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Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:08:24 EST
Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the United States condemns Israel's decision to build 1,600 housing units in a Jerusalem neighborhood, calling it "a step that undermines the trust we need right now."
As part of a revamping of animal welfare laws, China is considering banning consumption of meat from cats and dogs. Such a ban would show "China has reached a new level of civilization," one proponent says.
Nigeria's acting president replaced his national security adviser Tuesday, two days after mobs massacred hundreds in villages in central Nigeria.
Irish police arrested seven people Tuesday suspected of plotting to commit a murder abroad, they announced.
After more than a month in a Haitian jail, an American missionary was free Monday night, looking forward to a hot shower and a long night in bed on home soil.
Disaster officials rushed food and shelter to southeastern Turkey on Tuesday after a strong earthquake rattled the area a day earlier, killing at least 51 people and injuring dozens more.
A police raid on the outskirts of Jakarta Tuesday may have killed one of Indonesia's most-wanted terrorists, though officials said they would await tests to verify the man's identity.
Police in Cyprus said Tuesday they have found the body of former President Tassos Papadopoulos, which was stolen from his grave late last year.
Interpol announced Monday it is issuing notices to help search for another 16 suspects believed linked to the January killing of a Hamas leader in Dubai.
The top U.S. general in Afghanistan vowed that coalition forces "are absolutely going to secure Kandahar," as security efforts expand in the country's south.
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:01:13 -0500
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged quake-stricken Haiti on Tuesday to hold legislative elections "as soon as appropriate," saying new polls were key to the stability and legitimacy of the Haitian government.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The outlook for imposing tough new U.N. sanctions on Iran is increasingly grim, as Russia and China work to slow down a U.S. and European drive for swift action, Israel's U.N. envoy said on Tuesday.
JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigeria must prosecute those behind a weekend massacre and address underlying issues of poverty and discrimination if it is to end a cycle of violence in the zone between its Muslim north and Christian south, rights groups and diplomats said.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Tuesday it was wrong to focus blame for child abuse on the Catholic Church and denied accusations it had sought to cover up pedophilia by its clergymen around Europe.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations is confident there will be no security vacuum in Haiti as U.S. and other foreign troops withdraw from the earthquake-struck Caribbean country, a top U.N. official said on Tuesday.
LONDON (Reuters) - The United States deliberately kept Britain in the dark about the harsh methods it used when interrogating suspected terrorists, the former head of Britain's domestic spy agency said on Tuesday.
KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two NATO soldiers were killed Tuesday when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a military base in Afghanistan, the alliance and local government sources said.
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's new austerity package has driven a wedge between private and public sector workers, pitting resentful private employees against civil servants seen as privileged over who should pay for the country's debt crisis.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Yemen, under international pressure to quiet domestic unrest and focus its sights on al Qaeda, has offered to hold talks with southern separatists and hear their grievances, state media said on Tuesday.
BELFAST (Reuters) - The Northern Ireland Assembly on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to take control of its own police and justice powers, cementing the latest hard-won agreement between the province's divided communities.
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:13:48 GMT
AP - Is the Middle East about to go officially nuclear?
AP - United States intelligence agencies misled key allies, including Britain, about its mistreatment of suspected terrorists, the former head of the country's domestic spy agency, MI5, said Tuesday.
AP - Automatic weapons fire punctuated by screams erupted after dark Tuesday in a Nigerian city located near villages where massacres just two days ago left more than 200 people dead.
AP - China joined India on Tuesday in giving qualified approval to the Copenhagen climate accord calling for voluntary limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
AP - Vice President Joe Biden condemned an Israeli plan to build hundreds of homes in disputed east Jerusalem on Tuesday — a disagreement that tarnished a high-profile visit that had been aimed at repairing ties with the Jewish state and kickstarting Mideast peace talks.
Time.com - While all the signs point to Mossad as the perpetrator and the Israelis are hardly denying it, the killing of a top Hamas operative may have caused the Israelis problems on other fronts
AFP - Former world number one Peter Gade issued a warning about the future of professional badminton on the eve of the All-England Open.
AP - The U.S. military says two American soldiers have died in a vehicle accident in Iraq.
AP - Venezuela's government seized temporary control of two sugar mills Tuesday, accusing managers of hoarding a basic good and violating the labor rights of employees.
AFP - Britain announced Tuesday one million pounds in aid to South Africa for the purchase of condoms to tackle HIV and AIDS in the world's worst-affected country ahead of the 2010 World Cup.
