(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...
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BEIRUT -- Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won't step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics, raising new doubts about a U.S.-Russian effort to get Mr. Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war. In the capital Damascus, a car bomb killed at least three people and wounded five, according to Syrian state TV. It said bomb experts dismantled other explosives in the area. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, said eight people were killed, including four members of the security forces. Discrepancies in death tolls are...
Denmark's Emmelie de Forest has won this year's Eurovision Song Contest with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune Only Teardrops, despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, hippie-chic 20-year-old for the catchy love song that is driven by her deep, Shakira-like voice. She received a total of 281 points in the glitzy music battle, which also featured a bizarre opera pop number from Romania, the comeback of Total Eclipse of the Heart star Bonnie Tyler and an Armenian rock song written by the guitarist of Black Sabbath. "It was overwhelming and I could really feel the fans...
Texas has joined the crowd of Gulf of Mexico states to file suit against BP Plc, Halliburton Co and others for their role in one of the worst oil spills in US history. The complaint, filed on Friday in US District Court in Beaumont, Texas, alleges that the companies and others "engaged in wilful and wanton misconduct" for their role in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The state has accused the firms - as well as Transocean, Anadarko and BP America in its suit - of violating Texas' environmental regulations. Texas is seeking money from "lost" tourism revenues due to the spill, as well as monies that would have been generated from state park entrance and concession fees by visitors to the...
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. Around 150 people were killed in the run-up to national elections held last week, which handed a landslide victory to opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and his PML-N party. It marked the first time an elected government...
Soldiers in Ivory Coast have arrested a militia leader who was allegedly involved in a 2011 massacre of...
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says in a newspaper interview that he will not step down before next year's elections. Mr. Assad's...
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 women’s rights remain a dozen years after the overthrow of the Taliban. Khalil Ahmad Shaheedzada, a conservative lawmaker for Herat province, said the legislation was withdrawn shortly after being introduced in parliament because of fierce opposition...
LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria's military said on Saturday it had killed 10 insurgents and arrested 65 more as part of an offensive meant to wrest back control of parts of its remote northeast from an Islamist group seen as the main security threat to Africa's top oil producer. President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian southerner, had been accused of not taking seriously enough the violence in the largely Muslim north where some fear Islamist insurgents allied to al Qaeda could take over large swathes of territory as they did in Mali before French-led troops ejected them this year. Jonathan has since won plaudits from some quarters...
Two of Europe's biggest telecommunications equipment makers, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens, have urged the European Commission to back off from threatening tariffs on their Chinese rivals in a row over alleged illegal government subsidies. The European Commission said on Wednesday that it was prepared to probe possible Chinese subsidies to network...
SPOKANE, Wash. -- The FBI and other law enforcement agencies are executing a search warrant Saturday in the case of two letters containing the deadly poison ricin that were intercepted this week at a post office in Washington state. Police say the investigation has focused on a neighborhood near downtown Spokane. The FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Spokane police are involved, but further details were not immediately available. Ricin is a highly toxic substance made from castor beans. As little as 500 micrograms, the size of the head of a pin, can kill an adult if inhaled or ingested. Two letters containing the substance were intercepted at the downtown Spokane post office Tuesday....
Nigeria's military has imposed a 24-hour curfew in parts of the northeastern city of Maiduguri, as security forces continue to pursue suspected Islamist militants in the region. The military on Saturday listed more...
MATTHEW PENNINGTON Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — Myanmar President Thein Sein's historic White House visit next week is the culmination of U.S. outreach to a former pariah regime. That's been based on a principle of taking "action for action" by deepening ties in response to democratic reforms. But in the six months since Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to visit Myanmar, the Southeast Asian nation has been buffeted by communal and ethnic violence, and security forces are still accused of serious rights abuses. Activists and some in Congress are concerned it may be premature to welcome Myanmar's leader to the White House for the first time in 47 years. In November, on the...
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....
The US has chided Russia for what it calls an "unfortunate decision" to send missiles to the Syrian government. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Martin Dempsey said the shipment "will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering" that has killed 80,000. The sophisticated anti-ship missiles could be used to counter any future foreign military intervention, US officials told The New York Times. Some 1.5 million people have fled the conflict, says the UN refugee agency. Most have fled to Jordan and Lebanon, but not all have been registered yet, meaning the true total is likely to be far higher, according to the UNHCR. Meanwhile,...
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 toward civil war. The attacks followed two days of bombings targeting Shiites, including bus stops and outdoor markets, with a total of 130 people killed since Wednesday. Scenes of bodies sprawled across a street outside a mosque and mourners killed during a funeral procession were reminiscent of some of the worst days of retaliatory warfare between the Islamic sects that peaked in 2006-2007 as U.S. forces battled extremists on both sides. Tensions...
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 village in northwestern Pakistan. Views on Pakistan’s Election A selection of comments and tweets from readers in Pakistan and the diaspora on the issues that matter to them. Multimedia Video Examining Pakistan’s Election (May 15, 2013) Related News Analysis: Sharif vs. Army, Round 3 (May 14, 2013) Pakistani Leader Moves Quickly to Form Government (May 14, 2013) Connect With Us on Twitter Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and...
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. The situation inside Syria has deteriorated dramatically over the past four months, according to the agency. The UN estimates that 80,000 people have died in the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It says some 4.25 million have been displaced within the country. "Refugees tell us the increased fighting and changing of control of towns and villages, in particular in conflict areas, results in...
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...
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday appointed former Dutch development minister Albert Gerard Koenders as U.N. special envoy for Mali and head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the West African country. Ban said Aichatou Mindaoudou Souleymane of Niger...
