WorldNews

[attach=full]20541[/attach] CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — Gunfights and blockades of burning vehicles broke out Friday in the border city of Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, leaving at least three dead, Mexican authorities said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20538[/attach] BEIJING (AP) — China is building an airstrip on an artificially created island in a disputed section of the South China Sea, according to independent analysts, a move the U.S. has warned could raise tensions in the area. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20537[/attach] LAS VEGAS (AP) — The FBI violated the rights of a wealthy Malaysian businessman when agents posed as Internet repairmen to get into his Las Vegas suite to search for evidence of wrongdoing during the World Cup soccer tournament last summer, a federal judge ruled Friday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20536[/attach] WASHINGTON (AP) — In a remote part of the Venezuelan Amazon, scientists have discovered that members of a village isolated from the modern world have the most diverse colonies of bacteria ever reported living in and on the human body. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20535[/attach] GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — The daughter of Efrain Rios Montt, the former dictator facing charges of genocide for massacres committed during his 1982-83 regime, is running for president of Guatemala. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Spain's Economy Minister Luis de Guindos criticized Greece's left-wing government for its "not very coherent" approach to negotiations over its finances and economy. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON (AP) — China's proposed infrastructure bank for Asia is intended to complement and not replace existing lenders dominated by the U.S. and Japan, a senior Chinese official said Friday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20530[/attach] NORTH SOUND, Antigua (AP) — An unbeaten 103 by Jason Holder helped West Indies salvage a nail-biting draw against England in the first test Friday, spoiling James Anderson's celebrations after becoming his country's record wicket taker Continue reading...

[attach=full]20529[/attach] The UN weather agency announced Friday it was dropping "Isis" -- the name of an ancient Egyptian goddess that also happens to be the acronym for the Islamic State jihadist group -- from its stocklist of Pacific hurricane names. "Isis" was replaced with "Ivette" on an alphabetical list of hurricane names for the eastern north Pacific region next year, World Meteorogical Organisation (WMO) spokeswoman Clare Nullis said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20528[/attach] A lawsuit in Chicago by Holocaust descendants against France's national railway SNCF aims to fill gaps in a $60 million settlement reached in December, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said Friday. "That agreement is a good first step, but it excludes far too many people," Steven Blonder of the Chicago law firm Much Shelist Denenberg Ament told AFP by telephone. The suit was filed on Thursday, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in US federal court in Chicago. "SNCF committed, conspired to commit and aided and abetted others who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity," it alleges. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20527[/attach] Two Syrian doctors urged Russian diplomats at the United Nations on Friday to put pressure on President Bashar al-Assad to allow life-saving medical supplies into a besieged city near Damascus. The meeting came a day after the UN Security Council heard the two doctors give a detailed account of treating victims of chemical attacks last month in Idlib province. Doctor Zaher Sahloul told the diplomats that 10 people had died of kidney failure in the besieged city of Douma because they did not have access to dialysis fluid and 23 others are at risk unless the medical aid is let in. Russia, an ally of the Assad regime, voted in favour of a resolution last year that demanded access for humanitarian aid and set up deliveries of cross-border aid convoys, without the consent of Damascus. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20519[/attach] Emotions were running high in Italy Friday as the country struggled to cope with a new influx of migrants amid "worrying" allegations of clashes between Muslim and Christian refugees on a boat. More than 11,000 migrants have been rescued in the Mediterranean and taken to Italy in the past six days, with hundreds more expected Friday, the coastguard said. The migrant wave has swelled in recent days on the back of the worsening security situation in Libya -- the staging post for most of the crossings -- as well as the milder spring weather. The woman had been taken onboard despite suffering serious burns in a gas canister blast in a Libyan camp housing migrants waiting to be smuggled into Europe, the UN's refugee agency said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20518[/attach] Countries neighbouring South Africa on Friday prepared to evacuate their citizens from South Africa as the UN raised the alarm over deadly xenophobic attacks which have displaced thousands. The anti-foreigner violence, which erupted in the eastern port city of Durban, has left at least six people dead and spread to the economic hub, Johannesburg. "In South Africa, xenophobic attacks over the last three weeks have... displaced over 5,000 foreign nationals," the UN refugee agency said, adding it was "extremely concerned". Zimbabwe's ambassador to South Africa, Isaac Moyo said the repatriation of about 1,000 Zimbabweans from Durban would start on Sunday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20517[/attach] The Al-Qaeda-linked group of notorious one-eyed Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility in a recording Friday for a deadly suicide attack on the United Nations in Mali. Two civilians were killed and nine peacekeepers from Niger wounded when a militant set off explosives as he attempted to drive into a camp used by the UN's MINUSMA peacekeeping mission in Ansongo, in the northern region of Gao, on Wednesday. In an audio message sent to the Mauritanian news agency Alakhbar -- which frequently publishes statements attributed to extremist groups, who never deny them -- Belmokhtar's Al-Murabitoun group said it had carried out the attack. The group said the bomber targeted Niger nationals because their president, Mahamadou Issoufou, took part in the mass Paris rally over the jihadist attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in January. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20516[/attach] BAGHDAD (AP) — He was the last member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle still on the run, depicted with his distinctive red moustache as the "king of clubs" on the U.S. military's deck of cards of most-wanted Iraqi regime fugitives. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20515[/attach] West Indies’ seventh-wicket pair of Denesh Ramdin and Jason Holder were holding up England’s push for victory at tea on the final day of the first Test at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua on Friday. Set an improbable target of 438, the home side reached 268 for six at the interval with captain Ramdin and new one-day international skipper Holder both unbeaten on 48. They had come together early in the afternoon session with the cause seemingly lost after first innings centurion Jermaine Blackwood fell to medium-pacer Chris Jordan for 31. A swift afternoon capitulation appeared inevitable when the West Indies lost three important wickets in a morning session highlighted by James Anderson equalling flamboyant former all-rounder Sir Ian Botham’s mark of 383 as the most wickets by an England cricketer in Tests. Continue reading...