AFP - Japan's core private-sector machinery orders, a leading indicator of corporate capital spending, fell 3.7 percent in January from the previous month, official data showed Wednesday.
Reuters - Canada's largest airline has learned it sometimes has to take a back seat to the country's biggest sporting passion, ice hockey, the head of Air Canada said on Tuesday.
AFP - A baby elephant believed to have died during labour was born alive at an Australian zoo on Wednesday, amazing its keepers and defying expert opinion that such an outcome would take a "miracle".
McClatchy Newspapers - JERUSALEM — Hours after the arrival Tuesday of Vice President Joe Biden to help launch indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Israel announced the construction of 1,600 homes in a settlement block in mostly Arab East Jerusalem, an open rebuff that led Biden to issue a sharply worded condemnation.
The Christian Science Monitor - For decades, Japan's weekly political calendar was fixed. Before the cabinet met on Tuesdays, the top civil servants from each ministry would meet on Mondays. If the bureaucrats had not already set government policy, the wags said, the ministers would have nothing to rubber stamp.
Time.com - Alexei Navalny is a unique type of opposition figure in Russia. He believes the most effective way to challenge the ruling class is not through elections, but by acquiring stock
OneWorld.net - ABUJA,
Mar 8 (IRIN) - Hundreds of people in the city of Jos, 350km
northeast of Nigeria's capital, Abuja, have been buried in mass graves
after machete-wielding intruders attacked residents at 3 a.m. (local
time) on 7 March.
Tue, 09 March 2010 21:07:41 EST
One of three terror suspects killed during raids Tuesday near Jakarta may include what authorities said was one of the masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings, but police were still trying to confirm his identity.
Seven people have been arrested in the Republic of Ireland over a suspected plot to kill a Swedish artist who portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a dog and had a $100,000 Al Qaeda bounty on his head.
A U.S. missionary held for more than a month in Haiti on kidnapping charges flew back to the United States after being released from prison, while the leader of her Baptist group remained in custody.
British dog owners may be forced to microchip their pets and take out insurance, part of a proposed crackdown on the country's dangerous canines.
A homicide attack Tuesday on NATO forces in eastern Afghanistan killed two international service members, the military alliance said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to head to Afghanistan on Wednesday, his first trip to Tehran's eastern neighbor since the re-election last August of his counterpart Hamid Karzai.
Paul Bristol has been jailed in England for at least 22 years for murdering his ex-girlfriend after he saw a picture of her on the Internet with another man.
A 70-year-old grandmother in China was reportedly beaten and buried alive by property developers trying to take possession of her land.
Three months after it was stolen, the corpse of Cyprus' former president was found Tuesday reburied in another grave. The country's justice minister said it had been held for ransom.
Homes in eastern areas of Turkey prone to earthquakes must be better built to withstand jolts like the magnitude 6 temblor that toppled village houses and killed 51 people this week.
Israel approves construction of 1,600 new homes for Jews in disputed east Jerusalem � a move that immediately clouded Biden visit aimed at repairing strained ties and kickstarting Mideast peace talks.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says a new treaty limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals could be signed within two or three weeks.
A skydiver miraculously survived after plummeting 3,000 feet to the ground when her parachute became tangled, The Sun reported Tuesday.
Mideast rivals Israel and Syria on Tuesday each announced ambitions to develop nuclear energy, with Israel facing the prospect that its plan could bring new attention to its secretive nuclear activities.
A former British bomb disposal expert was due to appear in court Tuesday charged with attempting to murder his pregnant wife and eight-year-old son after a car exploded in Kent, southeast England.
A British soldier saved his comrades by scooping up a live Taliban grenade and throwing it straight back at the enemy moments before it exploded.
A Japanese government-appointed panel on Tuesday confirmed the existence of once-secret Cold War-era pacts between Japan and the U.S. on nuclear arms and other issues
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:16:14 GMT
US Vice-President Joe Biden condemns Israel's approval of 1,600 new homes for ultra-Orthodox Jews in East Jerusalem.
Dutch bishops order an inquiry into alleged sexual abuses of children by Catholic priests, threatening a new scandal.
The US apologises for comments made after Libya's Col Gaddafi called for a holy war against Switzerland.
Three men are arrested in connection with the theft of the corpse of Cyprus's ex-President Papadopoulos, officials say.
Ban Ki-moon pays tribute to the 101 UN staff who died in the Haiti quake, as President Preval seeks US support on boosting the economy.
A US woman from Pennsylvania faces charges of using the internet to recruit female militant fighters for deadly attacks abroad.
