BERLIN (AP) — Elephants at the Berlin Zoo finally got a chance to tuck into their Christmas dinner: A feast of donated pine trees. The zoo treated its elephants and some of its other animals to the trees for lunch Friday. Before gobbling the greenery, elephants young and old played with the trees, whose strong [...]
ROME (AP) — Pier Luigi Bersani, the head of Italy’s main center-left Democratic Party, won a runoff primary Sunday to become the main center-left candidate for Italy’s 2013 general elections — a vote that polls indicate could well be won by the Democratic Party given the utter disarray of the opposing center-right. Preliminary results gave [...]
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Escalating tensions with Russia, Turkey defended its forced landing of a Syrian passenger jet en route from Moscow to Damascus, saying Thursday it was carrying Russian ammunition and military equipment destined for the Syrian Defense Ministry. Syria branded the incident piracy and Russia called the search illegal, saying it endangered the [...]
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Top Zetas drug cartel leader Heriberto Lazcano has apparently been killed in a firefight with marines in the northern border state of Coahuila, the Mexican navy says. If confirmed, Lazcano’s death would be a huge victory for Mexican law enforcement, and mark the end of a founder of one of the [...]
ANNECY, France (AP) — French investigators focused Friday on a feud between brothers as they searched for a motive in the slayings of a British-Iraqi family vacationing in the French Alps. A French prosecutor said that the brother of the slain man came to British police of his own accord Friday to tell them, “I [...]
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican Navy says federal police shot at a vehicle carrying two U.S. government employees after the vehicle came under attack from unidentified gunmen. The shooting appears to have been a case of a confused gunbattle that broke out on a rural road just south of Mexico City. The Navy said [...]
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan government blamed foreign spy agencies for a rising number of killings where government soldiers and policemen have gunned down their international partners, and ordered stricter vetting of recruits and screening of those in the 350,000-member Afghan security force. The United States had no information suggesting that the insider attacks [...]
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Seven American troops and four Afghans died in a Black Hawk helicopter crash on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, the NATO military coalition said. The Taliban claimed their fighters shot down the aircraft. NATO said it is investigating the cause of the crash. The coalition had no immediate comment on the insurgents’ [...]
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan police officer shot and killed three U.S. Marines after sharing a meal with them before dawn Friday and then fled into the desolate darkness of southern Afghanistan, the third attack on coalition forces by their Afghan counterparts in a week. Thirty-one coalition service members have now died this year [...]
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels were running low on ammunition and guns Friday as government forces tried to consolidate their control over Aleppo, the country’s largest city, which has been a deadly battleground for more than two weeks. The seemingly intractable, 17-month-old conflict in Syria has defied all international attempts to calm the bloodshed. But [...]
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Relentless rains submerged half of the sprawling Philippine capital, triggered a landslide that killed nine people and sent emergency crews scrambling Tuesday to rescue tens of thousands of residents who called media outlets pleading for help. The deluge, the worst since 2009 when hundreds died in rampaging flash floods, was set [...]
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO says two gunmen wearing Afghan National Army uniforms turned their weapons on NATO troops, killing one member of the U.S.-led coalition. A coalition statement said Tuesday’s shooting is under investigation. NATO did not release the nationality of the service member shot, or say whether others were wounded. The shooting was [...]
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — In veiled swipes at China’s investments in Africa, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday urged African leaders to embrace democracy and partnerships with responsible foreign powers as a means to improving their living standards and addressing the root causes of extremism on the continent. Clinton, speaking to university [...]
GHAZIABAD, India (AP) — Work making potato chip display racks at Jayraj Kumar’s factory barely paused when much of India’s power grid collapsed. The backup generators kicked in automatically and the electric saws, presses and welding machines kept running, just like they do during the five-hour power cuts the factory in suburban Delhi suffers nearly [...]
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somali leaders voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to adopt a new constitution that contains new individual rights and sets the country on a course for a more powerful and representative government. The vote came after two thunderous blasts at the gates of the meeting site from a failed suicide attack. The 825 [...]
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Court documents show that Israel’s defense minister wants to remove hundreds of Palestinians from eight hamlets in a West Bank area the military has designated a firing zone, prompting new allegations of an Israeli land grab. The firing zone spans several thousand acres near Israel. Israel says most of the [...]
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — President Bashar Assad on Tuesday reshuffled the generals at the core of his regime’s highly secretive security apparatus after last week’s bombing that killed four top officials charged with fighting the tenacious rebellion rocking the country, an official said. The shakeup comes as the Syrian regime is fighting to regain the [...]
BEIRUT (AP) — Riding a wave of momentum, Syrian rebels made a run on Aleppo Saturday in some of the fiercest fighting seen in the country’s largest city, which has been a key bastion of support for President Bashar Assad over the course of the 17-month-old uprising. The rebels also took over a third border [...]
OSLO, Norway (AP) — Norway’s commitment to face xenophobia with tolerance on the first anniversary of bomb and gun attacks by a confessed right-wing killer is being put to the test by hostile reactions to an influx of Gypsies from Eastern Europe. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg says he has been disturbed by the tone [...]
LONDON (AP) — Before a starting gun has been fired or a medal awarded, one of the most intense competitions of the London Olympics is already being waged behind the scenes. From training grounds across the world, to rooms in the athletes village, to border checkpoints around the U.K., the cat-and-mouse game between drug cheats [...]
