Latest Breaking International News
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Envoy hands over Pyongyang peace missive to Chinese president
BEIJING - A senior North Korean envoy delivered a letter from his leader Kim Jong-un to Chinese President Xi Jinping and told him that Pyongyang was ready to take "positive action" to re-join stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament talks. The letter was handed over by envoy, Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae. Choe told Xi that North Korea is willing to take positive actions to solve problems ...
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Alleged arms dealer in America following extradition
Richard Chichakli, who has been tied to convicted international arms dealer Viktor Bout, has been extradited from Australia to the US. The 53 year old alleged financial muscle behind the Bout gun-running organisation had been living in Melbourne under an alias before authorities arrested him in January. Syrian-born Chichakli had managed to evade police while working as a cleaner in the ...
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Arizona sheriff told to stop profiling Latinos
A US court in Maricopa County, Arizona has found that high-profile sheriff Joe Arpaio violated the constitutional rights of Latino men and women in his attempt to stop illegal immigration. Judge Murray Snow ruled that Arpaio's office would have to stop using race or Latino ancestry as a factor in stopping vehicles carrying Latino occupants. Arpaio had been sued by several Hispanic drivers ...
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Pakistani children die as bus explodes
At least 17 children have died in eastern Pakistan following an explosion on a school bus. Other children were also injured when a faulty gas cylinder on board the bus exploded. The incident occurred on the outskirts of the city of Gujrat, which is located about 200km southeast of the capital, Islamabad. Police have confirmed the children were on their way to school when the bus was ...
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UK spy agencies defended over drummer soldier murder
LONDON - The British government has defended its spy agencies for failing to prevent murder of a soldier in London despite signs and revelations that the two suspects were well known to MI5. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said it was impossible to control everyone all the time. "Peers and MPs will do a thorough investigation in terms of what the security forces knew but I've seen ...
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Scarred U.S. struggling to maintain foothold in Mideast
In an article published May 15, 2013, American historical social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein wrote, "Nothing illustrates more the limitations of Western power than the internal controversy its elites are having in public about what the United States in particular and western European states should be doing about the civil war in Syria." Those limitations are palpable in both language and ...
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Church objects to gay march in Kiev
A court in Kiev has banned Ukraine's first gay pride event. The court ruled the march, would have attracted anti-gay activists into the centre of the city, where annual Kiev Day celebrations would also have been taking place. A group of opponents led by the Orthodox Church led the objections to the march. The Church, through its Archpriest Georgy Kovalenko, issued the grounds for ...
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Vehicles, people plunge into river after bridge collapse
WASHINGTON - A handful of vehicles and some people plunged into a river after a more than half a century old bridge that links Seattle in the US with Canada collapsed, throwing the movement on the highway into disarray. Authorities said there were no deaths in the bridge collapse on the Skagit River in the US state of Washington. Three people were rescued and taken to hospitals, they ...
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Another jewellery heist hits Cannes as $2.6 mn necklace stolen
CANNES - A second suspected jewellery heist was reported at the Cannes Film Festival, with a single necklace by Swiss jeweller De Grisogono worth nearly $2.6 million reported missing. In the case of the first gem loot at the Cannes Film Festival, thieves literally tore out a safe filled with roughly $1 million-worth of jewels from a hotel room. The second time around the event took place ...
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Amnesty laments lack of support for refugees globally
LONDON - Global rights body Amnesty International has said that the world is "increasingly" becoming "dangerous place" for refugees due to inaction on human rights. The London-based group in its annual report cited the increasing number of refugees around the world, and highlighted the lack of support for them, as the key human rights issue for the past year. It said that the number of ...
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Ex-world champ warns Hamilton to look out for biggest threat Rosberg in Monaco
Former world champion Damon Hill has warned Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton that his biggest threat to second triumph in Monaco is his teammate Nico Rosberg, instead of big guns Sebastian Vettel or Fernando Alonso. The German son of Finland's 1982 champion Keke Rosberg has been a revelation this year, out-qualifying Hamilton for the last two races and establishing his credentials by keeping the ...
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UN to honour five Indian peacekeepers who were killed
UN will honour over 100 UN peackeepers, including five Indians, who were killed. The International Day of United Nations (UN) Peacekeepers will be observed Wednesday to honour over 100 Blue Helmets (peacekeepers) deployed around the world, a UN statement said Saturday. In a message, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "One hundred and eleven peacekeeping personnel died last year and more ...
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IMF head Lagarde named assisted witness in Tapie probe
Beijing, May 25 (Xinhua-ANI): International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde on Friday is named as "assisted witness" in a probe into an alleged corruption relating to a controversial arbitration of the Tapie case after a two-day hearing at a French court in Paris. As former French finance minister, Lagarde has been investigated since August 2011 for "complicity in forgery and ...