Seven people are arrested in the Irish Republic over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist for depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
A Nigerian governor accuses the army of ignoring warnings of attacks, as communal tension remains high near Jos.
A US TV producer pleads guilty to attempting to blackmail US chat show host David Letterman over his affairs.
A Belgian daily has issued what is thought to be Europe's first 3D newspaper - complete with cardboard viewing glasses.
The eggshells of long-dead and extinct species are a particularly good source to find preserved DNA, researchers say.
Nicklas Bendtner silences his recent critics with a hat-trick as Arsenal see off Porto in emphatic fashion to reach the Champions League quarter-finals.
Bayern Munich reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League on away goals after losing 3-2 to Fiorentina.
Can all species live side by side in unique ecosystem?
Lone stand of anti-Taliban militia in Pakistan
Women's quotas - historic moment for largest democracy
Togo in trouble as election protests continue to rage
Families fight 'racist' Israeli marriage and citizenship law
Whales and tuna tied up in Eurotangle
Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed says efforts are being made to release a UK couple held by pirates as soon as possible.
The son of Rwanda's first President, Dominique Mbonyumutwa, protests at orders to exhume his father's remains.
A former UK spy chief says she did not know US intelligence services were mistreating terror suspects until after she retired.
Brussels says it hopes European aerospace group EADS was not prevented from fairly bidding for a major US defence deal.
Indonesian security forces kill three alleged militants and investigate whether one is key Bali bomb suspect Dulmatin.
Japan confirms the existence of a secret Cold War pact allowing nuclear-armed US vessels to call at its ports.
Research shows some EU countries "import" about a third of their carbon emissions from developing countries.
The Large Hadron Collider must be shut down for a year starting in late 2011 to address design flaws, the BBC has learned.
A former Israeli spy who played a key role in Africa, the Middle East and the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal has died.
Israel and Syria both tell a conference in Paris they want to use nuclear power to generate electricity.
India's upper house sees a second day of uproar as it backs a bill to reserve a third of all parliamentary seats for women.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband is to urge the Afghan president to seek a political solution to the conflict with the Taliban.
Jim Muir reports on the new Kurdish party that has emerged in northern Iraq to mount a challenge in the third general election since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003.
Andrew Harding reports from Harare on the uneasy mood among the white population and the MDC party as President Robert Mugabe says he's ready for another term.
Joe Biden is in the region to encourage talks between the Palestinians and Israel. What can be achieved?
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:32:41 GMT
As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, Islamist militants and local U.N. staff, according to a new report.
Israel approves the construction of 1,600 new homes for Jews in disputed east Jerusalem — a move that is sharply denounced by Vice President Joe Biden during a visit there.
Dual announcements by bitter rivals Israel and Syria that they want to pursue atomic power plants could fuel a widening web of suspicion across the region.
Three men are arrested over the theft of the body of former President Tassos Papadopoulos, which was found reburied in another grave three months after being dug up and reportedly held for ransom.
Seven people were arrested in the Irish Republic on Tuesday over an alleged plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog, police said.
The streets of Santiago, Chile's capital, appear mostly unscathed, but many people do not know if their lives will ever be the same.
The pope's brother said in an interview that he slapped pupils across the face at a German boys' choir, and that he was aware of allegations of abuse but did nothing about it.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says a recent health scare that sent his blood pressure soaring prompted him to kick the smoking habit he had for five decades.
United States intelligence agencies misled key allies, including Britain, about its mistreatment of suspected terrorists, the former head of the country's domestic spy agency, MI5, said Tuesday.
A new election law issued by Myanmar's ruling military has barred pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from joining a political party and thus running in upcoming elections, state-run newspapers said Wednesday.
I started hearing the offers soon after arriving at the Liang Bua cave in the mountains of Flores island. "You want to see a living hobbit?"
The violent temblor — the fifth most powerful quake ever measured — shifted other parts of South America as well, from the southern tip of the continent to northern Brazil.
Britain opened an inquiry Tuesday into claims that its soldiers murdered and abused civilians in southern Iraq in 2004, some of the most serious allegations made against British forces over the war and occupation of the country.
British dog owners may be forced to microchip their pets and take out insurance, part of a proposed crackdown on the country's dangerous canines.
A suicide attack at a joint NATO-Afghan base in eastern Afghanistan has killed two international service members and wounded several others, the military alliance said.
The cost of consolidating tens of thousands of troops for major operations in Helmand and Kandahar is that other volatile parts of Afghanistan must do without.
Europe needs a leader, but the likely candidate doesn’t want to take the job.
