WorldNews

[attach=full]18516[/attach] Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's health minister announced Friday a new round of financial aid for thalidomide survivors, saying past funding to help with special care proved to be insufficient. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18506[/attach] BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Joao Souza defeated Carlos Berlocq 6-4, 3-6, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 Friday to give Brazil a 1-0 lead over Argentina in their first-round Davis Cup tie on clay. Continue reading...

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — Macedonia's opposition leader has released audio recordings allegedly showing conservative government officials discussing ways to manipulate voting registration records and pressure voters to back them in last year's general elections. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18505[/attach] Flooding in some of the soy-growing areas of Cordoba, Entre Rios and Santa Fe provinces has become "worrying" to the government as farmers get ready to start harvesting the 2014/15 crop, the agriculture ministry said in its weekly report on Friday. The northern part of the Pampas grains belt has been whipped by storms this month, adding to moisture left by heavy rains in February, washing out roads and flooding wide areas. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18504[/attach] LONDON (AP) — The euro's value against the dollar keeps dropping, and it could soon reach parity with the dollar for the first time in 13 years. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18503[/attach] Exiled England batsman Kevin Pietersen on Friday revealed he has received offers from several prospective English county employers. New England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Colin Graves hinted last weekend there is still a possibility of a return to international cricket for Pietersen, who was axed from the national team last year, as long as he first commits to playing county cricket again. Pietersen has been asked to join Leicestershire for the English domestic Twenty20 competition later this year and his advisor claims other teams have also made approaches to the South-Africa born star this week. Leicestershire chief executive Wasim Khan told Cricinfo he had been in touch with Pietersen's agent about the possibility of a deal with the 34-year-old, between his existing commitments at the Indian and Caribbean premier leagues. Continue reading...

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Former European 100-meter hurdles champion Nevin Yanit has had her doping ban increased from two to three years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18496[/attach] A year on, there remains no evidence to indicate what caused Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 to vanish or where it ended up, despite the most expensive search operation in history. A. Vessels scanning the sea floor for wreckage using sophisticated sonar have covered about 40 percent of a "priority search area" in the remote southern Indian Ocean spanning 60,000 square kilometres (23,000 square miles). The stormy southern hemisphere winter is expected to begin affecting any future operations within months. Search coordinators, however, can draw on lessons learnt during the quest for the data recorders from the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18495[/attach] Dave King, Paul Murray and John Gilligan were voted onto the board at crisis-ridden Scottish giants Rangers at a brief extraordinary general meeting at Ibrox on Friday. Only 15 percent of shareholders voted to keep Derek Llambias and finance director Barry Leach, associates of Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley, on the board. The remainder voted in favour of King, a Glaswegian based in South Africa, and his consortium taking control. Around 800 fans, as well as former manager Ally McCoist, turned out for a meeting which lasted just 12 minutes as King got the "landslide victory" that he predicted last week. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18494[/attach] A coroner investigating the collapse of a church building in Nigeria's capital that killed 116 people was within his rights to summon the head preacher to give evidence, a high court judge said Friday. Judge Lateefat Okunnu dismissed an attempt by lawyers for the popular televangelist TB Joshua to limit the scope of the inquest on the grounds that the coroner had exceeded his powers. Joshua, whose followers at the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) call him the "Prophet" and "Man of God", was ordered three times to appear before the inquest probing the collapse. Judge Okunnu said in her ruling that the coroner had legal powers to call anyone who may assist in determining the identities of the victims, as well as how, when and why they died. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18493[/attach] BERLIN (AP) — The headlines would suggest Europe is under siege: Thousands of Germans march against the continent's "Islamization." French readers flock to read a novel about a Muslim president who imposes Sharia law on their country. Commentators warn darkly about an encroaching age of "Eurabia" in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. Continue reading...

VIENNA (AP) — An Austrian panel has ruled against returning one of the country's most stunning works of art to heirs of the original Jewish owner. Continue reading...

