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Lockerbie bomber Megrahi has died in Libya: brother
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 TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people has died, his brother said on Sunday. He was 59. Abdel Basset al-Megrahi died at home after a long battle with cancer. His health had deteriorated quickly overnight, his brother Abdulhakim told Reuters. "He was surrounded by his family and died in his house," Abdulhakim said on Sunday. Megrahi had been in and out of hospital for weeks and he was taken for an emergency blood transfusion in April. ...
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T12:54:21Z |
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Italy quake kills four, damages historic buildings
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 SANT' AGOSTINO, Italy (Reuters) - A strong earthquake killed four people, injured dozens and damaged churches, towers and a mediaeval castle early on Sunday, waking terrified citizens across northern Italy and sending thousands running into the streets. The quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey recorded at magnitude 6.0, struck at 4:04 a.m. (0204 GMT) and was followed by a series of jolting aftershocks. "I am 83 and I have never felt anything like this," said Lina Gardenghi, a resident of Bondeno. ...
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T12:36:27Z |
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NATO leaders seek common path out of Afghanistan
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 CHICAGO (Reuters) - NATO leaders gather in Chicago on Sunday for a summit that will chart a path out of Afghanistan, as Western nations seek to fend off fissures in their alliance and ensure Afghanistan can hold a still-potent Taliban at bay when foreign troops withdraw. President Barack Obama hosts the summit in his home town, Chicago, a day after leaders of major industrialized nations tackled Europe's debt crisis, backing keeping Greece in the euro zone and vowing to take steps necessary to revitalize the world economy. ...
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T05:03:37Z |
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Explosion near U.N. ceasefire monitor chief's convoy: Reuters witness
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| DOUMA, Syria (Reuters) - A roadside bomb exploded on Sunday about 150 meters (yards) from a United Nations convoy carrying the head of a Syria ceasefire monitoring mission and a senior U.N. official in the town of Douma, a Reuters witness said. Major General Robert Mood's car was stopped at an army checkpoint when the bomb detonated in an nearby alleyway and the convoy left, the Reuters journalist said, adding that there were no reports of casualties. United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous, who is visiting Syria, was also part of the convoy. ... |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T13:12:19Z |
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U.N. seeks Iran nuclear deal before Baghdad talks
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| VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear supervisor flies to Tehran on Sunday looking for a deal to inspect suspected weapons sites - a potential breakthrough that Iran may hope could persuade the West to start lifting sanctions and deflect threats of war. But though IAEA chief Yukiya Amano scheduled Monday's talks with Iran at such short notice that diplomats said agreement on new inspections may be near, few see Tehran convincing Western governments to ease back swiftly on punitive measures when its negotiators meet big power officials in Baghdad on Wednesday. Amano, director general of the U.N. ... |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T13:20:11Z |
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French Le Pen to lose to leftist in assembly vote: poll
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| PARIS (Reuters) - An opinion poll published on Sunday showed that French far-right leader Marine Le Pen would lose to far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon in her home district in parliamentary elections next month. The Ifop-Fiducial poll showed that Le Pen would win the June 10 first round with 34 percent of the votes against 29 percent for Melenchon but would be beaten 55-45 percent by Melenchon in the June 17 second round. Not winning the parliamentary seat in her political backyard, the northern working-class town of Henin-Beaumont, would be a humiliation for Le Pen, who won 17. ... |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T13:17:17Z |
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Lebanese soldiers kill two anti-Assad group members
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| TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - Lebanese soldiers shot dead a Sunni cleric and a second member of a Lebanese political alliance against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in northern Lebanon on Sunday, security sources said. Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Wahid and Khaled Miraib, members of the March 14 alliance, were shot in their car as they sped through an army checkpoint without stopping, the sources said. Residents of the northern region of Akkar said that they had blocked off roads to protest against the deaths. The army confirmed in a statement that the two men had been shot but gave no details. ... |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T12:00:26Z |
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Egypt's would-be "president of the poor" touts past
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| QALYUB, Egypt (Reuters) - The motorcade of Hamdeen Sabahy, a dark horse in Egypt's presidential race, inched over the bumpy roads of this Egyptian town led by a car booming 1960s nationalist music in homage to his hero, Gamal Abdel Nasser. The smiling leftist politician has a long history of opposition, first to Nasser's successor Anwar Sadat and then to Hosni Mubarak, who was deposed in last year's popular uprising. ... |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T13:11:12Z |