A top-ranked Southeast Asian militant wanted for planning the 2002 Bali bombings may have been killed in a shootout with police at an Internet cafe moments after sitting at a terminal, authorities said. DNA tests were under way to confirm his identity.
Riot police used a water cannon and tear gas to attack the headquarters of the main opposition party Tuesday as its leaders huddled inside following a disputed presidential election, police and opposition leaders said.
QALAT, AFGHANISTAN -- To work in Zabul province these days is to feel forsaken.
NGUNGU, CONGO -- The United Nations peacekeeping mission in eastern Congo provided food, fuel and logistical support to a Congolese colonel overseeing soldiers accused of gang rapes, massacres and other abuses, months after U.N. human rights investigators included him on a list of the army's most...
BAGHDAD -- Top Iraqi politicians tangled on Tuesday over how and whether to count votes for 55 candidates who were barred from running a day before Sunday's parliamentary election.
NOW ZAD, AFGHANISTAN -- This southern Afghan city has been touted as a symbol of the progress U.S. troops have made in recent weeks. But when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates swung through the main market on Tuesday, it seemed mostly to be a symbol of the work that remains to be done.
NEW DELHI -- Indian lawmakers on Tuesday approved a historic bill that would set aside one-third of all legislative seats for women, a move aimed at overturning six decades of male-dominated decision-making in this country.
Another battle is brewing at the Pentagon over a costly weapons program that many military leaders do not want but that so far has proven difficult to kill.
Pakistan The Pakistani Taliban, an umbrella militant group that had been weakened in recent months, staged a forceful resurgence Monday with an attack that killed at least 12 in the heartland city of Lahore. As the workday began, a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-packed truck into an unmarked...
KABUL -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that recent military offensives against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan had gained momentum but that a reconciliation effort proposed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai was unlikely in the near term to cause senior Taliban leaders to lay down...
1st Lt. Joseph D. Helton, 24 Monroe Ga. 6th Security Forces Squadron, MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.
OKCULAR, Turkey -- Hundreds of earthquake survivors huddled in aid tents and around bonfires Monday in eastern Turkey, seeking relief from the winter cold after a strong temblor knocked down stone and mud-brick houses in five villages, killing 51 people.
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:37:01 EST
Despite numerous news reports that Pakistan had arrested an American al Qaeda operative in the port city of Karachi, the U.S. government is unaware that anyone affiliated with the terrorist network, American or otherwise, has been captured in Pakistan recently, U.S. officials said Monday.
Throughout Iraq, fear gave way to defiance Sunday as voters, even in the most volatile areas, cast ballots in landmark parliamentary elections that militants tried their best to disrupt with dozens of explosions that shook Baghdad even before the polls opened.
Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to arrive in Jerusalem Monday, topping off a string of high-profile visitors who appear to have succeeded in pushing reluctant Israeli and Palestinian leaders back to the negotiating table -- or at least to separate tables.
The officers came with bullhorns to impoverished neighborhoods near the epicenter of Chile's devastating earthquake, warning looters to return what they stole or face police raids.
Pakistani officials Sunday said they'd arrested the American face of al Qaeda, a key militant propagandist, which if it's confirmed would be the first high-profile capture of a leader of the terrorist group since Pakistan's civilian government was elected in February 2008.
Major events in Bosnia's war -- the 44-month Serb siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica -- are ``myths'' that were staged or fabricated to vilify Serbs, Radovan Karadzic declared Tuesday at his Yugoslav war crimes trial.
French rescue workers, some of them in dive gear, searched for survivors Tuesday in homes submerged by flood waters after a deadly storm battered France's Atlantic coast this weekend.
Ian Paisley, the hard-line Northern Ireland evangelist who led Protestants into power-sharing with Catholics, said Tuesday he will retire from the British Parliament after a 40-year career.
Taliban militants claimed credit for a series of bombings that hit central Kabul early Friday, saying they were intended to force the U.S. and its allies to withdraw their militaries from Afghanistan.
American-led efforts to avert civilian deaths in the war against the Taliban suffered a new blow over the weekend when a NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan killed about two dozen civilians.
The Cockpit pilots union offered Saturday to meet with the chief of Lufthansa AG to try to head off a four-day strike beginning Monday that could cause headaches for thousands of travelers.
Three Miami-Dade businessmen face terrorism-related smuggling charges alleging they secretly exported video-game players to a shopping center in Paraguay that U.S. authorities say served as a front for financing the Middle East terrorist group, Hezbollah.
The capture of the Taliban's second in command deals a serious blow to the Taliban and represents a potential turning point for Pakistan's government, military officials say.
