WorldNews

[attach=full]18188[/attach] The International Olympic Committee executive board on Friday gave the greenlight to organizers of the Tokyo 2020 Games to move three competition venues as part of a plan to trim more than $1 billion from the budget. The IOC board meeting in Rio de Janeiro focused on preparations for the Tokyo games in five years time as well as the next Winter Olympics in the South Korean city of Pyeongchang in 2018. Tokyo Games CEO Toshiro Muto said the Japanese had submitted three venue changes as part of a plan to cut costs of the sporting extravaganza. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is condemning the killing of prominent Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov. Continue reading...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — China indicated Friday that it opposes a U.S.-drafted resolution that would open a path for U.N. sanctions against those blocking peace and promoting violence in South Sudan. Continue reading...

An earthquake shook the capital of Guatemala on Friday, a Reuters witness said, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage. Mexico's national seismological service said the quake had a magnitude of 5.2 at a relatively shallow depth of 6 miles (10 km), and that the epicenter was on Guatemala's Pacific coast about 95 miles (153 km) southeast of the city of Hidalgo in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18180[/attach] Concerned about a growing number of Canadian youths traveling overseas to join jihadists, and lacking an immediate alternative, political leaders have asked parents to keep a more watchful eye on their children for signs of extremism. "These situations are disastrous," Quebec premier Philippe Couillard said Friday, a day after Canadians learned that six of their own, aged 18 and 19, including two young women, had left for Syria via Turkey mid-January. All of them were born in Canada to immigrant parents who said they sought to instill Western values in their offspring. On Wednesday, an Alberta family revealed that their 23-year-old daughter had flown to Syria. Continue reading...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico regulators shut down Doral Bank on Friday, with Banco Popular taking over most of the operations of what once the U.S. territory's fourth largest bank. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18170[/attach] Watching a football match in Russia often carries echoes of the grim era of hooliganism in 1980s Britain. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18169[/attach] MILAN (AP) — The cape is making a comeback in Milan this season — even though Madonna may have something to say about that. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18168[/attach] The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor pleaded on Friday for the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army rebel chief to surrender, vowing he would receive a fair trial just as his deputy faces. Senior rebel leader Dominic Ongwen, a child-soldier-turned-warlord in Uganda's LRA, appeared before the ICC in The Hague for the first time in January, charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda called for the surrender of Ongwen's rebel supremo Joseph Kony, the last LRA rebel indicted by the ICC believed to be still at large. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18167[/attach] February proved to be a strong month for U.S. stocks, even though it ended in downbeat fashion. Continue reading...

Chasing a Six Nations Grand Slam in Dublin is nothing new for England in a Rugby World Cup year. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18159[/attach] SAO PAULO (AP) — Truck drivers demanding lower fuel and toll prices continued blocking highways and roads in five Brazilian states on Friday, causing shortages of gasoline, food and other products. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18158[/attach] WASHINGTON (AP) — A bill aimed at restricting North Korea's access to hard currency passed a legislative hurdle Friday as pressure grows in the U.S. Congress for tougher action over Pyongyang's nuclear program and alleged involvement in a hacking attack on Sony Pictures. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18157[/attach] DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Top-seeded Novak Djokovic will face defending champion Roger Federer in the final of the Dubai Championships after a three-set win over Tomas Berdych on Friday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18156[/attach] BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban denounced multiculturalism and liberalism Friday and vowed to fight a rising wave of migration that he said is threatening to turn his country into a "refugee camp." Continue reading...

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Medical experts warned Friday the anti-vaccination lobby is growing in Bosnia, using scientifically discredited arguments to stoke parental fears in the worst-affected country in Europe's measles outbreak. Continue reading...

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Ajax coach Frank de Boer is staying in Amsterdam next season. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18149[/attach] Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has admitted he blundered by giving ill-equipped black farmers vast tracts of farmland seized from whites under his controversial land reforms. They can't manage them," Mugabe said in an interview with the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation late Thursday to mark his 91st birthday on February 21. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18148[/attach] Turkish police detained a suspect outside the U.S. consulate in Istanbul who claimed to have a bomb, the consulate said on Friday. The consulate said it had taken measures to protect its staff and visitor "An individual claiming to have a bomb parked a vehicle in front of the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul," the consulate said. Istanbul police said in a statement a 33-year-old man with the initials E.C. had been subdued and detained, although they did not find him to be carrying illegal materials during a search of his person and car. Istanbul has been on high security alert since January, when a suicide bomber blew herself up at a police station in the historic Sultanahmet district, killing one officer and wounding another. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18147[/attach] The United Arab Emirates will reopen its Yemeni embassy in the southern port city of Aden, the state news agency WAM said on Friday, where Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has set up a seat of power since being driven from the capital. Sanaa was captured in September by the Shi'ite Muslim Houthi militia, which placed Hadi under house arrest and forced him to announce his resignation. An aide to Hadi said on Thursday that Yemen's neighbor Saudi Arabia, the Sunni-ruled main Gulf Arab power, was moving its ambassador to Aden. UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said the UAE had made its decision "in order to entrench constitutional legitimacy in Yemen, embodied by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government", according to WAM. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18146[/attach] A Ukrainian airforce pilot, who has been on hunger strike in a Russian prison for 77 days, "could die within days," a member of the Kremlin's human rights council said Friday. Nadia Savchenko, a 33-year-old helicopter navigator, who has been charged with involvement in the deaths of two Russian reporters in a mortar attack in east Ukraine, has been held in a Moscow jail for nearly nine months. Savchenko denies the charges and says she was kidnapped and brought to Russia. She launched a hunger strike on December 13. Continue reading...

[attach=full]18139[/attach] Archaeologists expressed fears Friday that after ransacking the Mosul museum in Iraq, Islamic State group jihadists would embark on a systematic destruction of heritage in areas under their control. Particularly at risk are the ancient cities of Hatra, a UNESCO world heritage site, and Nimrud. Both are south of Mosul, which has been the jihadists' main hub in Iraq since June last year. "This is not the end of the story and the international community must intervene," said Abdelamir Hamdani, an Iraqi archaeologist at New York's Stony Brook University. Continue reading...

BERLIN (AP) — German Parliament approves four-month extension to Greece's financial bailout. Continue reading...

MADRID (AP) — Police say they have arrested eight Spaniards suspected of fighting on the pro-Russian side in eastern Ukraine. Continue reading...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Friday announced it has test fired a "new strategic weapon" in the final day of a large-scale naval and air defense drill, saying the system would play a key role in any future battle against the United States. Continue reading...