss Thursday as investor skepticism mounted about the power of this year’s rally. Weighed by a sharply lower dollar, the
Nikkei Stock Average dropped 5.2% to end at 13,589.03, its…
photo: AP / Koji Sasahara

The
Boko Haram armed group has claimed that a military offensive launched against it by the
Nigerian military is failing. “My fellow brethren from all over the world I assure you that we are strong, hale and hearty since they launched this assault on…
photo: AP / Sunday Alamba

TODD PITMAN
Associated Press= LASHIO,
Myanmar (AP) — It was a terrifying sight: hundreds of angry, armed men on motorcycles advancing up a dusty street with no one to stop them. Shouting at the top of their lungs, clutching machetes and iron pipes…
photo: AP / Gemunu Amarasinghe
![Alphorn Festival in Grindelwald area. Grindelwald has a population (as of 31 December 2011) of 3,796.[1] As of 2007, 15.8% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Alphorn Festival in Grindelwald area. Grindelwald has a population (as of 31 December 2011) of 3,796.[1] As of 2007, 15.8% of the population was made up of foreign nationals.](http://cdn5.wn.com/vp/i/d6/221c31117918e6.jpg)
GRINDELWALD,
Switzerland —
Marco Bomio recalls that bright
Sunday morning in June
2006 as if it were yesterday. Mr. Bomio, 59, the principal of a local middle school and an avid mountain guide, attended a religious service on a high mountain meadow…
photo: Creative Commons / Cristo Vlahos

photo: AP / Rodrigo Abd

PESHAWAR,
Pakistan (Reuters) –
A U.S. drone strike killed the
No. 2 of the
Pakistani Taliban in the
North Waziristan region on Wednesday, three security officials said, in what would be a major blow to the militancy. The drone strike killed seven…
29 May 2013
In 1946, the at Nuremberg stated the following, in language that was introduced by Judge Robert Jackson, the lead American prosecutor of Axis war criminals: To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the…

photo: USMC / Lance Cpl. Gene Allen Ainsworth III

Sectarian violence has spread to a new region of
Myanmar, with a rampaging mob torching a mosque and a Muslim orphanage in a northeastern town after rumors spread that a Muslim man had set fire to a
Buddhist woman, authorities said Wednesday. There…
photo: AP / Daily Eleven Media

SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaders of
Syria‘s opposition forces got a chance to make their case for increased
U.S. support directly with Sen.
John McCain when he slipped into that country for a surprise visit. McCain, R-Ariz.,…
photo: AP / John McCain via Twitter

photo: Creative Commons / Leonard.inc

photo: UN / UN

WASHINGTON —
President Obama will soon accelerate his efforts to put a lasting imprint on the country’s judiciary by simultaneously nominating three judges to an important federal court, a move that is certain to unleash fierce
Republican opposition…
photo: AP / Alex Brandon

Posted: May 27, 2013
The European Union lifted the arms embargo on
Syrian rebels after they were unable to gain agreement on what to do. The
EU decision means that member states will be able to send weapons to the outgunned rebels beginning a few…
photo: Creative Commons / Chatham House
28 May 2013

SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaders of
Syria‘s opposition forces got a chance to make their case for increased
U.S. support directly with Sen.
John McCain when he slipped into that country for a surprise visit. McCain, R-Ariz.,…
photo: AP / John McCain via Twitter

photo: Creative Commons / Leonard.inc

photo: UN / UN

WASHINGTON —
President Obama will soon accelerate his efforts to put a lasting imprint on the country’s judiciary by simultaneously nominating three judges to an important federal court, a move that is certain to unleash fierce
Republican opposition…
photo: AP / Alex Brandon

Posted: May 27, 2013
The European Union lifted the arms embargo on
Syrian rebels after they were unable to gain agreement on what to do. The
EU decision means that member states will be able to send weapons to the outgunned rebels beginning a few…
photo: Creative Commons / Chatham House

photo: AP / Khin Maung Win

CARACAS,
Venezuela (AP) —
Chevron Corp. has agreed to lend $2 billion to a joint venture with Venezuela’s state oil company in an effort to boost production in an oil field in western
Zulia state. Venezuelan Oil
Minister Rafael Ramirez signed the…
photo: AP / Ismael Francisco, Prensa Latina
27 May 2013
China and Germany have voiced opposition to trade protectionism, promising to settle the disputes on solar power and mobile telecommunication equipment through dialogue. In a joint statement issued on Sunday during Chinese Premier Li Keqiang‘s visit to Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Li called for all parties to strictly abide by the rules…

COLOMBO,
Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s government is investigating media who covered the death of a
Buddhist monk who set himself on fire to protest the slaughter of cattle. The
Media Ministry website says the monk could have been saved had media…
photo: AP / Eranga Jayawardena

MOORE, OKLAHOMA:
President Barack Obama visited tornado-devastated
Moore, Oklahoma, consoling people staggered by the loss of life and property and promising that the government will be behind them “every step of the way.” The extraordinarily…
photo: AP / The Oklahoman, Bryan Terry, Pool

photo: AP / J. Scott Applewhite

In a conflict which worsens by the week, this is a week when critical decisions on the next steps in
Syria must be made. On Monday, meetings of foreign ministers in
Brussels and
Paris could pave the way for more weapons to be supplied to the…
photo: AP / Edlib News Network ENN

photo: Creative Commons / Georgewilliamherbert

photo: AP / Seth Weni

The government of
Colombia and the country’s largest rebel group,
FARC, have agreed on land reform, after more than six months of…
photo: AP / Fernando Vergara
Full Article South China Morning Post
26 May 2013
China was thanked yesterday for its massive wave of investment across Africa as the continent’s leaders opened extravagant celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the African Union. Africa’s leaders were gathering in the AU’s modern, Chinese-built headquarters in the Ethiopian capital to mark the founding of an organisation that helped liberate…

photo: AP / Nickee Butlangan

French police are hunting a man who attacked a soldier on patrol with two colleagues in the
La Defense business district of
Paris on Saturday evening.
Private First Class Cedric Cordier was approached from behind and stabbed in the neck with a…
photo: AP / Remy de la Mauviniere

photo: AP / Alex Brandon

MOSCOW —
Interpol has rejected a
Russian request for a worldwide police hunt for
William F. Browder, a
British investment banker and a Kremlin nemesis who has made no secret of his whereabouts or of his battle against the government of
President…
photo: Creative Commons / World Economic Forum

NIAMEY,
Mali (AP) —
Niger‘s president says suicide bombers who carried out simultaneous attacks on a military installation and a French-run uranium mine came from southern
Libya.
President Mahamadou Issoufou told reporters Saturday the death toll now…
photo: AP

PARIS: A
French soldier patrolling a business neighbourhood west of
Paris was stabbed in the neck on Saturday by a man who quickly fled the scene and is being sought by police,
President…
photo: AP / Remy de la Mauviniere

CONAKRY (Reuters) – At least five people were killed on Saturday when security forces in
Guinea opened fire on protesters in opposition strongholds in the capital, medical sources and witnesses said. The violence brings to 11 the number of people…
photo: AP / Jerome Delay
25 May 2013
LONDON — The streets of Stockholm were quieter late Friday after five consecutive nights of rioting that rocked the Swedish capital and shook the Scandinavian country’s self-image as a tolerant, liberal place. Since Sunday, sections of northwest and south Stockholm have been lighted up with the glow of fires started by rock-throwing rioters,…

Guatemala has extradited ex-president
Alfonso Portillo to the
United States to face charges of laundering $70m. Portillo was put on a plane on Friday under the escort of US agents. “Hasta luego (see you later), people of Guatemala,” Portillo,…
photo: AP / Moises Castillo

France is set to begin the first major stage of its military withdrawal from
Mali, four months after sending troops to push Islamist rebels out the north. A convoy of 80 lorries will leave a
French base outside the capital,
Bamako, and drive south to…
photo: AP / Jerome Delay

photo: AP / Keystone, Peter Klaunzer

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – A nearly week-long spate of rioting spread outside
Stockholm on Friday but authorities said police reinforcements sent to the Swedish capital had reduced the violence there, even though dozens of youths set cars and a recycling…
photo: Creative Commons / Telefonkiosk

A four-lane highway bridge in
Washington state has collapsed after being struck by a lorry, six years after 13 people were killed when another bridge fell. So how safe are bridges in the US? Repairs to the collapsed
Skagit River bridge will cost an…
photo: AP / Elaine Thompson

Nawaz Sharif knows better than anyone how powerful
Pakistan‘s military are. He was toppled by them in
1999. So who is really going to be running the country now that he will be prime minister? In Pakistan’s politically savvy drawing-rooms…
photo: AP / K.M. Chaudary

