WorldNews

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...

[attach=full]20466[/attach] The first member of Turkey's Armenian community to hold the post of senior advisor to the prime minister has retired, an official told AFP on Thursday, after he described the mass killings of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire as "genocide". The official, who asked not to be named, denied any link between the departure of Etyen Mahcupyan and the looming 100th anniversary on April 24 of the start of the 1915 killings of Armenians, which Yerevan regards as genocide. Mahcupyan, 65, "has retired on the grounds of age," the official said, noting this was the age limit for all Turkish civil servants. "If accepting that what happened in Bosnia and Africa were genocides, it is impossible not to call what happened to Armenians in 1915 genocide too," Mahcupyan said in an interview published this week. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20465[/attach] The 86-year-old founder of France's far-right FN party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was under observation in hospital on Thursday after an operation, in the midst of a family feud that has seen him clash with his daughter Marine, now the party leader. Marine Le Pen said her father was doing fine. He had a benign operation and there is no reason to worry," she told Reuters at the party headquarters. Continue reading...

NEW YORK (AP) — A rare life-size sculpture by Alberto Giacometti could set a record at auction next month where it's expected to bring around $130 million. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20460[/attach] Major world powers and Iran will hold fresh talks in Vienna on April 22-23 to build on the framework accord reached on Tehran's contested nuclear programme, the EU announced Thursday. The talks will take place at political director level, involving first Helga Schmid of the EU's external affairs arm and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Marathon talks in Lausanne last month ran overtime but finally produced a framework political agreement whereby Iran would accept strict controls over its nuclear programme in return for the easing of damaging economic sanctions. The restrictions are meant to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, as feared in the West, although Tehran insists its programme is purely for civilian use. Continue reading...

MOSCOW (AP) — Putin says West must respect Russia's interests in international diplomacy. Continue reading...

LONDON (AP) — British counter-terror detectives say they've arrested a 61-year-old man and a 53-year-old woman as they investigate the slaying of a Syria-born Muslim cleric who was shot in London. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20459[/attach] JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The fear among some foreigners and South Africans that anti-immigrant attacks will escalate reached such a peak Thursday that foreigners sought refuge in camps and a police station, a peace march was planned and the president was to address the nation. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20452[/attach] Manny Pacquiao pronounced himself ready to fight Floyd Mayweather, saying he's willing to engage the unbeaten American in the middle of the ring if that's what it takes to win. "I am very excited," Pacquiao said Wednesday at the Wild Card gym in Hollywood. Pacquiao says that is why he is training harder and with more drive and determination than for any other fight in his career. Pacquiao defended his aggressive style after Mayweather, 38, on Tuesday called the 36-year-old Filipino superstar a "reckless" fighter whose careless actions leads to knockouts. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20451[/attach] Authorities issued an alert for several Mexican states after thieves snatched potentially deadly radioactive material used for industrial radiography. The iridium-192 source, marked X-571, was inside a container when it was stolen on Monday from a truck in Cardenas, a town in southern Tabasco state, the interior ministry said in a statement. "This source is very dangerous to people if it is removed from its container," the statement said, in the latest theft of radioactive material to hit Mexico. "Being close to this quantity of unprotected radioactive material for hours or days could be fatal," the statement warned. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20450[/attach] UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N.'s special envoy to Yemen has stepped down after four years of efforts at a peaceful political transition in the Arab world's poorest country fell apart amid a Shiite rebel uprising and Saudi-led airstrikes. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20449[/attach] ANSAN, South Korea (AP) — "Field Trip" is still written in big letters on a calendar hanging on Yang Jeong-won's old classroom wall. Continue reading...

HAGATNA, Guam (AP) — Guam's attorney general and governor are at odds over whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry in the U.S. territory. Continue reading...