Yahoo! News: World News

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• Insight: Butler's journey from trusted servant to accused Judas
• Syria: anti-government groups committed Houla massacre
• Syria on brink of sectarian civil war, West says
• Insight: From a ferry, a Chinese fast-attack boat
• Blind activist urges U.S. to push China on rule of law
• Six blasts across Baghdad kill at least 17
• FARC ready for peace or war, says French reporter
• U.N. Security Council concerned by lack of aid access in Sudan
• U.S. tourists freed unharmed in Sinai
• U.S. military trickles back into Western Pakistan
• Spain urged to come clean on bank bailout plan
• Syria blames rebels for Houla massacre
• Euro structure is 'unsustainable,' ECB chief warns
• Police think Canada body parts suspect fled abroad
• Satellite photos said to show Iran nuke clean up
• AP 'napalm girl' photo from Vietnam War turns 40
• Mubarak trial verdict may divide Egypt further
• Egypt's 31-year emergency law ends
• Pro-regime Syrian gunmen take on larger role
• Madonna kicks off world tour in Israel

Insight: Butler's journey from trusted servant to accused Judas Posted: 31 May 2012 09:47 AM PDT VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Just after dawn on Wednesday, May 23, Paolo Gabriele said goodbye to his wife, passed by the bedrooms of his three children and left to start another day in the service of the man Roman Catholics believe is the vicar of Christ on Earth. By the end of the day, Pope Benedict's butler would be branded a traitor and some, including an Italian cardinal, would compare him to the most famous betrayer in history - Judas Iscariot, the man who turned Jesus over to the Romans. ...

Syria: anti-government groups committed Houla massacre Posted: 31 May 2012 11:02 AM PDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria said on Thursday a preliminary investigation showed that anti-government armed groups carried out a massacre last week in Houla region with the aim of encouraging foreign military intervention against the government. Brigadier General Qassem Jamal Suleiman, head of the investigation committee formed by the government, said the victims were families "who refused to oppose the government and were at odds with the armed groups". ...

Syria on brink of sectarian civil war, West says Posted: 31 May 2012 02:04 PM PDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria is nearing full-blown sectarian civil war that would be catastrophic for the entire Middle East, Western nations said on Thursday, urging Russia to end its support for President Bashar al-Assad and put pressure on him to stop the bloodshed. With anti-Assad rebels urging international envoy Kofi Annan to declare his peace plan dead, freeing them from any commitment to the tattered truce, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the prospect of spiraling violence presented "terrible" danger. "A civil war in a country that would be driven by sectarian divides ... ...

Insight: From a ferry, a Chinese fast-attack boat Posted: 31 May 2012 04:06 PM PDT (Reuters) - It looked like a textbook win-win deal when Australian high-speed ferry designer AMD Marine Consulting formed a joint venture in 1993 with the engineering arm of a state-owned Chinese shipbuilder. The joint venture partner, Guangzhou Marine Engineering Corporation, a subsidiary of the giant China State Shipbuilding Corporation, gained access to state-of-the-art technology in wave-piercing, aluminum-hull designs. For AMD, a Sydney-based private company, the payoff was a foothold in China's maritime market during a period of rapid growth. ...

Blind activist urges U.S. to push China on rule of law Posted: 31 May 2012 04:01 PM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Blind Chinese rights activist Chen Guangcheng urged the United States on Thursday to "try harder" to promote rule of law in his homeland as he described his brother and nephew being so badly beaten in an attack he blamed on local officials that thick axe handles being used as weapons broke. ...

Six blasts across Baghdad kill at least 17 Posted: 31 May 2012 08:48 AM PDT BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Six explosions hit neighborhoods across Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 17 people and wounding dozens more in the most deadly attacks on the Iraqi capital in more than a month. The attacks - a truck bomb in a market, a car bomb and roadside explosives - broke weeks of relative calm in Baghdad just as Iraq's government, shared among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs, wrangles over a crisis that risks reigniting sectarian tensions. ...

FARC ready for peace or war, says French reporter Posted: 31 May 2012 03:24 PM PDT BOGOTA (Reuters) - Looking relaxed and healthy after a month in jungle captivity, French journalist Romeo Langlois said Colombia's FARC rebel leaders may be prepared for peace talks, but younger fighters are ready for 50 more years of war. Langlois, 35, was released on Wednesday after being taken hostage in late April when the military unit he was reporting alongside came under fire from heavily armed rebels. Aided by billions of dollars in U.S. funding, Colombia's armed forces have debilitated the FARC, leaving it arguably at its weakest in almost five decades. ...

