MOSCOW (AP) _ Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced on his Facebook page Sunday that he has ordered a probe into the allegations of electoral fraud during the country's Dec. 4 parliamentary vote.Medvedev's post generated over 2,200 mostly angry comments within one hour. ``Shame!'' and ``We don

Dec. 12, 2011

DURBAN, South Africa (AP) ― A U.N. climate conference reached a hard-fought agreement Sunday on a complex and far-reaching program meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change for the coming decades.The 194-party conference agreed to start negotiations on a new accord that would put all countries under the same legal regime enforcing commitments to control greenhouse gases. It would take effect by 2020 at the latest.The deal also set up the bodies that will collect, gove

Dec. 11, 2011

HONG KONG (AFP) ― The sight of French President Nicolas Sarkozy running to Beijing to solicit funds to save the eurozone summed up what for some was the economic story of 2011 ― Asia’s boom versus the West’s gloom.Coming after some regional nations were forced to go cap-in-hand to the International Monetary Fund for bailouts amid the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, the irony was not lost on observers.As 2011 draws to a close with the U.S. recovery barely at a trot, Europe staring into an economi

Dec. 11, 2011

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) ― The deputy chief of the Pakistani Taliban announced Saturday that the militant group was in peace talks with the government and an agreement to end its brutal four-year insurgency was within striking distance.The statement by Malvi Faqir Mohammad, which appeared timed to exploit tensions between the Pakistan army and the U.S., will likely stoke further concerns in Washington over Pakistan’s reliability as a long-term partner in the fight against extremists.It represente

Dec. 11, 2011

SANAA (AP) ― A national unity government was sworn in Saturday in Yemen as part of a deal for the country’s embattled president to step down after nearly a year of protests against his rule and a crackdown that has killed hundreds.The new 35-member administration is made up of an almost equal number of opposition and loyalist ministers, among them nine who served in the previous cabinet. The new government’s first main task will be to push through a law shielding President Ali Abdullah Saleh fro

Dec. 11, 2011

DAMASCUS (AFP) ― World powers piled pressure on Syria to let in observers as activists on Saturday reported at least 14 another civilians killed by security forces on the anniversary of International Human Rights Day.“The world celebrates human rights as human rights are being violated in Syria,” the opposition Syrian Revolution 2011 said in a message posted on its Facebook page.In Oslo, the Nobel Committee head said at the 2011 Peace Prize awards ceremony that this year’s award to Yemeni activi

Dec. 11, 2011

BOSTON (AP) ― Police officers swept through Dewey Square early Saturday, tearing down tents at the Occupy Boston encampment and arresting dozens of protesters, bringing a peaceful end to the 10-week demonstration.Officers began moving into the encampment at about 5 a.m. to “ensure compliance with the trespassing law,” police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said.The city had set a deadline for midnight Thursday for the protesters to abandon the site but police took no action until early Saturday, mak

Dec. 11, 2011

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ― Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich said he supports a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that includes two separate states, but he did not step back Saturday from his assertion that Palestinians are an “invented” people, an incendiary comment that infuriated one side in the Mideast peace process.The burden to show a willingness to reach a peace accord with the Israelis lies squarely with the Palestinians, he said.“When the president keeps talki

Dec. 11, 2011

MOSCOW (AP) ― Tens of thousands of people held the largest anti-government protests that post-Soviet Russia has ever seen to criticize electoral fraud and demand an end to Vladimir Putin’s rule. Police showed surprising restraint and state-controlled TV gave the nationwide demonstrations unexpected airtime, but there is no indication the opposition is strong enough to push for real change from the prime minister or his ruling party.Nonetheless, the prime minister seems to be in a weaker position

Dec. 11, 2011

DURBAN, South Africa (AP) -- A U.N. climate conference reached a hard-fought agreement Sunday on a far-reaching program meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change.The 194-party conference agreed to start negotiations on a new accord that would ensure that countries will be

Dec. 11, 2011

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A 26-year-old man walked down the middle of a street in Hollywood, firing on passing cars with no clear target until police shot and killed him, authorities said. A passing driver was injured.Investigators are trying to determine a motive for the attack, which some people thought

Dec. 11, 2011

KOLKATA, India (AP) -- A fire swept through a hospital in the Indian city of Kolkata early Friday, killing 61 people, many of them patients, and sending emergency workers scrambling to evacuate survivors from the smoke-filled building, officials said.　Government officials accused the hospital staff of abandoning the patients and fleeing the building after the fire broke out.　“It‘s a very serious offense, and we will take the strongest action,” West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said at t

Dec. 9, 2011

BRUSSELS (AP) ― Russia and NATO remain deadlocked on a long-running dispute over the alliance’s plan for a missile shield for Europe, officials said Thursday, and Russia warned that time was running out for an agreement.NATO’s Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen reported no progress toward a deal on the contentious issue, following a key discussion among alliance foreign ministers and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that came amid political turmoil in Russia and tart criticism of the

Dec. 9, 2011

TEHRAN (AP) ― Iranian state TV broadcast video Thursday of what it said was the high-tech U.S. drone that Tehran says its forces downed earlier this week, and lodged a diplomatic complaint over the violation of its airspace.The more than two minutes of footage showed Iranian military officials inspecting what state TV identified as the RQ-170 Sentinel drone, and offered the first evidence that Tehran had captured the aircraft. The beige-colored drone appeared intact and undamaged.The chief of th

Dec. 9, 2011

China’s inflation cooled to the slowest pace in 14 months in November, giving policy makers more room to loosen policies as export growth slows because of Europe’s debt crisis. Consumer prices rose 4.2 percent from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said on its website. That was lower than all estimates in a Bloomberg News survey of 35 economists that had a median forecast of 4.5 percent. Producer prices gained 2.7 percent, the smallest increase in 23 months. The fourth month of slowing infla

Dec. 9, 2011

Ford Motor Co., the second-largest U.S. automaker, declared Thursday a 5-cent quarterly dividend, its first payout to shareholders since September 2006. The move comes after Ford earned $1.65 billion in the three months ended in September, its 10th consecutive profitable quarter, and negotiated a new four-year contract with the United Auto Workers covering its 40,600 U.S. hourly workers. The dividend will be paid March 1 to shareholders of record on Jan. 31, the Dearborn, Michigan-based automake

Dec. 9, 2011