WorldNews

[attach=full]20267[/attach] NATO believes that Russia has supplied more troops and weapons to pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine, a German newspaper reported on Sunday. "We have noticed again support for the separatists, with weapons, troops and training. Russia is still sending troops and arms from one side of the open border with Ukraine to the other," a NATO official, who was not named, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20266[/attach] BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Barcelona gave Real Madrid new hope in the Spanish league title race by stumbling to a draw despite spectacular goals from Lionel Messi and Neymar. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20265[/attach] U.S. President Barack Obama said on Saturday that Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff will visit Washington on June 30, raising hopes of closer ties that could increase trade between the two biggest economies in the Americas. Obama made the announcement during a meeting between the two leaders on the sidelines of a regional summit in Panama City. The leftist Brazilian leader canceled a state visit to the United States in October 2013, after she was angered by revelations that U.S. spies had tapped her personal communications. U.S. officials believe a strong demonstration of support for Brazil will eventually unlock greater access to its $2.2 trillion economy, Latin America's biggest. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20264[/attach] Doctors at Lufthansa had recommended that pilot Andreas Lubitz, who is suspected of deliberately crashing a plane in the French Alps, be given psychological treatment after he suffered a bout of depression, a German newspaper reported. Citing documents found by Germany's air transport authority, the Bild am Sonntag said the doctors wrote that "Lubitz should continue to receive psychological treatment, even though he was deemed fit to fly" by an independent expert in 2009. Lubitz had interrupted his flight training in 2009 and had told Lufthansa about his illness. A Lufthansa spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Bild. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20263[/attach] Rory McIlroy's dream of becoming just the sixth man to win all four Grand Slam titles lay in tatters on Saturday despite the Northern Irishman carding a fine 69 in the third round of the Masters. The world number one started the day a daunting 12 strokes behind leader Jordan Spieth and had a mountain to climb. Continue reading...

By Kinda Makieh DAMASCUS (Reuters) - A U.N. envoy said on Saturday he was confident the Syrian government would cooperate in alleviating the situation facing some 18,000 people in a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus that Islamic State militants are battling to take over. Ramzi Ezzedine Ramzi, the deputy to the U.N. envoy to Syria, told Reuters the United Nations would work with the Damascus government to ensure the safety of the Palestinians and Syrians in Yarmouk on the Damascus outskirts. Ramzi said he left a meeting Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad on Saturday "quite satisfied and confident that there will be very good cooperation". Continue reading...

[attach=full]20254[/attach] WARSAW, Poland (AP) — It was World War II, Warsaw was under German occupation, and the wife of the director of the Warsaw zoo spotted Nazis approaching the white stucco villa that she and her family inhabited on the zoo grounds. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20253[/attach] A Cairo court confirmed death sentences for Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and 13 others on Saturday, and jailed a US-Egyptian citizen for life over Islamist protest violence. Two of the 14 defendants sentenced to death have fled the country and will immediately face a retrial if apprehended. The defendants were accused of plotting unrest from their headquarters in a sprawling Cairo protest camp in the months after the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. Among those sentenced to life in prison was Mohamed Soltan, a US-Egyptian citizen who is on hunger strike. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20252[/attach] By Mohammed Mukhashaf ADEN (Reuters) - Local militiamen in the Yemeni city of Aden said they captured two Iranian military officers advising Houthi rebels during fighting on Friday evening. Tehran has denied providing military support for Houthi fighters, whose advances have drawn air strikes by a regional coalition led by Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic's main rival for influence in the Gulf. If confirmed, the presence of two Iranian officers, who the local militiamen said were from an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, would further worsen relations between Tehran and Riyadh who are vying for dominance in the region. A Houthi mortar shell fired into Saudi territory on Friday killed three officers and injured two others, a statement from the kingdom's Defence Ministry carried by state media said on Saturday, bringing Saudi casualties in the conflict to six. Continue reading...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The Highlanders came from behind with a three-try burst to beat the Crusaders 25-20 and push the seven-time champions out of the playoff places in Super Rugby on Saturday. Continue reading...