Amid intelligence reports alleging that Taliban insurgents are holding civilians as hostages, American and Afghan forces moved cautiously through the Taliban stronghold of Marjah on Monday as they pressed the biggest offensive since the U.S. landed troops in Afghanistan more than eight years ago.
Bluntly warning that Iran is sliding into military dictatorship, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience in Qatar on Monday that economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic should be increasingly aimed at its elite Revolutionary Guard.
The U.S.-led offensive that's expected to start soon in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province will be a battle not only against the Taliban but also against an insurgent-backed narcotics trade that provides a livelihood for thousands of residents.
(AP) -- The commander of Canada's largest Air Force base, who once flew dignitaries around the country, has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of two women.
Viktor Yanukovich, the former mechanic who just six years ago was shunned as a pro-Moscow stooge, declared victory in Ukraine's presidential election Sunday after early exit polls showed him leading by a slim margin.
Iraqi leaders on Saturday pushed the country's highest court to issue a quick ruling on hundreds of candidates who have been banned from running in March elections, warning that parliament will settle the controversy if the judges don't.
The loser in Ukraine's presidential runoff election probably won't concede defeat and may turn to court battles or street protests, observers said Saturday as both campaigns accused each other of possible vote fraud.
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:11:00 GMT
As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, Islamist militants and local U.N. staff, according to a new report.
The plan to build 1,600 new homes in Jerusalem is likely to complicate relations with the U.S. as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. tours the region.
The removal of a Palestinian family has touched two nerves: the fate of East Jerusalem and the grievances of refugees from the 1948 war.
A U.S. tour arranged by the State Department to improve ties to Pakistani legislators ended in a public relations fiasco when the group refused to submit to extra airport screening.
A plan to reserve a third of the seats in India’s legislatures for women plunged Parliament into chaos.
After months of delay and discord, White House officials say they have learned that when it comes to deal-making with Moscow, nothing is done until it is done.
Robert M. Gates’s visit to the village of Now Zad — and his first walk through a market during wartime in Iraq or Afghanistan — would have been unimaginable even three months ago.
Iraq’s electoral commission said Tuesday that it would announce partial results of parliamentary elections on Wednesday.
Israel, widely believed to have nuclear weapons and possessing no oil, said on Tuesday that it intended to develop civilian nuclear plants for energy.
After ethnic violence flared in January in Jos, the military patrolled the city, but neglected nearby villages where reprisals took place over the weekend.
The agreements were made public in the United States years ago, but until recently the Japanese government had denied their existence.
The countries are the last two major economies to join the agreement reached in December, which calls for limiting the rise in global temperatures.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown asserts that the programs would be fairer and reduce some costs at hospitals and nursing homes. But some critics see an election ploy.
The Vatican said Tuesday that local churches had “acted swiftly and decisively” to address the growing child sex abuse scandal in Europe.
Zhang Hong’s dismissal is a fresh warning that journalists who challenge government policy too directly can face retribution.
A Dutch investigative journalist breached security checks at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, smuggling a refilled liquor bottle aboard passenger jets.
Indonesian counterterrorism forces stormed an Internet cafe and a nearby house on the outskirts of Jakarta on Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors accused Colleen R. LaRose, who called herself “JihadJane,” of linking up online with militants overseas, culminating in an alleged murder plot.
The multiple, and at times seemingly conflicted roles, of investment banks like Goldman Sachs have also drawn scrutiny.
The Maldives will make its territorial waters into a shark sanctuary, a government official said Tuesday.
Iran’s judiciary last year charged 12 officials at the Kahrizak detention center in Tehran for involvement in the deaths of three protesters held there in July.
United States intelligence agencies misled allies about its mistreatment of suspected terrorists, Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of the country’s domestic spy agency, MI5, said.
Mr. Kimche was involved in some of the country’s most delicate foreign escapades, including the Iran-contra affair.
Abbas Kiarostami, a celebrated Iranian filmmaker, published an open letter in a Tehran newspaper on Tuesday calling for the release two directors recently detained by the authorities. The filmmaker provided The Lede with an English translation of his letter.
Plans to move more Israelis into Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem have been met with opposition from Israelis who favor the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in that part of the city.
A religious leader in central Nigeria, where hundreds more people were killed in fighting between Christians and Muslims over the weekend, has denied that the dispute is driven by faith.
On Sunday, voters in Switzerland overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to appoint lawyers to represent abused animals in court in every region of the country.
