WorldNews

[attach=full]19705[/attach] TOKYO (AP) — Japanese businesses remain wary over the outlook for the world's No. 3 economy and generally plan to reduce capital investment, according to a central bank survey released Wednesday. Continue reading...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand fast bowler Kyle Mills has announced his retirement from all forms of cricket, ending a 14-year international career. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19704[/attach] Lausanne (AFP) - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that he hopes to finalise on Wednesday a framework nuclear agreement with world powers. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19703[/attach] A parliamentary candidate for Britain's UK Independence Party was replaced on Tuesday after writing that Israel should "kidnap" US President Barack Obama in a Facebook post. The post by Jeremy Zeid was a response to the declassifying of documents on Israel's secret nuclear programme, and was written last week as he prepared to run for a seat in Britain's general election on May 7. "Once Obama is out of office, the Israelis should move to extradite the bastard or 'do an Eichmann' on him, and lock him up for leaking state secrets," Zeid wrote in the Facebook post, according to a screenshot. "Just kidnap the bugger, like they did to Eichmann," he added in a comment, referring to the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was captured in Argentina in 1960 and put on trial in Israel. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19698[/attach] Egypt's president on Tuesday urged Shiite rebels in Yemen to "back off" for the sake of their country, saying Cairo is participating in a military campaign there for Gulf Arab security. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's remarks come two days after an Arab summit in Egypt that decided the Saudi-led air strikes against the Huthi rebels should continue until they surrender. "The stability of Yemen and the safety of its people hangs from your necks," Sisi said in a televised speech to military and police officers. Egypt had said it is taking part in the campaign with its air force and navy, and has pledged to commit ground troops if they are needed. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19697[/attach] Borno state in northeast Nigeria, worst-hit by six years of Boko Haram violence, voted overwhelmingly in favour of opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari, results showed on Tuesday. The former military ruler, who has accused President Goodluck Jonathan of failing to provide leadership in the insurgency, won 473,543 ballots in the state, or 94 percent of the valid votes cast. Polling stations were eventually set up in and around camps for the displaced, notably in the state capital, Maiduguri. In Yobe, Jonathan polled 446,265 votes -- 94.2 percent of the total valid votes -- and in Adamawa 374,701 or the 58.9 percent of the ballots. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19696[/attach] TURIN, Italy (AP) — Andros Townsend scored a late equalizer as England held Italy to a 1-1 draw in an international friendly at the Juventus Stadium on Tuesday. Continue reading...