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Sao Paulo eyes former Villarreal forward Nilmar
Brazil football club Sao Paulo are reportedly in talks to sign former Villarreal and Brazil international striker Nilmar. The 28-year-old, currently playing with Al Rayyan in Qatar, hopes a return to Brazil could lead to an international recall ahead of next year's World Cup, reports Xinhua. Nilmar has scored 17 goals in 26 appearances for Al Rayyan since joining the club July last year. Sao ...
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Facebook Phones poor U.S. sales feedback delays Europe launch
Facebook Phone's disappointingly poor customer feedback in the United States has resulted in the delay of its launch in Europe. The HTC handsets, which run Facebook's enhanced Home software, designed to replace the phone's home screen with FB feed and chat options, has flopped with users. EE, a UK mobile operator, confirmed that poor customer feedback is the reason why the phone's Europe ...
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Foreign defence officials visit Russian military base
Members of foreign delegations attending an international conference on European security visited a military base near Moscow that has a motorized infantry division. Defence officials and military experts from Armenia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the US and Zimbabwe were shown a training centre, a shooting range and the barracks at the Taman ...
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Afghanistan UN condemns terrorist attack on partner agencys compound
24 May 2013 150 Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the top United Nations envoy in Afghanistan have strongly condemned the terrorist attack on a compound of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in central Kabul, which earlier today wounded three of the agency's staff, one seriously. One staff member from the UN International Labour Organization (ILO) was also injured, according ...
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UN human rights expert welcomes shift in President Obamas counter-terrorism policy
24 May 2013 150 An independent United Nations human rights expert has welcomed what he said was a ground-breaking speech by President Barack Obama in which the United States leader laid out principles governing the use of counter-terrorism measures such as targeted killings. Mr. Obama said yesterday that, as part of a realignment of US counter-terrorism policy, he would curtail the use of ...
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UN agency calls on Syrias neighbours to keep borders open for refugees
24 May 2013 150 The United Nations refugee agency today called on countries around Syria to keep their borders open for refugees, while also stressing the need for "urgent and robust" international support for host countries and aid agencies. There are already over 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). ...
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UN expert group urges new Icelandic authorities to sustain gender empowerment efforts
24 May 2013 150 As the world's top performer on gender equality, Iceland needs to sustain its achievements and bridge remaining gaps on employment and gender based violence, a group of independent United Nations experts today urged as the country's newly formed Government took office. "There is no room for complacency regarding the gains achieved by Iceland, as equality guarantees in the ...
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UN human rights office urges trial to be decided on merits after Guatemalan court overturns Roos Montt conviction
24 May 2013 150 The United Nations human rights office today said it was "concerned" about the legal rights of Guatemalans after a high court overturned the 80 year prison sentence against former military leader, Efrain R237;os Montt. "Amid continued legal uncertainty about what the ruling of the Constitutional Court annulling the verdict on the R237;os Montt case means in practice, we are ...
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UN report highlights benefits of school meal programmes in crisis settings
24 May 2013 150 A United Nations report released today stresses the importance of providing meals for schoolchildren, particularly in times of crisis, and notes that this is still lacking in many developing countries. "School feeding assures that where quality education is available, children are able to take advantage of the opportunity to learn," said the Executive Director of the World ...
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Politics has too much sway over culture education in Bosnia and Herzegovina - UN expert
24 May 2013 150 An independent United Nations human rights expert today voiced concern at the extent to which political bodies have influence over cultural institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and urged the Government to ensure that people have opportunities to engage freely in cultural life. "Culture and education seem to have been held hostage to political debates," Farida Shaheed, the ...
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UN rights experts call for stronger protection of victims of caste-based discrimination
24 May 2013 150 More than 260 million people across the world are still victims of human rights abuses due to caste-based discrimination, United Nations independent experts warned today, urging South Asian countries to strengthen legislation to protect them. "Caste-based discrimination remains widespread and deeply rooted, its victims face structural discrimination, marginalization and ...
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Glow-in-Dark Roach Worlds Smallest Frog Among Top New Species
A cockroach that glows in the dark, a black fungus that's ruining prehistoric cave art and a frog smaller than a child's fingernail. These are three in a top-ten list of newly discovered species for 2012. An international committee of taxonomists announced their annual picks this week. Committee chairman Antonio Valdecasas, a Spanish biologist and research zoologist, says the committee ...
Bangladesh in Focus
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Myanmar refugees in Bangladesh, the politics of their situation is more important than the human impact
Bangladesh and Myanmar have been disputing their sea border for years, and in recent months tensions on the land border have mounted as claims of interference and counter-claims of provocation are made by both countries, now the politics of territorial dispute have come to have a direct bearing on the respect for human life and development.
In October of 2009, the government of Bangladesh received a report from its military officials detailing a credible threat of attack from Myanmar, they feared that St Martin’s island in the Bay of Bengal, a region increasingly important economically for hydrocarbons, would be attacked and captured by Myanmar, and called for the government to strengthen the defensive capability of the island which has a circumference of just 3 miles. Read more
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