LONDON — A government minister said Friday that the police and the security services would face inquiries into their previous handling of two men accused of hacking a
British soldier to death on a busy
London street two days ago.
British security…
photo: AP / Akira Suemori
24 May 2013
President Barack Obama combined a vigorous defence of his controversial use of drones with a no less impassioned demand for the closure of the notorious prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which he called “a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law.” In a sweeping public reassessment of the evolving threat facing the US, Mr…

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko
Kuroda on Friday expressed confidence the central bank can stem bond market volatility with flexible market operations and engineer a steady recovery in the world’s third-largest economy. Kuroda said the central bank’s…
photo: AP / Shizuo Kambayashi

BEIJING (AP) — A
North Korean envoy, on the second day of his fence-mending visit to ally
China, heeded
Beijing‘s wishes by offering to renew nuclear disarmament talks,
Chinese state media said. The accounts depicted Thursday’s meeting between
North…
photo: AP

photo: AP / Alastair Grant

photo: AP / Jim Young

President Barack Obama defended the
United States‘ use of drone attacks as an important part of the
U.S. counterterrorism policy on Thursday but signed new presidential policy guidelines to spell out for
Congress and the public the standards that the…
photo: AP / Gerald Herbert

photo: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais

ORLANDO,
Fla. —
George Zimmerman’s defense attorneys on Thursday released photos and text messages from 17-year-old Trayvon
Martin’s cellphone ahead of a hearing that will determine whether they can be used at Zimmerman’s murder trial. Zimmerman is…
photo: AP / John Minchillo
Full Article France24
23 May 2013
Prosecutors will question IMF chief Christine Lagarde on Thursday to determine whether she should face charges regarding a €400 million payout to disgraced businessman Bernard Tapie when she was France‘s finance minister in 2007. By News Wires (text) Prosecutors will grill IMF chief Christine Lagarde on Thursday as they investigate…

SARAH EL DEEB
Associated Press= CAIRO (AP) — The safe release Wednesday of seven conscripts kidnapped by suspected militants in
Sinai brought a victory for
Egypt‘s Islamist president after months of criticism that his government is mismanaging the…
photo: WN / Ahmed Deeb

Amnesty International has accused governments of using state sovereignty as an “excuse” for failing to intervene in emergencies such as in
Syria. In its annual report, the human rights group also blames world leaders for prioritising…
photo: AP / Aleppo Media Center AMC

ROME — An
Italian judge on Wednesday ordered the captain of the cruise ship
Costa Concordia to stand trial on manslaughter and other charges related to the deadly capsizing of the vessel off the coast of
Tuscany in
January 2012. The judge set a July…
photo: AP / Enzo Russo

BOGOTA,
Colombia — At least 10 Colombian soldiers were killed and six wounded Wednesday in a pre-dawn attack on an army patrol with homemade explosives by the country’s second-largest leftist rebel band, the military said. The 2 a.m. attack by…
photo: AP / Christian Escobar Mora

VIENNA —
The U.N. atomic agency on Wednesday detailed rapid Iranian progress in two programs that the
West fears are geared toward making nuclear weapons, saying
Tehran has upgraded its uranium enrichment facilities and advanced in building a…
photo: AP / Ronald Zak

A man reported to be a serving soldier has been murdered near a military training barracks in southeast
London, in what police say may be a politically motivated attack.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has called a meeting of his…
photo: AP / Alastair Grant

On Tuesday, a report presented to
Congress by Jerusalem-based watchdog
NGO Monitor showed that several
NGOs (“non-government organizations”) in the region that receive
U.S. tax dollars are hostile toward
Israel and the peace process.
Gerald M….
photo: UN / Evan Schneider
Full Article The Times of India
22 May 2013
SEOUL: North Korea on Wednesday sent a top military official to China as a personal envoy of leader Kim Jong-Un, at a time of strained relations with Beijing and ahead of a key China-US summit. Choe Ryong-Hae, the director of the Korean People’s Army politburo, flew to Beijing with a handful of senior military and ruling party officials, the Korean…

photo: AP / Ariel Schalit

CHENGDU,
China — It was, at first glance, a rather modest initial public offering by a small
Chinese company seeking to expand production of the key ingredient used in traditional remedies said to shrink gallstones, reduce fevers and sooth the…
photo: Creative Commons / Abu0804

photo: AP / Richard Drew

Helmeted rescue workers raced Tuesday to complete the search for survivors and the dead in the
Oklahoma City suburb where a mammoth tornado destroyed countless homes, cleared lots down to bare red earth and claimed 24 lives.
Scientists concluded the…
photo: Creative Commons / Flickr / Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Kendall James

ENUGU,
Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria’s military said Tuesday that the
West African nation would release some of the prisoners it has taken in the country’s fight against
Islamic extremists — including all the women now held in custody. The surprise…
photo: AP / Salisu Rabiu

Iraq‘s Shi’ite
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered a shakeup of senior government security officers, as a weeks-long wave of violence grips the country and fears of all-out sectarian war spread. The shakeup was confirmed on the…
photo: US DoD / U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley

21 May 2013

A military physician who oversees a team of nurses force-feeding hunger-striking prisoners at the
Guantanamo Bay detention facility has dismissed ethical concerns raised by human rights groups and medical organisations about the procedure, saying the…
photo: US Navy / Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elisha Dawkins

CAIRO –
The Egyptian army sent more troops to
Sinai Peninsula on Monday, getting ready for a possible military operation to release the seven kidnapped soldiers, a military source told
Xinhua. On Thursday, a group of militants abducted seven military…
photo: AP

ZEINA KARAM
Associated Press=
BEIRUT (AP) —
Hezbollah was pulled more deeply into
Syria‘s civil war as 28 guerrillas from the Lebanese
Shiite militant group were killed and dozens more wounded while fighting rebels, Syria activists said Monday. The…
photo: WN / Ahmed Deeb

photo: AP / Misha Japaridze

Peet van Zyl told
Press Association Sport the 26-year-old was not mentally ready to return to the track. The six-time
Paralympic gold medallist was charged with the premeditated murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in…
photo: AP

MADRID —
Real Madrid coach
Jose Mourinho will leave at the end of the season after three years at the
Spanish club, paving the way for an expected return to
Chelsea. The 50-year-old
Portuguese coach has two remaining matches of a season that will end…
photo: AP / Daniel Ochoa De Olza

China‘s
Premier Li Keqiang is due to hold talks with
Indian leaders in an attempt to rebuild trust after a recent flare-up in border tensions. Mr Li is also expected to discuss trade ties and other bilateral issues at meetings with his Indian…
photo: AP / Saurabh Das
20 May 2013
There’s no point in engaging in a perpetual global war on terror From both the left and the right, three common misper-ceptions have emerged about US foreign policy: First, that the Global War on Terror has become a perpetual state of affairs; sec-ond, that no strategy is available to end this conflict in the near future; and third, that “the…

China‘s
Premier Li Keqiang is due to hold talks with
Indian leaders in an attempt to rebuild trust after a recent flare-up in border tensions. Mr Li is also expected to discuss trade ties and other bilateral issues at meetings with his Indian…
photo: AP / Saurabh Das

Security forces and hardline Islamists fought street battles in
Tunis on Sunday, with one protester killed and 15 policemen wounded, after the authorities banned the Salafists from staging their annual congress. A Tunisian protester jumps amid smoke…
photo: AP / Amine Landoulsi

The Egyptian president has ruled out negotiating with the abductors of seven members of the security forces seized last week in the
Sinai peninsula. In a statement,
Mohammed Morsi said there was “no room for dialogue with the criminals”. He…
photo: AP / Ghiath Mohamad

photo: AP / Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi

(Bloomberg)
North Korea fired three short-range missiles yesterday as it showcased its military ambitions in defiance of international sanctions and diplomatic efforts to convince the totalitarian state to return to…
photo: AP / Ng Han Guan

photo: AP / Vahid Salemi

photo: AP / Alastair Grant
19 May 2013
May 19: Chastened by the experience of Afghanistan, where hundreds of Saudis fought before returning to sow terror at home, the kingdom is battling to avoid similar blowback from the conflict in Syria, analysts say. In recent months, Saudi officials have issued increasingly stern warnings against volunteers from the conservative Sunni Muslim…