LONDON (AP) — An Oxford University study say the number of foreign-born residents in England has increased by more than half a million in three years— a finding that will fuel debate about immigration ahead of the upcoming election. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18491[/attach] British energy giant BP said Friday it would invest $12 billion (11 billion euros) in gas fields in Egypt together with Russian-owned partner DEA, calling it a "vote of confidence" in the country. "The WND (West Nile Delta) project investment is the largest foreign direct investment in Egypt," BP's chief executive Bob Dudley said in a statement after final agreements were signed. "WND production is key to Egypt's energy security," he said, with BP announcing that all the gas would be fed into the national grid and would eventually double BP's supply to the domestic market. Continue reading...

PARIS (AP) — The head of the U.N.'s cultural agency says the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage like that at an archaeological site in Nimrud, Iraq, amounts to a "war crime." Continue reading...

[attach=full]18490[/attach] Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Friday he was cutting his salary by 10 percent as well as the earnings of several top government officials, as the country's economy reels from the collapse of the ruble. The salaries of Putin, his Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika and the president of the powerful Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin, will all be cut by 10 percent from March 1 to December 31, according to a decree signed by the president. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18480[/attach] Australia has formally complained to Indonesia over the treatment of two men facing the firing squad, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Friday, amid reports their execution could be delayed for up to 10 days. Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders of the so-called "Bali Nine" drug trafficking gang, were moved on Wednesday to the place where they are due to be killed. Australia was dismayed at the level of security used to transport them from Bali to the so-called "execution island" of Nusakambangan with dozens of armed police on hand, and outraged that photographs emerged from on board the plane. "I thought they were unbecoming and showed a lack of respect and dignity and we have protested to the Indonesian ambassador here in Canberra," Abbott told reporters of the pictures that were widely published in Australia. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18479[/attach] Double Olympic gold medallist Zou Shiming is aiming to put China on the world professional boxing map and start a "Shiming dynasty" when he fights Thailand's Amnat Ruenroeng for his first world title in Macau on Saturday. The softly-spoken three times amateur world champion said he will put aside his long-standing friendship with International Boxing Federation (IBF) flyweight title holder Amnat once they step in the ring at Cotai Arena as Zou targets his first global crown in the pro game. China has only once before had a world champion outside of the amateur ring, and that was at the little recognised WBC "minimum weight" (light flyweight) category which Xiong Zhaozhong won in 2012 and defended twice. Continue reading...

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — Fourth-seeded Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland advanced to the Monterrey Open quarterfinals Thursday, beating Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18478[/attach] LOS ANGELES (AP) — A homeless man who was shot to death by police during a confrontation over the weekend was identified under his true name — not the stolen identity he had used for years. Continue reading...

NAPIER, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand's Cricket World Cup match against Afghanistan on Sunday, which shaped as one of its least demanding in Pool A, might instead become one of its most compounding. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18468[/attach] Montreal (AFP) - Four Canadian government ministers were sent envelopes of a suspicious white powder on Thursday that was later believed to be harmless, police said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18467[/attach] DORAL, Fla. (AP) — J.B. Holmes never liked the old Blue Monster at Doral because he thought it was too easy for a World Golf Championship. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18466[/attach] The foreign ministers of Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia said early on Friday they had reached the basis of an agreement on the sharing of Nile waters and Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam. "A full agreement has been reached between our three countries on the principles of the use of the eastern Nile Basin and the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam," Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Karti told reporters early on Friday morning. Egypt fears Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam project would diminish its share of the river waters. Continue reading...

British lawmakers banned from entering Hong Kong last year said Chinese regulations were eroding freedoms in the former British colony, and urged their government to take a harder stance against Beijing. Pro-democracy protests shut down parts of Hong Kong for two and a half months last year in response to a decision by China to pre-screen candidates in a 2017 election which will choose the city's next chief executive. On Friday a report by British parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee said China's new nomination process was "unduly restrictive". The report highlighted what it called a "troubling pattern" of limitations being imposed on the autonomy and freedoms negotiated for Hong Kong 30 years ago when Britain and China agreed a deal to hand it back to Beijing. Continue reading...