U.N. Security Council concerned by lack of aid access in Sudan Posted: 31 May 2012 03:18 PM PDT UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council expressed concern on Thursday over a lack of access for aid to Sudan's border states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, where fighting has been raging between the Sudanese army and rebels. Sudan and South Sudan came close to all-out war last month when border fighting escalated in the worst violence since South Sudan's secession in July. Khartoum accuses Juba of supporting rebels in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. Juba denies the claim. The 15-member Security Council was briefed by senior U.N. ...

U.S. tourists freed unharmed in Sinai Posted: 31 May 2012 12:35 PM PDT CAIRO (Reuters) - Two U.S. tourists were released unharmed in the Sinai Peninsula on Thursday, a day after being abducted by Bedouin tribesmen seeking the release of a kinsman held by the Egyptian authorities in a drugs case, officials said. The Americans, both 31-year-old men, were seized on Wednesday while driving near the resort of Dahab. "Egyptian officials have confirmed to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo that the two U.S. citizens kidnapped on the Sinai Peninsula on May 30 have been released unharmed," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement in Washington. "The U.S. ...

U.S. military trickles back into Western Pakistan Posted: 31 May 2012 01:20 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has sent a handful of military officials back into northwestern Pakistan in a sign the two nations may be able to achieve some low-level military cooperation despite a string of confrontations that have left Washington's relations with Islamabad in crisis. Two U.S. officers have been sent in the last few weeks to the city of Peshawar, close to the border with Afghanistan, a U.S. official said, restoring after a months-long absence a U.S. military presence in an unstable region home to militants fueling violence across the border. ...

Spain urged to come clean on bank bailout plan Posted: 31 May 2012 04:10 PM PDT The European Union urged Spain on Thursday to come clean on how it plans to finance the overhaul of its banking sector, warning that uncertainty over this has contributed the recent market turmoil and the country's soaring borrowing costs.

Syria blames rebels for Houla massacre Posted: 31 May 2012 04:08 PM PDT Syria on Thursday blamed up to 800 rebel fighters for the massacre in central Syria last week that killed more than 100 people, nearly half of them children, in its most comprehensive explanation to date of the bloodshed.

Euro structure is 'unsustainable,' ECB chief warns Posted: 31 May 2012 03:55 PM PDT The head of the European Central Bank warned Thursday that the euro currency union is "unsustainable" without stronger political and financial ties, and called for a new course to save it from a crippling debt crisis.

Police think Canada body parts suspect fled abroad Posted: 31 May 2012 02:39 PM PDT A Canadian porn actor suspected of mailing body parts to the headquarters of two major political parties after making a video of the killing might have fled to France, police said Thursday.

Satellite photos said to show Iran nuke clean up Posted: 31 May 2012 01:19 PM PDT New commercial satellite images suggest that Iran has demolished two buildings at a military site where it is suspected of trying to erase evidence of a nuclear arms program, a U.S. nonproliferation think tank said Thursday.

AP 'napalm girl' photo from Vietnam War turns 40 Posted: 31 May 2012 03:50 PM PDT In the picture, the girl will always be 9 years old and wailing "Too hot! Too hot!" as she runs down the road away from her burning Vietnamese village.

Mubarak trial verdict may divide Egypt further Posted: 31 May 2012 01:15 PM PDT Guilty or not, Saturday's verdict in Hosni Mubarak's trial will likely deepen Egypt's polarization. Political tensions are already simmering in a heated runoff for president pitting the ousted leader's last prime minister against an Islamist from a group that the old regime repeatedly cracked down.

Egypt's 31-year emergency law ends Posted: 31 May 2012 12:58 PM PDT Egypt's notorious emergency law expired Thursday, ending 31 years of broad powers to detain and arrest for a police force accused of severely abusing its far-reaching authority.

Pro-regime Syrian gunmen take on larger role Posted: 31 May 2012 12:45 PM PDT The swaggering gunmen operate as hired muscle for the Syrian regime, clutching rifles and daggers as they sweep through towns and villages, sometimes after regular military troops have pulled back.

Madonna kicks off world tour in Israel Posted: 31 May 2012 01:34 PM PDT Pop music star Madonna treated tens of thousands of ecstatic fans in Israel to the inaugural show of her "MDNA" world tour on Thursday, performing in a country where she has long claimed a special bond.

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