WorldNews

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Newly crowned Asian champion Australia can restore some of the continent's pride in a match against 2014 World Cup winner Germany in one of several friendlies for Asian teams this week. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19368[/attach] RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — With 500 days to go until the start of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the head of the local organizing committee pledged Tuesday that the games would be the motor of the biggest urban transformation of any Olympic city. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19361[/attach] A Norwegian appeals court increased jail terms Tuesday for a Norwegian woman who drowned her infant and her British lover who gave her instructions via a webcam. Oslo's appeals court sentenced Yasmin Chaudhry and Ammaz Omer Qureshi to 14 and 16 years in prison respectively, after both were found guilty of voluntary homicide. The prosecution had asked for prison terms of 15 and 17 years but a lower court had sentenced the pair to eight and nine years respectively and found them guilty of involuntary homicide. The child, Hunaina Chaudhry, was the woman's daughter from another relationship. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19360[/attach] An Israeli cabinet minister visiting Paris warned Tuesday against concluding a "bad accord" on Iran's nuclear programme, telling French daily Le Monde his country shares France's wariness of trusting Tehran. "We believe it would be a bad accord with severe gaps in it," said Israeli Intelligence Minister Youval Steinitz, who met French President Francois Hollande's diplomatic advisor on Monday. The visit came amid an Israeli lobbying campaign against a nuclear accord with Iran, which saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deliver a controversial address to the US Congress warning legislators about any deal. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is expressing condolences to Germany and Spain and the victims of a plane crash in the Alps. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19359[/attach] Russia failed Tuesday to block a United Nations decision to extend full spousal benefits to legally married gay UN employees. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last June gave same-sex couples the same benefits, such as pension entitlements and travel allowances, that heterosexual couples can expect, provided they were wed in a country where gay marriage is legal. Previously, same-sex couples could only enjoy benefits if they were citizens of a country where gay marriage is recognized, which is not the case in Russia. Moscow tried to block the initiative and demanded a vote before the Fifth Committee of the UN Assembly General, which manages the international organization's budget. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19358[/attach] The leaders of Egypt and Ethiopia promised Tuesday to boost cooperation on the Nile river and turn a page on a long-running row over Addis Ababa's controversial dam project. The meeting between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn came the day after the two, along with Sudan, signed an agreement of principles on Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam project. Continue reading...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela is asking foreign governments to share information about large offshore bank deposits amid a spate of reports that $2 billion was siphoned off by corrupt, top-level officials at state-run oil company PDVSA. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19354[/attach] HALTERN, Germany (AP) — A stunned German town mourned 16 students who went down aboard Germanwings Flight 9525 on their way home Tuesday from a Spanish exchange, while the opera world grieved for two singers who were returning from performing in Barcelona — one of them with her baby. Continue reading...

By Oludare Mayowa and Julia Payne LAGOS/ABUJA (Reuters) - The Nigerian federal high court in Lagos has barred the military from deploying around polling stations during March 28 national elections, the lawyer for the parliamentarian who brought the case said on Tuesday. Opposition leader Femi Gbajabiamila argued a deployment would violate the constitution, lawyer Ijeoma Njemanze said, amid opposition fears that soldiers may intimidate voters or tamper with ballot boxes. The ruling, made on Monday by Justice Ibrahim Buba, does not affect troops already dispatched to northeast Nigeria, where Islamists have waged a six-year insurgency, she added. The tight election pits President Goodluck Jonathan against former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari for the leadership of Africa's biggest economy and leading energy producer. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19353[/attach] A German budget airliner crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday with all 150 people on board declared dead, in one of the worst air crashes in France in 40 years. - An Airbus A320 of Lufthansa's low cost company Germanwings, operating Flight 4U 9525, takes off towards 09:35 am (0835 GMT) from Barcelona in Spain for Duesseldorf in Germany, where it is expected to land at 11:57 am. - As it flies over southeastern France the French civil aviation authority DGAC declares that the plane is "in distress" at 10:47 am. The aircraft does not send out a Mayday signal, and the DGAC does not receive any radar signals from the plane or have any contact with the flight crew. - France's interior ministry announces the crash in the Alpine region of Barcelonnette. Continue reading...

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights says Chile has made "extraordinary progress" in economic growth and poverty reduction, but high rates of inequality persist. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19347[/attach] FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Germanwings, a low-cost unit of Lufthansa, had recorded no accidents involving passenger deaths until one of its planes crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday, killing all 150 on board. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19346[/attach] BOSTON (AP) — The group behind Boston's bid to host the 2024 Olympics said Tuesday that it wants the residents of Massachusetts to decide whether the effort to bring the games to the city should go forward. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19345[/attach] By Denis Dumo JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan's parliament voted on Tuesday to extend President Salva Kiir's term in office by three years, after elections due to be held in June were called off and negotiations to end more than a year of internal conflict broke up without agreement. Speaker Manasseh Magok Rundial said parliament overwhelmingly approved Kiir's extension, as well as similar three-year prolongation of parliament's own term. Thousands of people have been killed and more than a million have fled their homes since fighting between supporters of Kiir and former vice president Riek Machar erupted in the world's newest nation in December 2013. The 270 members of parliament present voted on Tuesday to amend the country's transitional 2011 constitution to extend the presidential and parliamentary term until July 9, 2018, with 264 members in favor and a handful opposing it. Continue reading...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Prosecutors are seeking a five-year prison sentence for the owner of a Dutch meat processing plant who is accused of selling horse meat as beef. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19344[/attach] BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Nenad Mihailovic flouts Serbian taboo. He's openly gay in a country notorious for strident homophobia. He uses a wheelchair in a society that shows little sympathy for the disabled. And he's a voice of liberal thinking in a nation where strong leaders have a tendency to quash dissent. Continue reading...

LONDON (AP) — Kevin Pietersen secured a release from his contract with Indian Premier League side Sunrisers Hyderabad on Tuesday in a bid to reignite his England career. Continue reading...

The German government said on Tuesday it was sending air safety experts and its transport minister to the site of a plane crash in France involving GermanWings and the foreign minister said his thoughts were with victims' relatives. Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt will travel to the crash site in southern France, his ministry said, adding that German air safety experts were already on their way. Continue reading...

Turkish security forces have launched an operation targeting shelters and stores believed to belong to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the military said on Tuesday, days after the group's jailed leader called its armed struggle "unsustainable". On Saturday jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan called for his group to hold a congress on ending its armed struggle, which he said had become "unsustainable". Continue reading...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — The Maldives government has invited the United Nations and other international organizations to observe the former president's appeal of his 13-year jail sentence. Continue reading...

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Laila Bassam AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) - The foreign ministers of Syria and Iraq met in Damascus on Tuesday to discuss ways to tackle militant groups in their countries and Iraq called for greater international cooperation to combat the violence, Syrian state media said. The Shi'ite Muslim-led government in Baghdad, together with Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, have been important allies for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Iraq's armed forces are also the main partner on the ground for a U.S.-led coalition bombing Islamic State militants in Iraq but Washington and other Western governments have dismissed the idea of cooperating directly with Syria in the same fight. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama welcomes Afghanistan's new president to the White House on Tuesday with a fraught question staring them in the face: Will the U.S. slow its departure from Afghanistan — and for how long? Continue reading...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — Two intelligence officials in Pakistan say a suspected U.S. drone strike just across the border in Afghanistan has killed at least nine militants. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19340[/attach] YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Police in northwestern Myanmar have rejected a lawsuit filed by two Buddhist monks against Myanmar's home minister and police chief, saying they are protected by law. Continue reading...