WorldNews

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — All Blacks flyhalf Aaron Cruden will likely miss this year's Rugby World Cup after rupturing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during a Super Rugby match on Friday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20625[/attach] TOKYO (AP) — Japan's top trade negotiator met with U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman on Monday, seeking to resolve differences on autos and farm exports that are hindering progress toward a Pacific Rim trade deal. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20624[/attach] As Europe struggles to deal with a surge in migrants pouring across the Mediterranean, Australia has gone nearly 18 months with virtually no asylum-seeker boat arrivals and no deaths at sea. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton on Monday said he would not be lecturing Europe on what to do. Soon after it came to power in September 2013, Australia's conservative government launched the military-led Operation Sovereign Borders to halt a flood of boatpeople arriving almost daily under the previous Labor administration. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20623[/attach] SAN LORENZO, Puerto Rico (AP) — In Puerto Rico's misty, bamboo-studded mountains, elementary school students are studying a nearly extinct language, beating on drums and growing native crops like cassava and sweet potato as they learn about the indigenous people who lived on the island before Christopher Columbus. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20618[/attach] Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said Rome would be seeking the extraordinary meeting after up to 700 people were feared to have drowned when a boat carrying them towards Italy capsized off Libya. The Italian initiative came as the EU came under fire over what NGOs termed a tragedy that may have been avoided if Italy had maintained its large-scale search-and-rescue operation off its southern shores. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20617[/attach] BERLIN (AP) — Defending champion Real Madrid faces familiar foe Atletico Madrid for a place in the Champions League semifinals while Barcelona appears to have its place already booked. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20616[/attach] An ex-intelligence officer under the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was "the strategic head" behind the Islamic State group and drew up the blueprints for the jihadists' capture of northern Syria, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday. Former colonel Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, who was better known as Haji Bakr and was killed by Syrian rebels in January 2014, "had been secretly pulling the strings at IS for years", according to the magazine. The weekly said it had been given exclusive access to 31 documents by Bakr, including handwritten lists and charts, after lengthy negotiations with a rebel group in Aleppo, northern Syria, which came in possession of the pages after IS fled the area. The trove "was nothing less than a blueprint for a takeover", according to Spiegel, detailing the creation of a caliphate in northern Syria, complete with meticulous instructions for espionage activities, murder and kidnapping. Continue reading...

BOSTON (AP) — Relatives of some of the 43 students who vanished in Mexico last September rallied with supporters in Boston on Sunday as part of a national tour to call attention to their plight. Continue reading...

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — The International Tennis Federation is considering playing future Davis Cup finals at a neutral venue. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20609[/attach] Ethiopia condemned Sunday the reported killing of Ethiopian Christians captured in Libya, and vowed to continue its fight against Islamist extremists. "We strongly condemn such atrocities, whether they are Ethiopians are not," Ethiopian Minster of Communications Redwan Hussein told AFP. Ethiopia's embassy in Egypt was working to verify if those killed were indeed Ethiopians, he added. The Islamic State jihadist group on Sunday released a video purportedly showing the executions of some 30 Ethiopian Christians captured in Libya. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20608[/attach] The United Nations on Sunday called on the Democratic Republic of Congo to respect its citizens' civil liberties as the political climate has turned tense ahead of key elections next year. "Political space must be guaranteed, space for the opposition, space for civil society, for the defenders of human rights," Martin Kobler, head of the UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO in DRC, said in an interview with AFP. Tensions have been rising in DR Congo since dozens of people died in violent protests in January against a new electoral law that critics say could allow President Joseph Kabila to hold on to power beyond the end of his mandate. "(MONUSCO's) mandate is (also) to defend human rights," said Kobler. Continue reading...