(Bloomberg)
North Korea fired three short-range missiles yesterday as it showcased its military ambitions in defiance of international sanctions and diplomatic efforts to convince the totalitarian state to return to…
photo: AP / Ng Han Guan

photo: AP / Vahid Salemi

photo: AP / Alastair Grant

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) –
Gunmen killed a senior female politician from a reformist party in
Pakistan on
Saturday night, the latest violent incident in a bloody election campaign and one that set off a war of words between two major opposition parties….
photo: AP / Fareed Khan

photo: AP / Sunday Alamba

photo: AP / Hussein Malla

Conservative religious lawmakers in
Afghanistan blocked a law that aims to protect women’s freedoms, with some arguing that parts of it violate Islamic principles or encourage women to have sex outside of marriage. The failure highlights how tenuous…
photo: AP / Rafiq Maqbool
Full Article BBC News
18 May 2013
France‘s president is to sign into law a controversial bill that will make the country the eighth in Europe, and 14th globally, to legalise gay marriage. On Friday, the Constitutional Council rejected a challenge by the right-wing opposition, clearing the way for Francois Hollande to sign the bill. He said: “I have taken [the decision];…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
President Barack Obama on Friday trimmed his funding request for the war in
Afghanistan and other overseas operations by 10 percent, reflecting his plans to wind down the
U.S. presence in that country….
photo: U.S. Marine Corps / Public Domain

photo: US DoD / Glenn Fawcett

Bombs ripped through
Sunni areas in
Baghdad and surrounding areas Friday, killing at least 76 people in the deadliest day in
Iraq in more than eight months. The major spike in sectarian bloodshed heightened fears the country could again be veering…
photo: AP / Adem Hadei

PESHAWAR,
Pakistan — In what officials called the first major terrorist attack since last week’s general elections, at least 13 people were killed and 30 injured when two bombs ripped through two separate mosques on Friday in a remote mountainous…
photo: AP / Mohammad Sajjad

The UN‘s refugee agency has said that more than 1.5m people have fled the conflict in
Syria. Most have fled to
Jordan and
Lebanon, but not have all been registered yet, meaning the true total is likely to be far higher, according to the
UNHCR….
photo: AP / Raad Adayleh

TORONTO – (AP) —
A 5.2 magnitude earthquake centered northwest of rattled buildings Friday in
Ontario and and was felt across upstate from to the border. ‘s government agency that monitors…
photo: Creative Commons / Nicolas Marchildon

photo: UN / Rick Bajornas
17 May 2013
If there’s one thing you can say about Bashar al-Assad, it’s that he has staying power. For more than two years, the Syrian president has defied predictions that his downfall is imminent. His regime has certainly suffered many setbacks during the brutal civil war that shows no signs of ending, but it’s clear right now that Assad and his followers…

Attacks across
Iraq have killed 50 people in the last two days as growing friction between
Sunni and
Shia leads to more sectarian violence. Sunni anger has been increasing since
Iraqi army soldiers broke up a peaceful sit- in in a square in the town…
photo: AP / Karim Kadim

photo: AP / Alaskan Volcano Observatory, Theo Chesley

photo: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais

photo: AP / Schalk van Zuydam

By
MATTHEW FUTTERMAN and JOSHUA ROBINSON
David Beckham, the soccer star and one of the most famous athletes in the world, announced his retirement from the sport Thursday. “I think I’m ready,” said the 38-year-old Beckham, arguably the world’s most…
photo: AP / Jordan Strauss

Germany‘s lower house of parliament approved
Croatia‘s entry to the
European Union on Thursday, clearing the last formal hurdle for the former Yugoslav republic to enter the bloc. Croatia is…
photo: Creative Commons / Bogdan Giu?c?

photo: AP / Rick Rycroft
Full Article The Guardian
16 May 2013
At least six Afghans killed, including three children, in rush hour attack that may also have killed a number of Nato personnel A US soldier inspects the scene of a suicide car bomb attack targeting a convoy of Nato forces in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photograph: S. SABAWOON/EPA A suicide bomber drove his explosives-packed Toyota Corolla into a Nato…

The US and
Russia announced plans for a conference on
Syria last week.
The world can be forgiven for wondering: what use is that? Indeed, what use has any outside activity been on Syria? Two years ago, in the border town of
Deraa, a flame of…
photo: AP / SANA

photo: AP / Khalid Mohammed

A ceiling collapse at a Cambodian shoe factory has killed at least six workers, police said, with regional industrial safety in the spotlight after last month’s disaster in
Bangladesh. A Cambodian rescue team look for workers after a factory…
photo: AP / Heng Sinith

A suicide bomber has attacked a convoy of foreign military vehicles in the
Afghan capital
Kabul, police have said. “A [
Toyota] Corolla suicide car detonated near two foreign military vehicles,” Kabul police chief
Mohammad Ayoub Salangi told the
AFP…
photo: AP / Anja Niedringhaus

photo: AP / Mohammad Hannon

Kim Jong-un reportedly fathered a baby girl in
2010 with an unknown woman, more than two years before his wife gave birth to the couple’s first child, it has emerged. Kim Jong-un during an inspection of the second battalion under Korth
Korean army…
photo: AP / Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service

15 May 2013
Admitting that Islamist extremists now control some of his nation’s villages and towns, President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency on Tuesday across Nigeria’s troubled northeast, promising to send more troops to fight what he said is now an open rebellion. Mr. Jonathan warned that any building suspected of housing Islamist extremists…

Hundreds of thousands of people in
Bangladesh and
Burma have been ordered to move to safety to avoid a cyclone travelling towards low-lying coastal areas.
The UN is warning that more than eight million people may be at risk from
Cyclone Mahasen,…
photo: AP / A.M.Ahad

photo: UN / Mark Garten

A top judicial panel in
Brazil has cleared the way for same-sex marriage in the country, ruling that gay couples could not be denied marriage licenses.
The National Council of
Justice, which oversees the Brazilian judicial system and is headed by the…
photo: Creative Commons / Luiz

NEW DELHI — At least 58 people were missing and feared dead Tuesday after a boat capsized off
Myanmar while residents tried to flee an approaching cyclone,
United Nations officials said. The boat was carrying about
100 Rohingya Muslims, many of…
photo: AP / Gemunu Amarasing

photo: Public Domain / Taprobanus

GUWAHATI/KOHIMA:
Tropical cyclone Mahasen is expected to hit northeast
India in the next 72 hours with heavy rains and thunderstorms expected in the region. On May 16, the cyclone is expected to cross the
Bangladesh coast between
Khepupara and…
photo: Creative Commons / Keith Edkins

A graphic video has emerged of a
Syrian rebel commander cutting out the heart of a government soldier’s chest and biting into it. Described by
Human Rights Watch as “emblematic” of a civil war that has rapidly descended into sectarian hatred and…
photo: WN / tamer

RAIWIND,
Pakistan —
Pakistan’s presumptive prime minister said Monday that he wants good relations with the
United States but criticized
American drone strikes on militants as a violation of the country’s sovereignty – perhaps hinting the…
photo: AP / K.M. Chaudary)

Hollywood actress
Angelina Jolie has undergone a double mastectomy to reduce her chances of getting breast cancer. The 37-year-old mother of six has explained her…
photo: Creative Commons / Gage Skidmore

ATHENS (Reuters) –
Greek state workers walked off the job on Tuesday to protest a government decision to ban a strike by high-school teachers, shutting down schools and reducing staff at hospitals to a minimum. Invoking emergency powers under
Greek…
photo: AP / Kostas Tsironis

photo: AP / Elise Amendola

Shaimaa
Khalil visits a police academy on the outskirts of
Cairo, where new recruits get lessons in combat training and human rights.
Continue reading the main story
Egypt changing Egypt’s challenge: The economy
Sexual harassment debate…
photo: AP / Hassan Ammar

A new study by the
U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (
FAO) says insects could be used in the fight against hunger and to increase food security. A report released Monday says that forest insects form part…
photo: WN / Janice Sabnal
13 May 2013

photo: AP / Michel Lipchitz

FARID HOSSAIN
Associated Press= DHAKA,
Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh’s government plans to raise the minimum wage for garment workers after the deaths of more than 1,
100 people in the collapse of a factory building focused attention on the textile…
photo: AP / A.M. Ahad

photo: AP / Doug Parker

NIAMEY, NIGER — Some 800,
000 people will require food aid in
Niger in the coming months despite a good harvest last year due to problems supplying cereals to markets, which have pushed up prices, and an influx of Malian refugees, the
United Nations…
photo: UN / WFP/Phil Behan

Nawaz Sharif has established himself as the most successful politician in
Pakistan‘s history. It’s not just that he has won an unprecedented third term as prime minister. He has also survived sustained corruption allegations, periods of…
photo: AP / B.K. Bangash

North Korea has criticised the arrival of the
US aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the
South for a joint drill as an “extremely reckless” provocation and a rehearsal for war against the communist state. A US naval strike group led by the nuclear-powered…
photo: Public Domain / Official Navy Page

photo: Creative Commons / Mifter
12 May 2013
Former Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif is celebrating with his supporters, amid early signs that his party will be the largest after parliamentary elections. Media projections based on partial results suggest a big lead for Mr Sharif‘s Muslim League, and he has already claimed victory. The election should lead to the country’s first transition…

TEHRAN, May 11 (
Xinhua) — To many’s surprise,
Iran‘s chief nuclear negotiator
Saeed Jalili made an announcement on Saturday about his decision to run for the country’s upcoming presidential contest. Earlier in the day, he appeared in Iran’s Interior…
photo: AP / Vahid Salemi