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Italy bomb attack was probably isolated act: investigator
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| BRINDISI, Italy (Reuters) - The bomb attack which killed a teenaged girl and wounded 10 others in the southern Italian town of Brindisi was probably done by an individual with no links to the mafia, a senior official said on Sunday. The attack on the Francesca Morvillo Falcone school, a vocational training institute offering courses in fashion, tourism and social services, has horrified Italy. Thousands have taken to the streets in demonstrations of sympathy for the school and the family of Melissa Bassi, the teenager who died in the explosion. ... |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T11:58:04Z |
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Sudan releases four detained foreigners: officials
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| KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan has released four foreigners detained near the border with South Sudan following weeks of heavy clashes between the two African neighbors, officials said on Sunday. Sudan said it had arrested the four - a Briton, a Norwegian, a South African and a South Sudanese - last month, accusing them of illegally entering an oil-producing border area to spy for South Sudan. South Sudanese officials denied those allegations, saying the men were working with the United Nations and aid groups clearing mines, and had got lost in the remote territory. ... |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T13:04:34Z |
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Son: Libyan convicted in Lockerbie bombing is dead
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 Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer who was the only person ever convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, died Sunday nearly three years after he was released from a Scottish prison to the outrage of the relatives of the attack's 270 victims. He was 60.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T13:14:39Z |
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Pakistan blocks Twitter over contentious tweets
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| Pakistan blocked the social networking website Twitter on Sunday because it refused to remove tweets considered offensive to Islam, said one of the country's top telecommunications officials. |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T13:10:41Z |
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Bomb explodes near UN observers' chief in Syria
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 A roadside bomb exploded in a restive suburb of the Syrian capital as senior U.N. officials toured the area on Sunday, blowing off the front of a parked vehicle but causing no casualties.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T13:03:35Z |
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Obama sees 'emerging consensus' on economic fix
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 Confronting an economic crisis that threatens them all, President Barack Obama and leaders of other world powers on Saturday declared that their governments must both spark growth and cut the debt that has crippled the European continent and put investors worldwide on edge.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T05:29:55Z |
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Powerful quake kills at least 4 in northern Italy
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 One of the worst quakes to hit northeast Italy in hundreds of years rattled the region around Bologna early Sunday, killing at least four people, collapsing factories and sending residents running out into the streets, emergency services said.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T12:47:37Z |
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Lawyers for fugitive Iraqi VP quit case in protest
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 Lawyers for Iraq's fugitive Sunni vice president charged with running death squads that targeted Shiite officials and pilgrims quit the case on Sunday in protest after judges would not let them present evidence at the trial.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T11:56:05Z |
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Italy bombing revives memories of dark era
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 A bomb blast outside a high school in southern Italy that killed a 16-year-old student has revived dark memories of the 70s and 80s, when terrorists, anarchists and organized crime carried out dozens of bloody attacks across the country.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T12:10:56Z |
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Ex-president seeks comeback in Dominican Republic
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 A former president whose term ended with the worst economic crisis in the modern history of the Dominican Republic will seek to make a comeback Sunday as he faces an old rival in a race to lead the Caribbean's top tourist destination.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T09:48:20Z |
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Chinese activist who fled house arrest lands in US
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 A blind Chinese legal activist who was suddenly allowed to leave the country arrived in the U.S. on Saturday, ending a nearly monthlong diplomatic tussle that had tested U.S.-China relations.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-19T22:34:16Z |
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2 NATO service members killed in Afghanistan
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| An insurgent attack in Afghanistan killed two NATO service members on Sunday, the alliance said, while Afghan officials reported that a suicide bomber struck a police checkpoint in the country's south. |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T10:53:58Z |
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