Assad replies to U.N. proposals to end bloodshed

DAMASCUS (AFP) ― Syrian President Bashar al-Assad responded Tuesday to U.N.-Arab League proposals for an end to the bloodshed in Syria even as monitors said nearly 50 more people were killed and a pro-regime daily reported the capture of a rebel city.U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who met with Assad in Damascus over the weekend, said he had made “concrete” proposals to the Syrian leader on ways to halt the attacks and secure humanitarian access to cities where the United Nations says thousan

March 14, 2012

Obama, Cameron to focus on foreign threats

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― British Prime Minister David Cameron arrived in Washington Tuesday, to back President Barack Obama’s bid to cool “loose talk” over war with Iran and as Afghan war policy faces sharp scrutiny.Cameron became the first foreign leader to join Obama on Air Force One as the two leaders headed off to watch a college basketball game in Ohio, in a gesture meant by the White House to highlight a bond between the two men.The meat of the visit will come Wednesday as Obama welcomes Cameron

March 14, 2012

Sri Lanka should reconcile with Tamils

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The U.S. warned Tuesday that Sri Lanka risks renewed conflict unless it addresses war crimes allegations, while rights groups said that abuses by security forces continue, three years after fighting against Tamil rebels ended.Sri Lanka has reacted angrily to the growing international pressure to account for thousands of civilians suspected to have died in the final months of the quarter-century-long war, when government forces finally crushed the separatist Tamil Tigers.A new d

March 14, 2012

France mourns father of thousands, Jocko the bull

Jocko Besne, father of hundreds of thousands of the world's most productive dairy cattle, has died in France of natural causes aged 27, the farming cooperative which raised him said.Jocko was the sire -- literally in at least 161,888 and perhaps as many as 400,000 cases -- of the Prim'Holstein race

March 14, 2012

Chinese leadership

Chinese leadership politics delay major reforms .BEIJING (AP) -- As China faces growing calls for major reforms to prevent its slowing economy from derailing and keep its living standards rising, the response from Chinese leaders appears to be: “Not yet.”In speeches, news conferences and meetings in the past 11 days during the annual session of the national legislature, Cabinet ministers have promised only gradual steps to help entrepreneurs and curtail the state companies that crowd out private

March 13, 2012

Guatemalan gets 6,060-year sentence in massacre

A former member of an elite Guatemalan military force extradited from the United States last July was sentenced to 6,060 years in prison Monday for his role in the killings of 201 people in a 1982 massacre.Pedro Pimentel Rios was the fifth former special forces soldier sentenced to 6,060 years or mo

March 13, 2012

Seven dead, 150 missing after Bangladesh ferry sinks

At least seven people died and about 150 people were missing after a ferry sank in Bangladesh in the early hours of Tuesday morning, officials said, adding that 35 survivors had been found.Rescue workers began recovering bodies from the double-decker Shariatpur 1 ferry, which was hit by another vess

March 13, 2012

Indonesian boy, 8, puffs two cigarette packs a day

An eight-year-old Indonesian boy who smokes two packets of cigarettes a day has highlighted the government's failure to regulate the tobacco industry, the country's Child Protection Commission said Monday.After food, cigarettes account for the second-largest household expenditure in the Southeast As

March 13, 2012

Love letters reveal Nixon's sensitive side

When Richard Nixon first met his future bride, he was so smitten he pined for her night and day, he schemed of romantic getaways and he put it all down in writing.Decades before he became known to some as ``Tricky Dick,'' Nixon was the one penning nicknames (sweet ones) to his future bride in gushy

March 13, 2012

34 killed in new Syria violence

BEIRUT (AFP) ― At least 34 people, almost half of the civilians, were killed across Syria on Sunday as peace envoy Kofi Annan held a second round of talks with President Bashar al Assad, a monitoring group said.The casualties comprised 15 civilians, 14 regular army soldiers and five rebel fighters, with most of the casualties occurring in the provinces of Idlib and Damascus and in the city of Hama, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.“Fierce fighting has been raging between deserters an

March 12, 2012

Gaza violence spikes, Netanyahu warns militants

GAZA CITY (AFP) -- Israeli air strikes on Gaza killed three Palestinians on Sunday, raising the toll to 18, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed no let-up against rocket-firing militants.Hamas said it was talking with Egyptian officials in a bid to reach a truce with Israel, but warned that it expected the Jewish state to hold fire first and that talks had so far been unproductive.And Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for most of the rockets fired from Gaza in recent days, warned

March 12, 2012

China frees 24,000 abducted women, kids

BEIJING (AFP) ― Chinese police rescued more than 24,000 abducted children and women last year, some of whom had been sold for adoption or forced into prostitution as far away as Angola, officials said Sunday.Trafficking of women and children is a serious problem in China ― blamed in part on the strict “one-child” policy, which has put a premium on baby boys― and activists say the cases uncovered by police are just the tip of the iceberg.The Ministry of Public Security said in a report posted on

March 12, 2012