The biggest threat these days to unit cohesion in the
U.S. military is the tolerance for sexual assaults in the ranks. A
Pentagon report released Tuesday underscored the seriousness of the problem.
Last year, the
Defense Department recorded 3,374…
photo: USMC / Aaron Hostutler
11 May 2013
The level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone, scientists reported Friday, reaching a concentration not seen on the Earth for millions of years. Scientific monitors reported that the gas had reached an average daily level that surpassed 400 parts per million — a sobering…

photo: US Navy / Josh Ives

May 10:
The Taliban militant group has said that the
United States seeks permanent occupation of
Afghanistan following its announcement to keep nine military bases in the war-torn country. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahed said in an e-mailed…
photo: US Army / Aaron Hostutler
10 May 2013
DHAKA: The death toll from a garment factory building that collapsed more than two weeks ago outside the Bangladeshi capital soared past 1,000 on Friday, while the list of the dead from a fresh fire at a sweater manufacturer showed the entanglement of the industry and top Bangladeshi officials. Officials said 1,021 bodies have been recovered from…

Syria will supply “game-changing” weapons to
Hezbollah, the chief of the Lebanese militant group,
Hassan Nasrallah, said on Thursday. He made the comments less than a week after
Israeli airstrikes on
Damascus targeted alleged shipments of advanced…
photo: AP / Hussein Malla

photo: US Navy / Josh Ives

STEPHEN BRAUN
Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — Former
Connecticut Sen.
Joe Lieberman says failures by national security agencies tainted investigations into the
Boston bombing plotters — and says the scheme could have been discovered beforehand….
photo: AP / Senate TV

WASHINGTON: The problems that plague the
Middle East, including
Iran‘s nuclear ambitions and
Syria‘s civil war, require “political, not military” solutions, US defense secretary
Chuck Hagel said Thursday. Saying the “old order” was vanishing in the…
photo: USMC / Aaron Hostutler

SARISSKE MICHALANY,
Slovakia — Gazing out his window during morning recess on his first day at work, the principal of an elementary school here,
Jaroslav Valastiak, was caught up short: all the children playing in the asphalt-covered yard were…
photo: WN / Imran Nissar

Cleveland kidnapping suspect
Ariel Castro appeared in court briefly on Thursday and was arraigned on kidnapping and rape charges. Prosecutors said they may charge Castro…
photo: AP / Mary Altaffer

photo: AP / Sebastian Scheiner
09 May 2013
Gina DeJesus gives a thumbs-up to well-wishers as she arrives Wednesday at her family home in Cleveland after a decade in captivity with two other women. The man suspected of being her captor has been charged with kidnapping and rape. (Emmanuel Dunand, AFP/Getty Images) CLEVELAND — Cleveland law enforcement authorities Wednesday charged the…

photo: AP / Winslow Townson

SRINAGAR,
India (Reuters) – A convicted
Pakistani militant jailed in India died on Thursday after being beaten by another inmate in an apparent revenge attack for the death of an
Indian spy prisoner, threatening already fraught relations between the…
photo: AP / Channi Anand

The government has set out the case for lifting or amending the EU arms embargo against the main
Syrian opposition group, the
National Coalition.
The UK said such a move would strengthen moderate forces in the opposition. It would put also pressure…
photo: AP / Rodrigo Abd

photo: AP / Carolyn Kaster

Unlike the brilliant thieves in “
Ocean’s Eleven,” it appears that those behind the clockwork-precision, $50 million diamond heist at
Brussels Airport may not get a
Hollywood ending. After three months of virtual silence on the matter, authorities…
photo: Creative Commons / Lucash

Haiti’s reclusive former president,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, made a rare public appearance Wednesday, showing up at about 8:15 a.m. at the main Port-au-Prince courthouse to answer an investigative judge’s summons. With hundreds of…
photo: AP

photo: AP / Jon Super
08 May 2013
Internet connections between Syria and the outside world have been cut off, according to data from Google Inc and other global Internet companies. Tuesday’s shutdown effectively “disconnects Syria from Internet communication with the rest of the world,” according to companies that monitor online traffic around the world. Google‘s Transparency…

The World Trade Organization has settled on
Roberto Azevedo of
Brazil, a well-known diplomat and consummate insider in
Geneva circles, to serve as its director-general for the next four years, officials said on Tuesday. He is poised to become the…
photo: Flickr / PR / Roberto Stuckert Filho

BERLIN –
France‘s finance minister,
Pierre Moscovici, warned on Tuesday against caricatures and misunderstandings over
Germany‘s handling of the euro crisis, but quickly qualified his conciliatory statement about the
European…
photo: AP / Oliver Lang

With guys like alleged groper
Jeffrey Krusinski running sexual assault prevention in the
Air Force, it will surprise few that sexual assaults are on the rise in the military, and still dangerously underreported. According to a new
Pentagon report,…
photo: US Navy / Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jorge Saucedo

7 May 2013, 22:08
Russia And US Agree
International Syria Talks
Tweet Russia and the US will hold a new international conference later this month in an attempt to push the Assad regime and
Syrian opposition into talks on a political transition. The…
photo: Public Domain / State Department

photo: Flickr / The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa

ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and JOSE OSORIO ,
The Associated Press Posted: Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 1:30 PM
MEXICO CITY – A natural gas tanker truck lost control and exploded on a highway lined by homes in the
Mexico City suburb of
Ecatepec early Tuesday,…
photo: AP / Gabriela Sanchez

photo: AP / Ng Han Guan

SEAN YOONG
Associated Press= KUALA LUMPUR,
Malaysia (AP) —
Malaysian opposition leader
Anwar Ibrahim pledged Tuesday to mount a “fierce movement” to challenge what he called fraudulent election results that kept the country’s long-ruling coalition in…
photo: AP / Vincent Thian

BEIJING – (AP) —
China’s military is denying renewed
U.S. accusations of carrying out cyber-attacks and says the sides should…
photo: AP / Greg Baker, File

Two days of rioting in
Bangladesh by conservative Islamists demanding an antiblasphemy law have left at least 19 people dead, more than
100 wounded and dozens of shops and vehicles destroyed, the official news agency
BSS reported on Monday. The…
photo: AP / Photo

Moscow –
Russian protesters unfurled a huge banner demanding the release of “political prisoners” on Monday, at the start of a day of protest against
President Vladimir Putin intended to revive their flagging opposition movement. The…
photo: AP / Pavel Golovkin

photo: Creative Commons / Alexey Yushenkov / ??????? ???????

By ALESSANDRA GALLONI
ROME—
Giulio Andreotti, a seven-time prime minister who over six decades in politics helped guide
Italy out of the wreckage of
World War II and into a period of economic…
photo: Creative Commons / White House

—
There are “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” pointing to the opposition. — The evidence comes from interviews of “victims, doctors” and others at field hospitals in countries…
Full Article Al Jazeera
06 May 2013
Whenever a bomb explodes in Libya, so do the arguments amongst those who profess to be the guardians of democracy despite their differing discourses on what constitutes security. It then becomes a chicken-egg dialogue: what should come first, security or democracy? Or are they, as many argue, the two sides of the same coin? I am biased….

Islamabad, May 06: This election is turning out to be one of the bloodiest in
Pakistan’s history, said a daily, warning that the “prospects for the situation on May 11 are grim and frightening”. The caretaker government needs a reality check,…
photo: AP / Fareed Khan

CAIRO, May 6 (
Xinhua) —
Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham
Qandil survived an attack on his motorcade by a group of armed men late Sunday evening, an interior ministry statement said. “A vehicle intervened in the prime minister’s motorcade and when the…
photo: AP / Amr Nabil

MOGADISHU,
Somalia — Seven people were killed on Sunday when a suicide bomber attempted to ram a car laden with explosives into a military convoy escorting a four-member
Qatari delegation.
Gen. Garad Nor Abdulle, a senior police official, said the…
photo: AP / Farah Abdi Warsameh

photo: AP / Mohammad Hannon

Israel is in an offensive mood. Its jets once again flew over
Syrian airspace and bombed suburbs in
Damascus. The Jamraya facility, which houses a research centre, seems to have been targetted and destroyed. The magnitude of the…
photo: AP / Ugarit News via AP video

BEIRUT (Reuters) –
Israel carried out its second air strikes in days on
Syria early on Sunday, a
Western intelligence source said, in an attack that shook
Damascus with a series of powerful blasts and drove columns of fire into the night sky. A cloud…
photo: AP / Shaam News Network via AP video

photo: AP / Mark Baker
05 May 2013
May 5, 2013 — Updated 0726 GMT (1526 HKT) An image taken from a YouTube video purportedly shows an explosion on a mountain filmed from a Damascus suburb Saturday. Damascus, Syria (CNN) — A series of massive explosions illuminated the predawn sky in Damascus, prompting more claims that Israel has launched attacks into the war-torn country. Syria…