VIRGINIA WATER, England (AP) — The head of a Canadian media conglomerate that acquired rights to the NHL in the largest sports deal in the country's history has been hired as the new chief executive of golf's European Tour. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20511[/attach] COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio man pleaded not guilty Friday to charges he traveled to Syria and trained alongside terrorists, then returned to the U.S. with plans to attack a military base in Texas or a prison. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20510[/attach] NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are falling broadly in midday trading on Friday following steep declines in Europe. Investors are worrying that Greece may default on its debt. Several big U.S. companies including American Express fell after reporting disappointing results. Continue reading...

BEIJING (AP) — China's securities regulator is tightening control over lending to small investors trading stocks. Continue reading...

The Formula One race set for Sunday in Bahrain drew protests on Friday as activists accused the Gulf kingdom of again staging the annual event to paper over human rights abuses, four years after being forced to cancel it during Arab Spring uprisings. Bahrain's majority Shi'ite Muslim community has used the annual Formula One occasion since then to highlight grievances over what they see as failed promises of democratic reform in the Sunni Muslim-ruled island country. "The regime uses the race to say Bahrain should unite, while in fact they are cracking down and it's just used to burnish the government's image, to make more money and make it look like everything is just business as usual," Bahraini democracy activist Ala'a Shehabi told Reuters. Bahrain, important strategically because it hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet as a bulwark against Shi'ite Iran across the Gulf, has grappled with low-profile but persistent unrest since a Shi'ite-led revolt demanding reforms and a bigger role in government were put down in 2011 with the help of Saudi Arabia. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20504[/attach] MADRID (AP) — Tax agents spent a second day Friday searching the office of former International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato after he was detained and released as part of a probe into alleged fraud and money laundering. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20503[/attach] NEW YORK (AP) — To improve airline safety, maybe we need to remove the pilots. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20502[/attach] UN chief Ban Ki-moon has called for an immediate ceasefire in Yemen and begun the hunt for a new peace envoy to the war-torn country, where Al-Qaeda is expanding its territory. Ban's plea follows more than three weeks of air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition aimed at driving back Iran-backed rebels whose sweeping advance forced President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to flee to Riyadh. Yemen "is in flames," Ban told the press in Washington on Thursday. His remarks followed the resignation of his envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, a Moroccan-born career diplomat who lost the confidence of Saudi Arabia and its allies. Continue reading...

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