By Humeyra Pamuk ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey sent extra troops, reconnaissance planes and armed helicopters into its eastern Agri province on Saturday after four soldiers were wounded in a clash with Kurdish insurgents, the military said. The government said militants from the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) were trying to destabilize the country before a parliamentary election in June. "We have sent reconnaissance planes, armed helicopters and additional ground troops to the region and the clash is still ongoing." No one from the PKK was immediately available for comment. Ankara and the PKK agreed to a ceasefire two years ago, as part of negotiations to end a three-decade insurgency that has killed 40,000 people. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20247[/attach] Compiègne (France) (AFP) - Geraint Thomas said he was a marked man at last week's Tour of Flanders but hopes the attention on Bradley Wiggins at Sunday's Paris-Roubaix will help him. Kristoff, though, admits that Roubaix is not ideally suited to his abilities. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20246[/attach] MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Uruguay's president says the U.N. refugee agency will help six former Guantanamo prisoners obtain housing in his country. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20245[/attach] JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of Christians have gathered in Jerusalem for an ancient fire ceremony that celebrates Jesus' resurrection. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20244[/attach] Kenya has given the United Nations three months to remove a camp housing more than half a million Somali refugees, as part of a get-tough response to the killing of 148 people by Somali gunmen at a Kenyan university. Kenya has in the past accused Islamist militants of hiding out in Dadaab camp which it now wants the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR to move across the border to inside Somalia. “We have asked the UNHCR to relocate the refugees in three months, failure to which we shall relocate them ourselves," Deputy President William Ruto said in a statement. “The way America changed after 9/11 is the way Kenya will change after Garissa,” he said, referring to the university that was attacked on April 2. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20242[/attach] SHANGHAI (AP) — If Mercedes was concerned about the progress of chief rival Ferrari this Formula One season, its drivers didn't show it during qualifying at the Chinese Grand Prix. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20241[/attach] Two Somali nationals suffered serious burns when their shop in a South African township was set alight by a mob, police said Saturday, as violence against foreign immigrants spread. The men were in the shop in Umlazi, south of Durban, when it was petrol bombed on Friday night. "The two Somali men suffered severe burn wounds and are being treated in hospital," police spokesman Thulani Zwane said. Zwane said three people including one foreigner had been killed so far -- two on April 5 and a third on Friday -- in violence between residents and foreign nationals that has been raging for the past two weeks in townships south of Durban. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20240[/attach] KOLKATA, India (AP) — Police were searching Saturday for the driver of an overcrowded bus that skidded into a ditch in eastern India, killing 13 passengers, including two children, and injuring 43. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20239[/attach] BANGKOK (AP) — A car bomb explosion that slightly injured seven people on the popular resort island of Samui in southern Thailand may be linked to the country's political turmoil, a spokesman for the military government said Saturday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20238[/attach] Hours after shaking hands, US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro head into historic talks in Panama on Saturday in their efforts to bury decades of animosity. Taking their bid to restore diplomatic ties to a new level, Obama and Castro will have a discussion on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas in Panama City, according to US officials. The two leaders already said hello late Friday, greeting each other and shaking hands -- a gesture rich in symbolism -- as UN chief Ban Ki-moon and other leaders looked on, before the 35-nation summit's inauguration. They shook hands only once before, at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in 2013. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20235[/attach] Kevin Anderson survived a five-hour rain delay to clinch a berth in the semi-finals of the US Clay Court Championships with a grueling 7-5, 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (7/3) win over Jeremy Chardy. "They were incredibly tough conditions," Anderson said. Anderson now seeks to reach the 10th ATP Tour final of his career and his second this season when he faces world number 46 Jack Sock, of the US, in the semis. It is the third time he has reached the semi-finals at an ATP event with each coming on a different surface, comprising the hardcourts in Atlanta, grass in Newport and now clay courts in Houston. Continue reading...

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen in restive southwestern Pakistan shot and killed at least 20 workers early Saturday at a dam construction site, the deadliest recent attack targeting civilians in a region facing a low-level insurgency, authorities said. Continue reading...

GOLD COAST, Australia (AP) — American Gwen Jorgensen's amazing streak continued Saturday when she won the ITU World Triathlon Series event on the Gold Coast for her eighth consecutive victory in the elite series. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20234[/attach] Across the Middle East, fierce rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran is heightening sectarian tensions, even in conflicts that analysts say are primarily political. Riyadh and Tehran adhere to different branches of Islam and have often backed members of their own sect in regional conflicts. Saudi officials have cast their intervention in Yemen, against rebels who adhere to a branch of Shiite Islam, as a fight of "good versus evil". Iran meanwhile this week accused Riyadh of committing "genocide" with its military operation. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20233[/attach] Gunmen have killed 20 construction workers in Pakistan's restive southwestern province of Baluchistan, shooting them at point blank range after identifying where they were from, officials said Saturday. "Armed gunmen stormed the camp of labourers in Gokh Don area of Baluchistan late Friday night and killed 20 labourers," senior police official Tariq Khilji told AFP. He said those killed were all from outside the province -- 16 of them from Punjab and four from Sindh province. The incident, which occurred around 1,050 kilometres (650 miles) southwest of Quetta, was confirmed by Akbar Hussain Durrani, a senior administration official in the province. Continue reading...