BEIRUT (Reuters) –
Israel carried out its second air strikes in days on
Syria early on Sunday, a
Western intelligence source said, in an attack that shook
Damascus with a series of powerful blasts and drove columns of fire into the night sky. A cloud…
photo: AP / Ugarit News via AP video

The Shia-led coalition led by Iraqi PM
Nouri Maliki has come first in seven of 12 provinces, including
Baghdad, in elections held last month. Its main rival, the Sunni-dominated
Iraqiya bloc, suffered poor results. Observers say the results give an…
photo: AP / Petr David Josek

photo: AP / Amr Nabil
04 May 2013

ADAM SCHRECK
Associated Press= BAGHDAD (AP) —
Human Rights Watch on Saturday urged Iraqi authorities to give a government committee charged with probing a deadly raid by security forces on a protest camp last week greater financial and political…
photo: AP

photo: AP / Virginia Mayo

It seemed that each time wind-driven embers sparked new blazes or a wall of fire leaped a
Southern California hillside and came charging toward hundreds of homes, an army of firefighters was right there to either douse or direct the flames away from…
photo: AP / Ringo H.W. Chiu)

photo: Public Domain / United States Army

photo: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais

03 May 2013
The United States said on Thursday it was taking a fresh look at whether to arm Syria’s rebels as the Damascus regime pressed an assault on opposition forces in the embattled city of Homs. After having rejected the idea previously, President Barack Obama’s deputies were weighing the option of providing weapons to Syria’s outgunned…

LAHORE/
NEW DELHI/AMRITSAR:
Sarabjit Singh‘s death sparked a countrywide fury against
Pakistan on Thursday, dealing a heavy blow to the prospects of normalization of ties with the estranged neighbour in the near run, while exposing the government to a…
photo: WN / Bhaskar Mallick

US President Barack Obama has vowed to help
Mexico in the fight against drugs and end the violence that has claimed thousands of lives.
Obama vowed to put trade at the center of the two countries’ relations. Obama on Thursday said there was an…
photo: AP / Jacquelyn Martin

Tweet Beijing, May 3 (
IANS) A total of 904 people have been arrested in
China during a three-month campaign for crimes such as producing fake beef and mutton made from rat and fox, the ministry of public security said. Since
Jan 25,…
photo: Creative Commons / Magnus Manske

photo: AP / Zintan Media Center

photo: US DoD / Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

The system that enables powerful politicians and their business cronies to act as if they are above the law in
Bangladesh has been horribly exposed by the rising death toll at the
Rana Plaza building, which collapsed last Wednesday. The death toll…
photo: Creative Commons / Sharat Chowdhury

photo: AP / Alessandra Tarantino
Full Article Herald Tribune
02 May 2013
SEOUL, South Korea – An American detained for nearly six months in North Korea has been sentenced to 15 years of labor for crimes against the state, the North‘s state media said Thursday, a development that further complicates already strained ties between Pyongyang and Washington. The sentencing of Kenneth Bae, described by friends as a devout…

NEW DELHI (AP) —
Indians expressed outrage at the
Pakistan government Thursday over the death of a convicted
Indian spy who had been attacked with a brick by two fellow inmates in a Pakistan prison, a development
New Delhi said has damaged relations…
photo: AP / Channi Anand

photo: AP / Brennan Linsley

photo: AP / Michel Spingler

Violence in
Iraq rose sharply in April, with 460 people killed according to figures, raising fears of a return to the all-out sectarian conflict that plagued the country in past years. The majority of the deaths came during a wave of unrest that…
photo: AP / Alaa al-Marjani

Thousands take part in
May Day march in
Dhaka demanding better safety at work and death penalty for
Rana Plaza owner Bangledeshis hold pictures of relatives and loved ones still missing after the Rana Plaza building collapsed a week ago.
Photograph:…
photo: AP / Ismail Ferdous

photo: AP / Cliff Owen

Libya‘s disgruntled militiamen are flexing their muscles in the capital,
Tripoli. Both the foreign and justice ministry buildings in the city remain surrounded by a mix of young and older men in pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns….
photo: AP / Kevin Frayer

photo: AP / Cliff Owen

Libya‘s disgruntled militiamen are flexing their muscles in the capital,
Tripoli. Both the foreign and justice ministry buildings in the city remain surrounded by a mix of young and older men in pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns….
photo: AP / Kevin Frayer

DUBLIN (Reuters) –
Ireland may spend any spare cash from future budgets rather than ease austerity measures,
Finance Minister Michael Noonan said on Tuesday, after it left its plans to cut spending by
5.1 billion euro ($6.7 billion) for the next two…
photo: European Community / EC

Afghan National Security Forces have shrunk by 4,
000 troops and policemen from last year and are still 20,000 people short of the numbers they expect to have in place by the end of next year, according to the government watchdog overseeing…
photo: USMC / Pete Thibodeau

Willem-Alexander became the first king of the
Netherlands since 1890 today, ascending a throne largely stripped of political power but still invested with enormous symbolic significance for the
Dutch people. At his investiture in
Amsterdam‘s…
photo: AP / Robin Utrecht, Pool

photo: AP / Richard Drew

photo: UN / Rick Bajornas
Full Article BBC News
30 Apr 2013
Amanda Knox –
who is facing a retrial over the killing of Briton Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2007 – has gone on US television to protest her innocence. In an ABC News interview to be aired later on Tuesday, Miss Knox says claims that she is a “she-devil” and “heartless manipulator” are all wrong. “I’d like to be…

photo: AP / Alessandra Tarantino

photo: AP / Peter Dejong

BANGLADESH, my country, is again in tears.
Last week in
Savar, a suburb of
Dhaka, the capital, a poorly constructed building that housed garment factories and other businesses collapsed. More than
300 have been confirmed dead, and the final death…
photo: Creative Commons / Sharat Chowdhury

TOKYO — Two years after a triple meltdown that grew into the world’s second worst nuclear disaster, the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is faced with a new crisis: a flood of highly radioactive wastewater that workers are struggling…
photo: AP / Wally Santana

Seven people were killed on Monday when a civilian cargo plane crashed shortly after taking off from
Bagram Air Base, northeast of
Kabul, according to an international military spokesman.
The police chief of the surrounding area, Ezmarai Nasiri, said…
photo: Lance Cheung, U.S. Air Force

photo: AP / Ed Souza

CIA Bribes Karzai: Millions In ‘Ghost Money’ Paid To Afghanistan President’s Office, New York Times Reports


PAJU,
South Korea: South Korea was due Monday to pull out its last workers from a joint factory zone in
North Korea — a rare symbol of cross-border cooperation now crippled by a tense military stand-off. The move raises the prospect of the permanent…
photo: AP / Ahn Young-joon

Jerusalem, April 29:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country would not allow the intermittent firing of rockets into its territory and warned the continued attacks would be dealt aggressively. “I want to make clear…
photo: AP / Sebastian Scheiner, Pool

photo: AP / Koji Sasahara

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi authorities suspended the operating licenses of pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera and nine
Iraqi TV channels on Sunday after accusing them of escalating sectarian tension. The move signaled the Shiite-led government’s mounting…
photo: Creative Commons / Kimse

Gunmen surrounded
Libya’s foreign ministry and attempted to storm the interior ministry on Sunday to demand that all officials who worked under former leader
Muammar Gaddafi be prohibited from senior positions within the new administration. By
News…
photo: AP / Kevin Frayer

photo: UN / UN

WASHINGTON —
President Barack Obama joked Saturday that the years are catching up to him and he’s not “the strapping young Muslim socialist” he used to be.
Obama poked fun at himself as well as some of his political adversaries during the…
photo: AP / Haraz N. Ghanbari
28 Apr 2013
ROME (Reuters) – Two Italian police officers were shot and wounded on Sunday outside the prime minister’s office in Rome at the same as Prime Minister Enrico Letta‘s new government was being sworn in just a kilometer (mile) away. It was not immediately clear whether the attack was linked to the launch of the new government, but the episode came at…

Reykjavik: Iceland‘s centre-right opposition scored a clear victory in the island’s parliamentary poll, allowing the two parties to kick off negotiations for a coalition government, a final count Sunday showed. The right-wing
Independence Party was…
photo: AP / Brynjar Gauti

photo: UN / UN

KABUL,
Afghanistan—A remote-controlled roadside bomb killed three police officers in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, an attack the Taliban claimed as the opening round of their spring offensive. The bomb exploded in
Ghazni province beneath a…
photo: US Navy / Josh Ives

photo: AP / Sidali Djarboub

SWANSEA (Britain):
Fears about the purported side effects once sent
British parents running from vaccinations against measles. But now an outbreak of the potentially deadly disease in one city has brought them back in droves. As others went about…
photo: EC / European Commission

photo: UN / Eskinder Debebe

Jordan is desperate. In January, $1.5bn was pledged to provide aid for
Syrian refugees at the UN summit in
Kuwait. Three months later, only a fraction has been delivered and there is no definite plan in place for funding from the end of June. As the…
27 Apr 2013
After an eight-story building collapsed in Bangladesh Wednesday, killing at least 300 workers, police have arrested the owners of two factories that operated within the building. “We’ve arrested Bazlus Samad, the chairman of New Wave Buttons and New Wave Style factories, and Mahmudur Rahaman Tapash, a managing director of one of these plants, after…