ITAJAI, Brazil (AP) — American boat Team Alvimedica led the Volvo Ocean Race fleet out of Itajai on Sunday as it left Brazil and headed toward Newport, Rhode Island, on the sixth leg of the around-the-world sailing competition. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20607[/attach] Former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta announced Sunday he will resign from parliament for a job heading up the international affairs school at the elite Sciences-Po university in Paris. "Starting September 1 I will run the Sciences-Po international affairs school in Paris and I will step down from my functions as an MP," he said on Italian public TV. Letta led Italy's government for 10 months, but was pushed to resign in February 2014 by current Prime Minister Matteo Renzi amid political and economic crisis. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20606[/attach] 10:20 p.m. (2020 GMT, 4:20 p.m.) Continue reading...

Bangladesh said on Sunday it had brought back 337 of its citizens from strife-torn Yemen with the help of India, with the total number of Bangladeshis evacuated so far reaching 500. The ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement the Bangladeshis had arrived at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport by special flights of Biman Bangladesh Airlines. India conducted an air and sea evacuation operation late last month to bring back its nationals stranded in Yemen. "We requested India to help bring home back our citizens stranded in the Middle Eastern country and it responded friendly," Shahriar told reporters. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20602[/attach] Finland's opposition Centre Party came out on top in Sunday's general election, far ahead of the parties in Prime Minister Alexander Stubb's left-right coalition, partial results showed. If the results were to be confirmed, Centre Party leader Juha Sipila, a 53-year-old IT millionaire and newcomer to politics, would become Finland's next prime minister. More than a third of the electorate cast their ballots in advance voting and with most of those counted, the Centre Party had 23.2 percent of votes. Public radio and television YLE projected that the Centre Party would have 51 out of 200 seats in parliament. Continue reading...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican security officials say they've captured the man accused of running the Juarez drug cartel following last year's arrest of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20601[/attach] CAIRO (AP) — Islamic State militants in Libya shot and beheaded groups of captive Ethiopian Christians, a video purportedly from the extremists showed Sunday. The attack widens the circle of nations affected by the group's atrocities while showing its growth beyond a self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Continue reading...

European Council President Donald Tusk is considering calling a special summit of EU leaders on the refugee crisis around the Mediterranean and will take a decision after consultations, his spokesman said on Sunday. Tusk himself tweeted that he was talking to EU leaders, the European Commission and its foreign service on "how to alleviate (the) situation" after a fishing boat capsized overnight off the Libyan coast, killing as many as 700 migrants. After the consultations, the spokesman said, the former Polish prime minister who now chairs the Council of EU leaders would decide on a possible extraordinary summit. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20596[/attach] NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Turkish Cypriots are voting for a new leader for the breakaway north of Cyprus on Sunday in an unpredictable contest as talks to reunify the ethnically split island are expected to resume next month. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20595[/attach] BRINDISI, Italy (AP) — Top-ranked Serena Williams had to fight back from a set down and figure out how to deal with strong winds before overcoming Italy's Sara Errani 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-3 in a Fed Cup playoff Sunday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20594[/attach] STOCKHOLM (AP) — Cuba's efforts to sustain the critically endangered Cuban crocodile are getting a boost from Sweden, home to a pair of reptiles that Fidel Castro gave to a Soviet cosmonaut four decades ago. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20593[/attach] Gripping tightly with her hands, her feet searching for a foothold, Salwa Khashan edges along a sheer rock face in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, urged on by friends below. She and her fellow climbers are the first group of Palestinians to win climbing certificates after graduating from a three-day "Wadi Climbing" course just north of Ramallah. "It taught me a lot," said Khashan, who lives in Arab-dominated east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied with the rest of the West Bank in 1967. "Tim and I came to Palestine to develop a climbing community here," Harris said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20592[/attach] DORTMUND, Germany (AP) — Borussia Dortmund appointed Thomas Tuchel as coach from the end of the season on Sunday, handing the former Mainz coach a three-year contract effective from July 1. Continue reading...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A senior commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guard said Sunday that inspectors would be barred from military sites under any nuclear agreement with world powers. Continue reading...