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Authorities say a police officer has been seriously injured in clashes with football fans in Argentina. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19695[/attach] Incoming England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Colin Graves confirmed on Tuesday that he is considering tabling proposals to shorten Test matches from five days to four. "Personally, I think we should look at four-day Test cricket and play 105 overs a day starting at 10.30am in the morning, and finish when you finish as all the grounds now have lights," Graves, who takes up his role in May, told the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) website. The ECB could not itself introduce four-day Test matches, but it could push for changes to the Test format in international negotiations. Expanding on the idea, Graves added: "Every Test match would start on a Thursday, with Thursday and Friday being corporate days and then Saturday and Sunday the family days. Continue reading...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A clash between two vigilante "self-defense" groups in the troubled Mexican state of Guerrero killed at least four people and dozens more were taken prisoner by each side, a leader of one of the groups said Tuesday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19691[/attach] British director Ken Loach launched his leftist party's manifesto in a squat in Soho on Tuesday, warning of "huge anger and alienation" among voters ahead of the general election on May 7. Loach said the venue -- in a once-seedy and increasingly expensive part of central London -- was chosen to draw attention to the difficulties faced by many Britons in finding affordable housing. The award-winning filmmaker said that "the other parties base themselves on the idea of the market", while his Left Unity party stood against it. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19690[/attach] Regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran traded accusations Tuesday over the escalating conflict in Yemen, which the UN rights chief warned was on the brink of "total collapse". In the heaviest raids yet of the six-day Saudi-led air war against Shiite Huthi rebels, explosions lit up the skies over Sanaa on Monday night and rocked other parts of the country on Tuesday. Amnesty International accused the Saudi-led coalition of "turning a blind eye to civilian deaths" as it reported four children were among six burned to death in strikes on Ibb, in central Yemen. The UN children's fund said that at least 62 children had been killed and 30 injured during the fighting in Yemen over the past week. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19689[/attach] France's most famous Nazi hunters, Serge Klarsfeld and his German wife Beate, this week launched their "Memoirs" about their decades spent tracking down Hitler's henchmen and dragging them out of hiding into the public glare. The book, published in France to a flurry of media attention, recounts how Klarsfeld, a Jew born in 1935 in Bucharest, escaped the Holocaust after his family moved to France but saw his father taken away to die in the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp. In 1960, while studying at the prestigious Science-Po university in Paris, Klarsfled met Beate Kuenzel, the daughter of a former German soldier, on a metro platform. Together, Serge Klarsfeld added, the couple decided to help "bring down the chancellor" of Germany at the time, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, a former Nazi party member who had been a top official responsible for radio propaganda under Joseph Goebbels. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19688[/attach] A senior Turkish prosecutor and his two hostage-takers were killed on Tuesday when security forces launched an operation to free the official in a bloody end to a six-hour standoff in Istanbul. Two radical leftist militants had earlier taken the Istanbul prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz hostage in his office, putting a gun to his head and threatening to kill him if their demands were not met. Their demands related to the investigation Kiraz was leading into the killing of teenager Berkin Elvan, who died in March last year after spending 269 days in a coma from injuries inflicted by police in anti-government protests in the summer of 2013. The authorities initially tried negotiating with the captors on a hugely tense day in Turkey's largest city which also suffered a major power cut. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19684[/attach] KUWAIT CITY (AP) — International donors committed $3.8 billion in aid for Syrians affected by the grinding civil war at a donors' conference in Kuwait on Tuesday, less than half of what the U.N. requested for this year to cope with the growing humanitarian crisis. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19683[/attach] France's upper house of parliament rejected a draft law Tuesday penalising clients of prostitution, as the country wrestles with how to legislate the world's oldest profession. In December 2013, the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, approved legislation making clients of prostitutes liable for a fine of 1,500 euros ($1,620) for a first offence and double that thereafter. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19682[/attach] Canadian federal police on Tuesday charged the owner of a python in the deaths of two young boys who were asphyxiated by the snake while they slept in 2013. Jean Claude Savoie, 38, was accused of criminal negligence causing the deaths of the brothers. Police initially said the reptile had slithered into the second-floor apartment from an exotic pet store on the ground floor, but later determined that the African rock python had been housed in the apartment itself. Continue reading...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Authorities in Puerto Rico have charged 32 people with operating illegal gambling machines. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19681[/attach] U.S. stocks moved lower in afternoon trading Tuesday, as traders seized on the final day of the quarter to do some profit-taking. Industrial and health care stocks were among the biggest decliners. Oil prices extended their slide. Investors weighed positive economic data on housing and consumers with concerns over the possibility of a deeper slide in oil prices. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19675[/attach] TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi forces battled Islamic State militants Tuesday holed up in downtown Tikrit as the country's prime minister announced security forces reached the city's center. Continue reading...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A deputy official says a roadside bombing in a remote province in eastern Afghanistan has killed seven people, all members of the same family. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19674[/attach] BALI, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian prosecutors on Tuesday sought jail sentences of 18 years for an American man and 15 years for his girlfriend if they are found guilty of murdering the woman's mother while vacationing on the resort island of Bali last year. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19673[/attach] The Red Cross said Tuesday a local aid worker had been killed in Yemen, adding that it could not fly in desperately-needed aid due to a lack of security. The International Committee of the Red Cross called for the removal of obstacles to aid delivery and for humanitarian workers be allowed to work safely in Yemen, as Arab warplanes pounded the country for a sixth day. It said Yemeni Red Crescent volunteer Omar Ali Hassam had been shot dead Monday in the southern province of Al Dhalea while evacuating wounded people. The ICRC said it had a plane stocked with medical supplies to treat up to 1,000 people that had been due to arrive in the country Tuesday but efforts to negotiate its safe arrival had so far failed. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19672[/attach] LONDON (AP) — European stock markets drifted Tuesday despite further evidence of a burgeoning economic recovery across the 19-country eurozone. Trading, as is often the case at the end of the quarter, was impacted by traders looking to close out positions to make their books look as healthy as possible. Continue reading...

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says he is returning to the Iran talks, and says prospects for reaching agreement on a framework accord are "good." Continue reading...