KABUL,
Afghanistan (AP) —
The Taliban have announced the start of their spring offensive, signaling plans for an uptick in violence as the weather warms across Afghanistan, making both travel and…
photo: Public Domain / Lance Cpl. David A. Perez, U.S. Marine Corps

Zubova Polyana (
Russia): A
Russian court on Saturday rejected a plea for early release from prison by a member of the feminist punk band
Pussy Riot, whose provocative songs and prosecution have made them a symbol of the country’s opposition movement….
photo: AP / Mikhail Metzel

photo: AP / Mark Lennihan

photo: AP / Susan Walsh

People examine the blast site in southern
Pakistani port city of
Karachi on April 26, 2013. At least 11 people including a child were killed and 40 others injured on Friday night in a bomb blast that targeted a political meeting in
Pakistan’s…
photo: AP / Fareed Khan

Rebels in
Ivory Coast who helped bring
President Alassane Ouattara to power are not only commanding the nation’s armed forces but are raking in millions of dollars from illegal smuggling and a parallel taxation system,
U.N. experts said in a report…
photo: AP / Rebecca Blackwell

Judge says
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has ‘not always followed the rules of behaviour’
Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova attends court in Zubova Polyana, where she was denied early release from prison.
Photograph:
Maxim Shipenkov/
EPA A
Russian…
26 Apr 2013
WASHINGTON – The Syrian government has used chemical weapons in its conflict with the opposition forces, the White House said on Thursday. In a letter sent to some members of the Congress, the White House said that “The US intelligence community assesses with some degree of varying…

photo: US DoD / Erin A. Kirk Cuomo

photo: WN / Periasamy

photo: AP / Eric Draper

WASHINGTON —
U.S. intelligence has concluded “with some degree of varying confidence” that the
Syrian government has twice used chemical weapons in its fierce civil war, the
White House and other top administration officials said Thursday….
photo: AP / Muzaffar Salman

photo: AP / Dave Weaver

YANGON,
Myanmar (AP) — Activists in Myanmar say police have injured seven people and arrested three others in a new crackdown on residents opposed to a controversial Chinese-backed copper mine project. The violence occurred Thursday near…
photo: AP / Khin Maung Win

Israel says it has shot down an unmanned drone from
Lebanon off its northern coast. Military officials said the plane was intercepted in
Israeli airspace near the city of
Haifa. Deputy defence minister
Danny Danon confirmed the incident to Israeli…
photo: AP / Ariel Schalit
By Charles Riley @CNNMoney April 25, 2013: 5:55 AM ET HONG KONG (CNNMoney) The eurozone debt crisis extracted a heavy price in Spain and Greece to start the year as labor markets in both countries continued to shed jobs. The number of unemployed in Spain broke the 6 million barrier during the first quarter, a new record. The unemployment rate rose…

The death toll from a building collapse in
Bangladesh yesterday has risen to 160 and could climb higher, police said this morning.
People remain trapped under the rubble of a complex that had housed garment factories supplying retailers in
Europe and…
photo: AP / A.M.Ahad

Venezuelan opposition candidate
Henrique Capriles has threatened to take action over disputed votes he claims were “stolen” by
Nicolas Maduro‘s government. Mr
Capriles demanded details of an audit of the vote the electoral council says…
photo: AP / Fernando Llano

China leads the world in computer espionage, according to an annual report that monitors the state of global cyber threats. Ninety-six percent of cyber espionage cases targeting intellectual property and business trade secrets were attributed to…
photo: AP / Lee Jin-man

photo: Creative Commons / Bgag

photo: AP / Bilal Hussein

Tasked by
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano with forming a government,
Enrico Letta is a centrist thought to have as good a chance as anyone of winning the support for a broad-based coalition. A Europhile on the moderate side of the centre-left…
photo: Creative Commons

JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press= SAVAR,
Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh’s health minister says 70 people have been confirmed dead in the collapse…
photo: AP / A.M. Ahad
Toronto: Two foreign nationals arrested on suspicion of what police say was an Al-Qaeda-backed plot to derail a Canadian passenger train rejected the charges as they made their first court appearances Tuesday. Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35, were arrested on Monday for allegedly planning to carry out an attack on a Via Rail train in the…

photo: US DoD / Glenn Fawcett

photo: USAF / Master Sgt. Robert Wieland

photo: AP / Hussein Malla

photo: Creative Commons / Chaser

April 23: A letter that was intercepted and sent to a screening facility at an airbase in the
United States contained the deadly poison ricin according to preliminary tests. The letter was discovered at
Bolling Air Force Base outside
Washington on…
photo: Creative Commons / SusanLesch

WASHINGTON — A Yemeni man who studied at an
American high school told
Congress on Tuesday that a drone strike on his village in
Yemen last week terrified his neighbors, turning them against the
United States in a way that terrorist propaganda…
photo: UN / Jean-Marc Ferré

23 Apr 2013

SEOUL (Reuters) –
North Korea demanded on Tuesday that it be recognized as a nuclear weapons state, rejecting a
U.S. condition that it agree to give up its nuclear arms program before talks can begin. After weeks of tension on the
Korean peninsula,…

Paraguay‘s President-elect Horacio
Cartes, a wealthy businessman, has said he would “never put personal interests before the country’s”. Mr Cartes, one of Paraguay’s richest men, told reporters there wouldn’t be conflict…
photo: AP / Jorge Saenz

photo: WN / Ahmed Deeb

photo: AP / Jon Super

A comprehensive new analysis of temperature changes over the continents through 2,
000 years has found that a long slide in temperatures in most regions preceded the unusual global warming of recent decades, but with a lot of regional variability and…
Today,
April 22nd, marks the 43rd anniversary of the start of a global environmental movement. How are others across the world celebrating? More than
192 countries are celebrating the 43rd
Anniversary of
Earth Week. This week…
photo: NASA / NASA’s Earth Observatory/NOAA/DOD

PARIS — A widespread strike all but grounded the
German flag carrier
Lufthansa on Monday, affecting around 150,
000 passengers around the world amid a battle over wages as the airline pushes ahead with a $2 billion restructuring program. The…
photo: Creative Commons / T.Voekler
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect, Reportedly Awake And Responding To Questions In Writing
22 Apr 2013
YA’AN: Rescuers and relief teams struggled to rush supplies into the rural hills of China’s Sichuan province Sunday after an earthquake left at least 180 people dead and more than 11,000 injured and prompted frightened survivors to spend a night in cars, tents and makeshift shelters. The earthquake Saturday morning triggered landslides that cut off…

BANGKOK (AP) — A leading international rights group is accusing authorities in
Myanmar, including senior
Buddhist monks, of organizing a “campaign of ethnic cleansing” against the country’s Rohingya Muslim…
photo: AP / Khin Maung Win

photo: AP / Jorge Saenz

photo: AP / Hasan Jamali

Baghdad:
Iraqi election officials were to begin counting votes on Sunday from the country’s first elections since
US troops departed, which served as a key test of its stability amid a spike in violence. Attacks killed three people on election day, a…
photo: AP / Nabil Al-Jurani

photo: Creative Commons / ??????