For more than seven years, Mariella Furrer has been involved with a project so draining, Kerri MacDonald reports, that she has had to seek medical help.
Ten years after the euro, it's still all about Germany, which isn't the way it was supposed to be.
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:32:36 EST
The EU is considering a ban on speculative derivative trades, including credit default swaps, which have been blamed for worsening the crisis in Greece.
Debt-laden Ireland is winning applause for adopting severe measures that Greece has put off, but pay cuts and tax hikes have put public servants in some unusual binds.
Airlines, airports and aviation regulators in the U.S. and Europe have found inexpensive ways to cut fuel consumption, carbon emissions and flight times by cooperating more effectively on air-traffic management.
Egyptian officials have laid out an ambitious set of economic targets for the Arab world's most populous country, hoping to recapture the fast growth of the middle of the last decade and to lift living standards.
Hundreds of thousands of residents of Port-au-Prince's tent cities remain to be relocated before hard rains begin next month, a race against nature whose success will largely depend on cooperation between dozens of governmental, military, international and volunteer organizations.
India's upper house of Parliament passed a bill that would reserve one third of the national and state legislatures for women.
The Obama Administration's top trade negotiator, Ron Kirk, said the U.S. is working quickly to resolve a damaging trade spat with Mexico.
The U.S. vice president criticized the surprise publication of a new Israeli plan to build in east Jerusalem, which could endanger the renewal of peace talks after a year hiatus.
Riot police fired tear gas at more than 1,000 opposition protesters who gathered in Togo's capital, the fourth day of rising tensions following a disputed presidential election.
India's top micro-finance institutions will join credit bureaus to ensure the world's poorest borrowers don't get overburdened with too many microloans.
Sexual-abuse scandals in Germany, the pope's homeland, and other countries are cause for anguish but the Roman Catholic Church's response has been prompt and transparent, the Vatican said.
China and India have given their qualified approval to the Copenhagen climate accord calling for voluntary limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
Police in Ireland arrested seven people over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.
The Thai government approved the use of a stringent security law and ordered strict surveillance of antigovernment Web sites ahead of a major protest this weekend.
Myanmar's ruling junta began to release information about a new law that will govern the country's first elections in two decades.
Northern Ireland lawmakers have voted overwhelmingly in favor of taking the next key step in making their Catholic-Protestant government work.
An author of a bold editorial calling for reform of China's divisive household registration system has been forced from his position, underlining the tightening limits on expression.
Afghan battle scenes with Hollywood-style special effects are staged by a company in San Diego to help U.S. soldiers prepare for deployments.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a hard-hit battle unit that its heavy losses have helped the U.S. begin to push back against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
Silvano Vinceti probes history's coldest cases. But he's no expert, he's a TV host.
There is no misunderstanding and no need for mediation. The Falkland Islands are British and should remain so as long as their inhabitants wish.
Topping the Spanish league will count for nothing if his Real Madrid side doesn't win the European Cup.
Buffalo Sabres goalie Ryan Miller was the most valuable player at the Olympic tournament, but being a great goalie often means staying humble and keeping a low profile.
International sporting events have been magnets for refugee claims, and Canada has received nearly 34,000 requests for asylum in the past year -- a number expected to rise after the Olympics.
Under the stressful pressure of a hockey-mad nation, Canada's Olympic team topped the U.S. in sudden-death overtime, 3-2, to win gold.
Sidney Crosby's overtime goal sent Canada to a 3-2 win over Team USA and the gold medal in men's ice hockey. The Americans took home the silver.
For the second straight Olympics, WSJ's method of handicapping the medal count produced some strong results -- and a few that were less than glowing.
Wall Street Journal reporters scattered to sample the best—and most Canadian—of parties at the Vancouver Games and give them our ratings.The luckiest parties lured "The Great One."
Another young, fast team outdid a veteran-laden opponent to reach the finals of the Olympic men's hockey tournament, as Team Canada defeated Slovakia 3-2 to set up a rematch with Team USA for gold Sunday.
The U.S. men's hockey team advanced to the Olympic finals Friday, blowing out Finland 6-1 in a shocking display of offensive firepower for a team known more for solid goaltending and tight defense.
Marie-Philip Poulin scored two goals, Shannon Szabados made 28 saves, and Canada rolled through the U.S. 2-0 to win the women's hockey gold medal for a third straight Olympics.
Kim Yu-Na has won gold in women's figure skating, the first Olympic medal in the sport for South Korea.
Vancouver chose 30 local children to be "flower sweepers." They dart onto the ice between performances, gracefully plucking up the debris, and then placing it into bags to hand over to the athletes.
