WorldNews

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The past two Tour de France champions head a powerful lineup for the six-day Tour de Romandie. Continue reading...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Several shops and cars owned by foreigners were torched in downtown Johannesburg overnight in continued anti-immigrant attacks but another city that had seen the worst violence was calm. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20496[/attach] WASHINGTON (AP) — Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is getting an audience with President Barack Obama. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20495[/attach] BEIJING (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Pakistan next week to oversee agreements on pipelines, power plants and other projects as part of a massive $46 billion joint development program that Beijing hopes will stabilize its longtime ally's economy and extend China's influence in western Asia. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20494[/attach] Pilgrims descended from all over the world on a small town in Pakistan that is home to one of Sikhism's holiest sites this week, dipping into holy spring water and solemnly offering prayers. They have come from India, Britain and the Middle East to the Panja Sahib Gurdwara in Hasan Abdal, 55 kilometres (35 miles) from Islamabad, where Guru Nanak, the founder of the religion, is said to have imprinted his hand. The 500-year-old religion was founded in what is now part of Pakistan, a Muslim-majority country of nearly 200 million people. Most Sikhs left Pakistan for India after both countries gained independence from Britain in 1947. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20493[/attach] SUNDARBAN TIGER RESERVE, India (AP) — At first, the numbers seem impressive: India's tiger population has gone up 30 percent in just four years. The government lauded the news as astonishing evidence of victory in conservation. Continue reading...

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia test skipper Michael Clarke's will captain the Melbourne Stars in Australia's Big Bash League for the next two seasons after not playing Twenty20 cricket for three years. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. allies South Korea and Japan put a brave face on their bitter differences over wartime history, saying it should not prevent cooperation between them. Continue reading...

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — A Jamaican judge ruled Thursday that a teenager suspected of hoping to join Islamic extremists in Syria must remain in police custody until next week. Continue reading...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's conservative National Action Party said Thursday that local candidates in the western state of Michoacan have been threatened by crime gangs. Continue reading...

HAGATNA, Guam (AP) — Officials from Tinian are voicing concerns about the U.S. military's plan to turn most of the small Pacific island into a training area. Continue reading...

By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Recent satellite images published on Thursday show China has made rapid progress in building an airstrip suitable for military use in contested territory in the South China Sea's Spratly Islands and may be planning another, moves that have been greeted with concern in the United States and Asia. IHS Jane's Defense Weekly said March 23 images provided by Airbus Defence and Space showed work on the runway on reclaimed parts of Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly archipelago, which China contests with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. The report said other images suggested China was working to extend another airstrip to that length in the Paracel Islands further north in the South China Sea. The report comes a day after the U.S. military commander for Asia, Admiral Samuel Locklear, said China could eventually deploy radar and missile systems on outposts it is building in the South China Sea that could be used to enforce an exclusion zone should China move to declare one. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON (AP) — China should not be concerned if the U.S. deploys an advanced missile defense system in South Korea to counter the threat from a nuclear North Korea, a U.S. military commander said Thursday. Commander of U.S. forces in Korea, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, told a congressional hearing that if employed, the Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system would be focused on the defense of the Korean Peninsula and would not have "any influence beyond that." Continue reading...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Blind vendors angry about having their stalls removed from a downtown Mexico City subway station this week clashed with police outside city hall Thursday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20486[/attach] DUNCAN, Oklahoma (AP) — The doctor who performed the autopsy on a college baseball player from Australia who was shot in the back while jogging in Oklahoma said Thursday that even immediate medical attention would not have saved his life. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20485[/attach] LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A man indicted in the United States for allegedly smuggling heroin, in a case that was the basis for the TV hit "Orange Is The New Black," has been elected a senator in Nigeria. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20484[/attach] SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Al-Qaida's branch in Yemen consolidated control over much of the country's largest province on Thursday, capturing a major airport, an oil terminal and the area's main military base, and striking an alliance with local tribal leaders to administer the region. Continue reading...

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Thousands of students marched through the streets of Chile's capital on Thursday to protest recent corruption scandals and to complain about delays in a promised education overhaul. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20476[/attach] NORTH SOUND, Antigua (AP) — England's batsmen, led by left-hander Gary Ballance's 122, piled the pressure on listless West Indies to take a commanding position Thursday on the fourth day of the first test at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20475[/attach] LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Swimming's governing body wants to give Michael Phelps a special invitation to race at the world championships. Continue reading...

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (AP) — Police say a cruise ship passenger from Virginia was been killed in the Cayman Islands when the personal watercraft he was operating collided with one driven by a teenage tourist. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20474[/attach] Germany on Thursday awarded its highest honour for the first time to Poles who fought the occupying Nazis in the ill-fated Warsaw Uprising of 1944, one of World War II's bloodiest episodes. Twenty former insurgents received the Federal Cross of Merit from the German ambassador to Poland, Rolf Nikel, at a ceremony in Warsaw. Around 50,000 insurgents took up arms against the Nazis in the occupied Polish capital on August 1, 1944 as the Soviet Red Army was poised to invade. The failed two-month rebellion sparked bloody Nazi reprisals, destroyed much of Warsaw and left 18,000 Polish fighters and 200,000 civilians dead. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20469[/attach] ROME (AP) — Crisis-hit Parma has been docked another four points in the Serie A standings for its financial failures. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20468[/attach] ATHENS, Greece (AP) — By the day, Greece is getting closer to a potentially catastrophic debt default that could force it out of the euro bloc. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20467[/attach] Milan (AFP) - British freestyle snowboarder Billy Morgan has become the first person to land a 1,800-degree quadruple cork, which he pulled off at an event in Livigno, Italy. Continue reading...