WorldNews

[attach=full]18700[/attach] MEXICO CITY (AP) — The leader of a rural vigilante group says he may run for Congress after murder charges against him and about two dozen followers were dropped and they were freed from prison. Continue reading...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's largest Coca Cola bottler has reopened a distribution plant that it had closed in the southern state of Guerrero after protesters seized trucks, merchandise and company employees. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18699[/attach] CAIRO (AP) — Egypt has been pumping up the hype for months for its international conference opening Friday, aimed at drawing investors from around the world. Television channels show a countdown clock to the start alongside heroic footage of factories and captains of industry. Ads for the gathering are blasted to passengers on incoming flights of the national airline EgyptAir. Continue reading...

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has taken a major step to contain the cost to retailers of processing bank card payments. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18696[/attach] NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks fell sharply as fears of over possible interest rates hikes by the Federal Reserve roiled financial markets around the globe. In Europe, renewed concerns over Greece also spooked investors. The euro sank to a 12-year low against the dollar. Continue reading...

By Chris Arsenault ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Investing in insurance programs for poor farmers today could save tens of billions of dollars in coming decades as climate change upsets growing patterns and makes harvests fail, U.N. officials said ahead of next week's conference in Japan on disaster preparedness. An investment of $350,000 in disaster prevention for farmers, including irrigation systems, crop insurance and terraces saves an estimated $4 million in averted costs for humanitarian relief when a drought or flood hits, said Richard Choularton, chief of disaster risk reduction at the World Food Programme (WFP). Continue reading...

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian league teams will be stripped of points if they don't pay players' salaries on time. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18695[/attach] Archaeologists in London have begun digging up some 3,000 historic skeletons including those of plague victims from a burial ground that will become a new train station, the company in charge said. A team of 60 researchers will work in shifts six days a week over the next month at the Bedlam burial ground to remove the centuries-old skeletons, which will eventually be re-buried at a cemetery east of London. Crossrail, which is building a major new east-west train line in London, said the dig near Liverpool Street station was being carried out on its behalf by the Museum of London's archaeology unit. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18690[/attach] LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — IOC President Thomas Bach says the Olympic world is in mourning for the three French athletes killed in a helicopter crash in Argentina. Continue reading...

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Former first lady Simone Gbagbo was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years' jail by an Ivory Coast court for her part in post-election violence that killed more than 3,000 people four years ago. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18689[/attach] BUENOS AIRES (AP) — Two helicopters carrying French sports stars filming a popular European reality show crashed in a remote part of Argentina, killing 10 people, including two Olympic medal winners and a sailing champion, authorities said. Continue reading...

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese officials said Tuesday that members of the country's Muslim Uighur ethnic minority have gone overseas to fight with the Islamic State group, which controls sections of Syria and Iraq, and returned to take part in plots at home. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18688[/attach] The United Arab Emirates promised a fitting spectacle complete with a glittering new stadium and plenty of fans on Tuesday after winning hosting rights for the 2019 Asian Cup. UAE Football Association chief Yousuf Al Serkal told AFP the Gulf state could host the regional showpiece "next week" if it had to, but that it planned to build a new venue in Dubai. Games will be played in Dubai, Al Ain, Abu Dhabi and possibly Sharjah, in an event which comes just three years before neighbouring Qatar hosts the 2022 World Cup. UAE, chosen ahead of Iran by the Asian Football Confederation's executive committee, has a tough task in following Australia where the total attendance soared to 650,000 and games sold out in all five host cities. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18683[/attach] SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert is set to be released Tuesday after five days in a South Korean hospital for treatment of injuries caused by a knife attack. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18682[/attach] TOKYO (AP) — Japan mourned Tuesday for the 105,400 people killed in a single night 70 years ago, when U.S. B-29 bombers obliterated much of Tokyo in the deadliest conventional bomb attack ever. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18681[/attach] TOKYO (AP) — Asian stock markets mostly fell Tuesday as the prospect of higher U.S. interest rates dimmed the outlook for equities. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18680[/attach] IGUALA, Mexico (AP) — The rattletrap sedan cruised the streets of Iguala, its roof crowned by a loudspeaker blaring headlines from the day's newspaper: "Another killed! Another killed!" Continue reading...

[attach=full]18679[/attach] China's consumer inflation rebounded in February from a more-than-five-year low, official data showed Tuesday, but a plunge in factory gate prices added to persistent concerns about deflation in the world's second-largest economy. The result, which exceeded the median forecast for a 1.0 percent gain in a survey of analysts by Bloomberg News, came largely due to higher prices for food and services surrounding China's annual Lunar New year holiday, which economists largely saw as a one-off. The PPI fell 4.8 percent year-on-year, the NBS said, more than the 4.3 percent decline recorded in January, and the worst result since October 2009. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18675[/attach] England's pitiful performance at the Cricket World Cup has many critics wondering again how a country which invented the sport could have plummeted so far in elite international competition. Continue reading...

NEW YORK (AP) — To Roger Federer, the math is simple: He owns a record 17 major titles, Rafael Nadal has 14, and the Spaniard dominates a certain clay-court Grand Slam tournament. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18674[/attach] Mali vowed Monday not to bow to terror and to punish the jihadists behind a deadly nightclub attack in the capital, as local and French investigators joined forces to hunt down the killers. Bamako has been on high alert since a heavily-armed gunman burst into La Terrasse, a popular venue among expatriates, early Saturday and killed five people, including a French national and a Belgian. A counter-terrorism team arrived from Paris overnight to join the investigation, with the assailant and a suspected accomplice still at large despite a huge manhunt and stepped-up vehicle checks across the capital. "We are still standing," President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said in a defiant first public reaction after visiting La Terrasse and eight people wounded in the attack, including two Swiss nationals. Continue reading...

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Education officials say a school crossing guard in Jamaica has been fatally shot by masked gunmen while she was working just outside a primary school. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has sided with the ex-wife of a former Mexican governor as she tries to regain access to their three children. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18663[/attach] Greece agreed to start urgent technical talks on extending its crucial bailout on Wednesday after its eurozone partners accused debt-stricken Athens of wasting time in previous negotiations. The main talks will be in Brussels but teams from Greece's creditors will also be on the ground in Athens, Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said, despite the new left-wing government's earlier insistence that they should not return. The announcement came after a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels on Monday at which the Greek government outlined the reforms demanded by lenders in exchange for further cash. The ministers agreed last month to extend Greece's current bailout until June as long as Athens comes up with suitable proposals, but Dijsselbloem accused the Greeks of wasting time. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18662[/attach] A contingent of Cuban health professionals has arrived in Bahrain to begin work in the tiny Gulf kingdom under a deal forged last year, the government said Monday. "The first group of medical professionals has arrived... in Manama, the capital of the kingdom of Bahrain," Cuba's Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on its website. "The agreement forms the basis for cooperation in the areas of medical services and biotechnology, as well as medical research and other areas of mutual interest," the ministry said. A photo accompanying the statement showed about 15 people in this first group of medical experts, who have been assigned to work at a hospital in Muharraq, Bahrain's third largest city. Continue reading...