Canada renewed its romance with skates as Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won a gold medal for ice dancing by performing a love story of their own.
If Bode Miller can win the men's slalom event, he will rival French legend Jean-Claude Killy as one of the greatest and most versatile Olympic skiers of all time.
Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane have given the Americans a 1-2 finish in the Nordic combined large hill competition that was marred by bad weather.
Can extreme amounts of exercise help manage diabetes? U.S. Olympic skier Kris Freeman was told to quit racing when he was diagnosed, but kept at it and turned the question on its head.
The four-man team led by Steven Holcomb earned the Americans their first gold in the event since 1948 in St. Moritz.
Vancouver's Olympic organizing committee and the International Luge Federation appear to have reached a stalemate in determining where the responsibility lies for the construction of the track where a Georgian athlete died.
Olympic organizers knew the Vancouver track would send racers downhill at speeds that would easily eclipse past records, and they had made adjustments out of safety concerns.
Years before the young Georgian luge racer flew to his death, officials made a series of decisions designed to make the icy track a commercial success that left it faster than any competitive track before.
Vancouver ended its time hosting the 2010 Olympic games on a light-hearted note, with a closing ceremony that featured floating moose, dancing Mounties and gigantic cut-out hockey players wearing the gold medals Team Canada had won hours before.
Organizers of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, had a team of 150 observers on the ground in Vancouver taking notes for the next games.
It was lucky number eight for Apolo Anton Ohno, who broke his own record Winter Olympic medal haul with a bronze in the 5,000 meter short track relay. Earlier, he nearly came in second in the 500 meter, but was disqualified after a pileup.
From heart monitors to translucent fabric, the Winter Games often come down to who has better gear.
For all the stopwatches and TV cameras, raw speed isn't something that is consistently measured. So we brought our own radar gun.
Just as there are football factories and basketball schools—universities that excel at churning out linebackers or post players— there are also Olympic schools.
As the Vancouver Winter Olympics draws to a close, China's sports machine is quietly putting on a clinic in how to climb the medals standings.
Some of the biggest names of these Games have been Team USA members in name only, choosing to train on their own terms. There's a lesson here for nurturing the next generation of athletes.
Four of the ice-dancing pairs competing in Vancouver are siblings—and this year, there's a compulsory tango routine. How they get around the awkwardness.
On the streets of Vancouver, Canadian Olympians are scanning the crowd for hockey standouts, showing the sport's primacy in the hearts and minds of Canadians.
Team USA looks to be running away with the medal count, which would be its first overall victory since 1932. But the race for most golds is a four-nation battle.
Norway's Olympic team has won a surprising 17 medals.The only problem is that nobody outside Norway seems to take them seriously.
Six years ago, an uproar over vote-swapping between judges led to changes in figure skating scoring. The rules are different now, but the controversy continues to whirl.
After a cold front made people forget Vancouver's early-Games weather troubles, spring-like conditions are coming back. That could put the squeeze on the small army of meteorologists at work here.
How did an entire U.S. team end up taking a mulligan on the Olympics? Instead of assembling an all-star team, curling clubs compete in trials to determine who will make it to the Games.
The first week of the Olympics was all about the individual stars. Now it's all about the team sports.
Olympic logos and mascots usually get plenty of attention. But Canada's choice of emblem is among the most curious: It's a pile of rocks.
Canada's "own the podium" plan is falling short so far as the U.S. dominates, but 60% of medals remain to be awarded. "It might not last," warns a rival coach.
Bode Miller's new role as the friendly Olympic hero is in keeping with these cute and snuggly Games.
The price of Bill Schuffenhauer's dedication to chasing Olympic glory as a bobsledder was losing his family's house.
The U.S. skater has his own reality show and fashion label; one costume is like "a Care Bear on acid."
As the nature of the downhill event in skiing changes, the Games' favorites are schussing seniors.
Germany biathlete Magdalena Neuner, who won a silver medal in the 7.5-kilometer sprint Saturday and who will compete in the 10-kilometer pursuit Tuesday, is fast as heck on skis, but get out of the way when she picks up a gun.
The Vancouver Games will show whether a U.S. plan hatched more than 20 years ago, to compete in offbeat events like Nordic combined, has borne fruit.
Italy's competitors came in dead last in six different events, more than any other country besides Canada, which at least walks off with 14 gold medals.
The Olympics generates nearly half its revenue from sales of broadcasting rights. But for the broadcasters paying these sums, it is a downhill race to recover their investment.