Voters in
Paraguay go to the polls on Sunday in a presidential election seen as key to restoring the country’s democratic credentials. Horacio
Cartes, of the conservative
Colorado Party, and the centre-right
Liberal Party‘s Efrain
Alegre…
photo: AP / Jorge Saenz

photo: AP / Eugene Hoshiko

ROME :
Italy’s lawmakers re-elected 87-year-old
President Giorgio Napolitano on Saturday in a bid to break the country’s political gridlock, as protestors outside parliament jeered the result. The ex-communist Napolitano won with a sweeping majority…
photo: AP Photo / Plinio Lepri

Seven million
Syrians now need humanitarian assistance, according to an estimate from the
United Nations. The Assad regime is being blamed by the UN for hindering the distribution of aid. In the capital,
Damascus, people struggle to get on with their…
photo: AP / SANA

April 20, 2013 — Updated 1008
GMT (1808
HKT) (
CNN) — The hunt for the men is over. The hunt for the motive is just beginning. As 19-year-old Dzhokar Tsarnaev remained in serious condition in a heavily guarded Boston-area hospital room early…
photo: White House / Pete Souza

photo: AP

BOSTON —
Police in
Boston apprehended one of the men suspected of having planted the bombs that exploded earlier this week at the
Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring 170. The arrest followed a massive manhunt in which nearly a million…
photo: AP / Matt Rourke

A strong 6.6 magnitude earthquake has hit southwestern
China’s Sichuan province, killing at least 56 people and injuring about 600 close to where a big quake killed almost 70,
000 people in 2008. The earthquake occurred at 8.02am in Lushan county near…
photo: AP / Xinhua, Ding Haita

FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press=
ROME (AP) —
Italy‘s polarized
Parliament failed in a second day of balloting Friday to elect a president, as the high-profile candidacy of ex-Premier
Romano Prodi fell far short of the votes needed. The rebuff…
photo: AP / Gregorio Borgia

SARAH EL DEEB
Associated Press= CAIRO (AP) — Clashes erupted Friday between several hundred opponents and supporters of
Egypt‘s Islamist president during a rally by his allies calling on him to “cleanse the judiciary” of alleged supporters of the old…
photo: AP / Mostafa Elshemy

BEIJING (AP) —
A 6.9-magnitude earthquake has hit
China’s Sichuan province, the site of a massive earthquake in 2008. There was no immediate word on any casualties in the quake that happened at 8:02 a.m. (0002
GMT) Saturday. The official
Xinhua…
Dzhokar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, is in custody, police say, after a manhunt that left one suspect and one police officer dead
Manhunt in Progress for Boston Bomber
HELL NIGHT: EXPLOSIONS… GUNFIRE…

photo: AP / B.K. Bangash

photo: AP / Victor R. Caivano

photo: AP / Luis Soto

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
The United States has already made “tremendous progress” in expanding weapons sales to
India since 2008, and
U.S. companies could see “billions of dollars” in additional sales in coming years, a senior
U.S. State Department…
photo: AP / Biswaranjan Rout

(Reuters) –
U.S. regulators are close to approving a key document that could start the process of returning Boeing Co’s grounded
787 Dreamliner to service within weeks, according to several people familiar with the matter. Approval of the document,…
photo: AP / Chris O’Meara

photo: WN / Imran Nissar
17 Apr 2013

photo: AP / Manuel Balce Ceneta

North Korea has said it was ready to talk if UN sanctions against it were withdrawn and if the US and
South Korea put an end to joint military drills. The conditions for dialogue were outlined in a statement from the
North‘s
National Defence…
photo: AP / Park Ji-ho, Yonhap

No matter who is eventually found and brought to justice for the odious attack in
Boston, the rush to blame “the Muslims” fits a longstanding and disturbing pattern after attacks like this one. Although there have been very few terrorist attacks in…
photo: AP / Elise Amendola

VIVIAN SEQUERA
Associated Press= CARACAS,
Venezuela (AP) — President-elect
Nicolas Maduro and his opposition rival traded accusations Tuesday over blame for post-election violence that the government said had caused seven deaths and 61 injuries…
photo: AP / Ariana Cubillos

While seeking a good package for the IT industry, including allowing flexible movement of IT professionals,
India has made it clear to the
European Union (EU) that it cannot go beyond the parameters of the
TRIPS (Trade-Related
Intellectual Property…

WASHINGTON – The commander of
U.S. and allied forces in
Afghanistan is telling
Congress that he would like to assess the combat performance of the
Afghan army this summer before deciding how many foreign troops to keep there after 2014.
Marine Gen.…
photo: USMC / Gabriela Garcia

photo: AP / Hussein Malla

photo: AP / Craig Ruttle

PYONGYANG,
North Korea — North Korea lashed out anew Tuesday at
South Korea over a small public protest in
Seoul in which demonstrators burned effigies of the
North‘s leaders, saying it would not hold talks with its southern neighbor unless it…
photo: AP / Lee Jin-man

Lome – A 12-year-old boy in
Togo was killed on Monday by police who fired in warning to disperse a protest demanding the country’s schools re-open as demonstrations over the closures spread across the country, a statement said.
The west African…

photo: AP / Hasan Jamali

April 16, 2013 — Updated 0828
GMT (
1628 HKT) Are you from
South or
North Korea?
Send us your views. (
CNN) — North Korea is raising the temperature on its neighbors, saying in its latest threat that it would not give any advance warning before any…
photo: AP / Lee Jin-man

The heads of five major
UN agencies have issued a rare joint appeal to the international community to do much more to end “cruelty and carnage” in
Syria. In a statement, the chiefs of the WHO,
Unicef, Ocha,
WFP and
UNHCR urged political…
photo: AP / Muhammed Muheisen

WASHINGTON (AP) — A stony-faced
President Barack Obama declared that those responsible for the explosions at the
Boston Marathon “will feel the full weight of justice,” but he urged a nervous nation not to jump to conclusions. Top lawmakers declared…
photo: White House / Pete Souza

Chad’s president says his country’s troops are pulling out of
Mali three months after the French-led mission to oust militants linked to Al Qaeda began, raising questions about how feasible the planned
French pullout will be if
France…
photo: AP / Abd Raouf

photo: flickr

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President Obama vowed justice today for the bombing that killed at least two people at the
Boston Marathon. “We still do not know who did this or why, and people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts, but make no…
photo: Public Domain / Gage
15 Apr 2013
Nicolas Maduro has cemented his position as Venezuela‘s president, winning a razor-thin mandate on Sunday, but the former bus driver seems unwilling to step out from the shadow of his larger-than-life predecessor to govern a country wracked by problems and possibilities. Describing himself as a “son” of former president Hugo Chavez who died…

Tweet Pune, Apr 15 (
ANI): A court in Pune will give its verdict today on a man who allegedly plotted the bomb blast at the city’s
German Bakery in
February 2010, in which 17 people were killed and 64 others were…
photo: Creative Commons / KevinScott.Org

Secretary of State John Kerry has said the US is open to “credible and authentic negotiations” with
North Korea over its nuclear policy. Kerry is in
Japan on the final day of a four-day tour of the region. Kerry said Monday in
Tokyo that the US will…
photo: US DoS

At least 16 people were killed as two car bombs exploded outside the law courts in
Somalia‘s capital
Mogadishu and gunmen stormed the building , before a gunbattle erupted with security forces besieging the compound, witnesses said. A large blast hit…
photo: AP / Farah Abdi Warsameh
Tweet Kabul, April 14 (
IANS) Ten Taliban militants have been killed in military operations across
Afghanistan Since Saturday, the interior ministry…
photo: US Navy / Josh Ives

Washington —
Central or
Northern New York could become the site of a sprawling, $3.6 billion development that would bring the region hundreds of new jobs for well-paid engineers and technicians. But there’s one big catch: The community would have to…
photo: US DoD / Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

photo: AP / Vahid Salemi

April 14, 2013 — Updated 0512
GMT (1312
HKT)
Officials in
Hong Kong test poultry at the border with mainland
China on April 11 as authorities step up measures against the spread of the deadly H7N9 bird flu.
Empty cages are seen at a closed bird…

Tweet Kabul, April 14 (
IANS) Ten Taliban militants have been killed in military operations across
Afghanistan Since Saturday, the interior ministry…
photo: US Navy / Josh Ives

Washington —
Central or
Northern New York could become the site of a sprawling, $3.6 billion development that would bring the region hundreds of new jobs for well-paid engineers and technicians. But there’s one big catch: The community would have to…
photo: US DoD / Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

photo: AP / Vahid Salemi

April 14, 2013 — Updated 0512
GMT (1312
HKT)
Officials in
Hong Kong test poultry at the border with mainland
China on April 11 as authorities step up measures against the spread of the deadly H7N9 bird flu.
Empty cages are seen at a closed bird…
photo: UN / UN

At least 34 people were killed and many others wounded after a bus plunged
200 metres down a ravine in northern
Peru, police have said. The bus veered off a mountain road near the town of
Otuzco almost 570km north of the capital of
Lima,…
photo: AP

photo: US Navy / Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Joshua Valcarcel (

VATICAN
CITY —
Pope Francis named eight cardinals from around the globe Saturday to advise him on running the
Catholic Church and reforming the Vatican bureaucracy, marking his first month as pope with a major initiative to reflect the universal…
The Challenge to CHAVEZ MACHINE

FIRDIA LISNAWATI= BALI,
Indonesia (AP) — A
Lion Air plane carrying more than
100 passengers and crew overshot a runway on the
Indonesian resort island of
Bali on Saturday and crashed into the sea, injuring nearly two dozen people, officials said. I…
photo: Public Domain / Lionlmi

Cairo: The retrial of
Egypt‘s former president
Hosni Mubarak was set to begin on Saturday in Cairo, after an appeal against the life sentence handed down against him last June was accepted.
Television footage showed
Mubarak, dressed in white and…
photo: AP / Mohammed al-Law

