WorldNews

[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...

BEIRUT (AP) — Activists say Syrian government forces have fired surface-to-surface missiles and conducted airstrikes on the rebel-held northwestern city of Idlib, killing more than a dozen people. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19667[/attach] TOKYO (AP) — Japan is not planning to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, its government spokesman said Tuesday, while Taiwan announced it would apply for membership, joining dozens of countries in signing up to an initiative opposed by Washington. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19666[/attach] Nigerian opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari held a lead of more than two million votes Tuesday in the country's general election, but with President Goodluck Jonathan's strongholds yet to report, the final result was too close to call. Just over half of Nigeria's states have declared returns in the vote pitting Jonathan against former military ruler Buhari in the closest election ever in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and biggest economy. Buhari built his early lead in northern states dominated by the mainly Muslim, Hausa-Fulani ethnic group of which he is a member. So far, Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) has won 10 states, with Jonathan, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) taking eight plus the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19665[/attach] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday he was planning to take part in marathon talks aimed at curtailing Iran's nuclear programme, saying chances of a deal were significant. "Indeed I am planning to return and take part in the final part of the ministerial meeting of the six powers," Lavrov told reporters in Moscow. Moscow had said earlier that Lavrov, who participated in the talks on Monday, would only return if there was a realistic chance of a deal. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19664[/attach] Canadian lawmakers voted Monday to extend a campaign of airstrikes against the Islamic State group and for the first time strike at them in Syria as well as in Iraq. Canada first joined the US-led airstrikes on the IS group in November. Its expanded air campaign was authorized until March 30, 2016. Continue reading...

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Police say a 12-year-old boy was allegedly stabbed to death by a sixth-grade classmate at a Jamaican school. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19663[/attach] MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Pakistan-born refugee Fawad Ahmed was named to Australia's test squad Tuesday for tours of the West Indies and England later this year after an impressive domestic first-class season. Continue reading...

[attach=full]19662[/attach] Marathon talks aimed at stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons reach the finish line Tuesday as global powers scramble to clear the final hurdles hours before a midnight deadline for a framework deal. After 18 months of tortuous talks, foreign ministers from Iran, the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany hope such an accord will end a standoff that has been threatening to escalate dangerously for 12 years. US Secretary of State John Kerry, in Lausanne since Wednesday in the latest in a series of meetings with Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif that have criss-crossed the globe, late Monday said there was still work to do. A meeting between Kerry and his counterparts from the other five powers was expected to begin first thing on Tuesday, without Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov however who left on Monday. Continue reading...