If NHL owners are nervous, it's with good reason: More than $300 million worth of hockey players are still participating in the Olympic tournament, risking injury for the sake of national pride.
The music in the figure skating competition resembles the iPod of a deejay with an idiosyncratic taste for the classics, Linkin Park, "Hava Nagila," and, oddly, the score from the Tom Cruise legal caper "The Firm."
A round of applause, please, for Switzerland's Simon Ammann, who whipped the competition in both individual ski jump events, and, according to a WSJ analysis of results, gave the Olympics' second-most-dominant performance.
As if losing an Olympic hockey game at home to their rivals to the South wasn't bad enough, here's some more bad news for Canadians: Their country is on pace for its worst medal haul since 1992.
An analysis of NBC's 3 ½-hour program Friday night showed that there were 56 minutes, 41 seconds of commercials over 24 breaks—that's three more minutes than actual event action that was showed.
On Sunday, Feb. 28, the last day of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Canada beat the U.S. 3-2 in the gold-medal hockey final.
Has it been 17 days already? Once again, we're settled into Vancouver's BC Place for a two-hour pageant of songs, speeches and Canadian cultural icons. Brace yourself for appearances by Mounties, beavers and William Shatner. (Still no sign of Celine Dion.)
There was no shortage of suprises on the biathlon course this afternoon, with surprise winners and even some mismanagment on the part of race supervisors.
Tue, 9 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800
A U.S. group provides hands-on training to 10 top government engineers, who will teach Haitian inspectors how to determine whether a property is safe to live in.
Hector Marie Suze and her family have bunked on a bare lot with 22 other families since the Jan. 12 earthquake here toppled two interior walls and big patches of ceiling plaster in her home.
Survivors say Christian villagers were trapped in nets and hacked to death by Muslim herdsman in attacks with ethnic and religious overtones. Death estimates vary wildly, from 200 to 500.
Reporting from Ratsat, Dogo Nahawa, Nigeria, and Lagos, Nigeria -- The victims of Sunday's sectarian massacres were buried in mass graves in central Nigeria on Monday as survivors told horrific stories of Christian villagers being trapped in nets and hacked to death by Muslim herdsmen.
Participation is nearly 75% in Sunni-dominated Salahuddin province. Turnout in Baghdad is lower, possibly dampened by a morning bombardment by militants. Election results are days away.
Iraq achieved a respectable turnout at the polls over the weekend as 62% of registered voters cast ballots, according to the country's electoral commission.
Pyongyang criticizes the annual exercises as 'adventurous saber-rattling.' The drills, known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, will last 11 days and involve tens of thousands of troops.
U.S. and South Korean armed forces on Monday began their annual military joint exercises, prompting North Korea to chastise the war games as "a foolish act of banging their heads on a rock."
The Lahore attack destroys a building housing investigators who interrogate key suspects. About 80 are wounded in the first such strike in Punjab province this year.
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Lahore, Pakistan -- A suicide car bombing at a building in Lahore that houses terrorism investigators killed at least 13 people and wounded 80 others Monday, the first terrorist strike this year to hit a major city in Pakistan's Punjab heartland.
Officials say the operative held in Karachi is not Al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn wanted on U.S. treason charges, but another man, from Pennsylvania. U.S. officials say they haven't heard of him.
The suspected Al Qaeda operative arrested in Karachi over the weekend was not the Southern California native wanted by the United States on treason charges for his involvement in the terrorist network, Pakistani intelligence officials said Monday.
Kim Young-kwang has spent years trying to locate the remains of the Korean nationalist who assassinated a Japanese statesman 100 years ago.
As a former South Korean intelligence agent, Kim Young-kwang knows all about subterfuge, secret documents and international intrigue.
Dozens are killed across Baghdad as Iraqis vote in national elections considered a crucial milestone for the U.S. military, which plans to withdraw combat troops.
Bombs and mortar shells pounded Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 40 people and wounding dozens more, as Iraqis, desperate for a brighter future, sought to cast their ballots in crucial national elections.
U.S. is skeptical that a Californian turned top propagandist for Al Qaeda has been captured in Karachi.
U.S. officials cast doubt early Monday on Pakistani intelligence statements that Karachi officials had arrested a Southern California native, a top propagandist for Al Qaeda who is wanted by the U.S. on treason charges.
Biden is set to arrive Monday, with a goal of mending relations between U.S. and Israel after a tough first year in which Obama's demands in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict alienated many in Israel.
Vice President Joe Biden was due to arrive Monday in Israel on a mission to mend relations after a rocky first year for new administrations in both countries.