TOKYO: A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit western
Japan early Saturday but there was no risk of a tsunami, the country’s meteorological agency reported. The quake struck at 5:33 am (
2033 GMT on Friday) near
Awaji island in the
Seto Inland Sea…
photo: Creative Commons / 663highland

Russia would eventually support an international war crimes tribunal for
Syria, Russia’s foreign minister has said. Russia has been one of the Syria’s closest allies since the conflict began more than two years ago. “At this stage, I think the…
photo: AP / Jim Watson, Pool

photo: AP / Jacquelyn Martin, Pool

photo: AP / J. Scott Applewhite

CAIRO — With the Islamist president by his side,
Egypt‘s army chief warned against slandering the military, denying in remarks broadcast Friday that the military committed any abuses against protesters during the turbulent transition of the past two…
12 Apr 2013
By Shahab Jafry Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. if you are interested in contributing. Despite the longevity of America‘s Afghan campaign, including the spillover into Pakistan’s tribal area, few in the international press really understand the true nature of the Taliban threat,…

The late
Hugo Chavez’s self-declared socialist revolution will be put to the test at a presidential election on Sunday that pits his chosen successor against a younger rival promising change in the nation he polarised. Most opinion polls give his…
photo: AP / Ariana Cubillos

Chilean students are staging nationwide demonstrations demanding free education.
Riot police are patrolling the streets of…
photo: AP / Luis Hidalgo

Israeli police detained five women activists on Thursday at the
Western Wall, one of Judaism’s most sacred sites, for wearing prayer shawls, which
Orthodox tradition sees as solely for men, a spokesman said.
The incident occurred during a monthly…
photo: Creative Commons / David Shankbone

photo: AP / Michael Sohn

Caracas – The late
Hugo Chavez‘s self-declared socialist revolution will be put to the test at a presidential election on Sunday that pits his chosen successor against a younger rival promising change in the nation he polarised. Most opinion polls…
photo: AP Photo

photo: AP / Eduardo Di Baia

photo: AP / Majdi Mohammed

photo: US Army / Shane Hamann

The
Syrian Air Force is carrying out both deliberate air strikes against civilians and indiscriminate attacks, a leading rights group has warned.
Human Rights Watch says it visited 52 sites in north-western
Syria, documenting 59 such unlawful…
photo: AP / Khalil Hamra

photo: US DoD / Bobby J. Yarbrough

photo: USMC / Pete Thibodeau

CHENNAI,
Tamil Nadu — One person was killed and at least 27 people were injured early Wednesday morning after the derailment of nearly half of the coaches of a 24-car train traveling from the eastern state of
Bihar to the southern state of…
photo: WN / Raj Kumar Senapati

WASHINGTON (AP)
President Barack Obama is sending
Congress a $3.8 trillion spending blueprint that strives to achieve a “grand bargain” to tame runaway deficits. It would raise taxes on the wealthy and trim popular benefit programs including as…
photo: AP / Mary Altaffer

The leader of
Egypt‘s
Coptic Christians has accused the country’s president of “negligence” following deadly clashes outside the main cathedral in
Cairo.
Pope Tawadros II said
Mohammed Morsi had failed to protect the building, where two people died…
photo: AP / Egyptian Presidency

The use of the death penalty is broadly diminishing around the world although a handful of countries that had not used capital punishment for several years resumed executions in
2012, according to
Amnesty International. Methods of executions in 2012…
photo: Creative Commons

The head of the
Russian Orthodox Church,
Patriarch Kirill, said Tuesday that feminism was a “very dangerous” phenomenon offering an illusion of freedom to women who should focus on their families and children. About three-quarters of…
photo: AP / Alexander Zemlianichenko

photo: AP / Tara Todras-Whitehill

photo: AP / Charles Dharapak

A powerful
Iran earthquake killed at least 32 people and injured nearly 1,
000 on Tuesday.
CNN shared the details on April 9 of the quake that hit in southern Iran with a magnitude of
6.3. The Iran earthquake left the
Bushehr nuclear plant undamaged,…
photo: AP / Hamed Nazari

DOHA, Qatar — When a handful of Taliban emissaries flew into Qatar on an American plane in 2010, the Obama administration hoped they would help negotiate a peace deal that could stabilize Afghanistan and allow the United States a graceful exit…

After
Egypt’s worst sectarian violence in months left seven dead the past two days, Egypt’s leading opposition figure
Mohamed ElBaradei on Monday called on the Islamist president to make serious concessions to bring the opposition into…
photo: AP / Thomas Hartwell

photo: AP / Herbert Knosowski

photo: AP / Jon Super

photo: UN /Paulo Filgueiras

photo: martine perret / UNMISS

Risks come with serving as a
U.S. diplomat in the
Middle East, but
Anne Smedinghoff hardly dwelled on them and took all the precautions while in the field, her colleagues said Monday. “I think for Anne, (the risks are) what she saw as part of the…
photo: US Army / Ryan Hallgarth


Julian Assange says 1973-76 reports, including many by
Henry Kissinger, show vast range and scope of US activity Julian Assange said WikiLeaks had been working for a year to analyse US national archives data.
Photograph:
Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters…
photo: AP / Kirsty Wigglesworth)

photo: UN / Eskinder Debebe

photo: AP / Ahn Young-joon

photo: REGIERUNGonline / Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung

KABUL,
Afghanistan — A
NATO airstrike killed 11
Afghan civilians, including 10 children, during a fierce weekend gunbattle with Taliban militants that also left one
U.S. civilian adviser dead in eastern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Sunday. The…
photo: US Army / Kelvin Lovelist

China has added its voice to the growing tensions in the
Korean peninsula, saying no country should cause global chaos after the US postponed a missile test to ease war fears.
Xi Jinping, the president of China,
North Korea‘s financial and…
photo: UN / Rick Bajornas


Dutch national arrested on suspicion of murder of
Sarah Groves, 24, who was found dead on a houseboat on Saturday Sarah Groves, from
Guernsey, was found with multiple stab wounds all over her body.
Photograph: Handout/
EPA Police in India are…
photo: WN / Imran Nissar

photo: AP / Ariana Cubillos

US Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in
Turkey, where he will hold talks expected to address relations with
Israel and the conflict in
Syria. After helping broker a reconciliation between Turkey and Israel, Mr Kerry will urge them to…
photo: AP / Paul J. Richards

photo: US DoD / Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

photo: AP / Saurabh Das

photo: AP / Themba Hadebe

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced today it had signed two agreements with Yemen‘s government on feeding five million people in the impoverished country. Implementation of the agreement will depend on funding received from the international..

photo: AP / Marcio Jose Sanchez

photo: AP / Dita Alangkara

Islamist groups in
Bangladesh are to hold a rally in the capital,
Dhaka, calling for tough curbs on bloggers who insult
Islam. Thousands of activists have staged a “long march” from around the country to take part in the rally. A…
photo: AP / A.M. Ahad

TOKYO, April 6 (Reuters) – As much as
120 tons of radioactive water may have leaked from a storage tank at
Japan‘s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, contaminating the surrounding ground,
Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Saturday. The power company has…
photo: AP / Wally Santana

Posted: April 5, 2013
Guantanamo Bay prison camp should close, according to the UN rights chief on Friday.
Navi Pillay stated that the hunger strike being stagey by some inmates that the naval base in southeastern
Cuba was “scarcely…
photo: US Navy / MCS1 David P. Coleman

photo: AP / RIA-Novosti

BENIN,
Nigeria, April 5 (
Xinhua) — At least 60 people lost their lives on Friday in a road accident which occurred on Benin- Ore road located in southern Nigeria,…

China has begun a mass slaughter of poultry at a market in
Shanghai, after a new bird flu virus was detected there. The H7N9 virus, a form of avian flu not before seen in humans, was discovered in pigeons…
photo: AP / Eugene Hoshiko

Moscow:
Syria is turning into a “centre of gravity” for international terrorists as the ongoing civil war between rebels and government forces continues, a top
Russian…
photo: AP

photo: Public Domain / Petty Officer 2nd Class Kevin S. O’Brien, U.S. Navy

Isotope seized in
Georgia too small for dirty bomb 8 minutes ago
Iran, 6 powers meet Thursday for nuclear talks 8 minutes ago
South African military to withdraw troops in
CAR 13 minutes ago Iran, 6 powers meet Thursday…
photo: UN / Stuart Price

SEOUL,
South Korea —
North Korea has moved a missile with “considerable range” to its east coast, South Korea’s defense minister said Thursday, but he added that there are no signs that
Pyongyang is preparing for a full-scale conflict. The report…
photo: AP / Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service

A fourth person has died of human H7N9 avian flu infection in
China and another person is in hospital after contracting the virus,
Chinese health officials announced on Thursday. These infections bring the death toll to four and the total number of…
photo: AP / Elizabeth Dalziel

Reuters | Posted: 04/29/2013