Yahoo! News: World News

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• No end to Syria war if sides refuse to talk: envoy
• Pakistan militants kill 41 in mass execution, attack on Shi'ites
• Monti's reform path faces test beyond Italy elections
• Sudanese police block protest at human rights commission
• Obama: U.S. has good leads on who carried out Benghazi attacks
• Car bomb attempt on Northern Irish policeman foiled
• Bahrain policemen jailed for beating opposition member to death
• Attack on Libyan church building kills two
• Court to rule on legality of Egyptian parliament
• African Union head visits Central African Republic
• US family pleas for couple missing in Afghanistan
• Car bombing targeting Shiites in Pakistan kills 19
• Venezuela VP: Chavez suffers 'new complications'
• International envoy warns of failed state in Syria
• Nobel scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini dies in Rome
• Brazil debates treatment options in crack epidemic
• Yemen: Al-Qaida offers bounty for US ambassador
• Afghan violence falls in 2012, insider attacks up
• AP photo essay: Ex-Soviet immigrants change Israel
• Secret cremation for gang-rape victim sparks anger against Indian government
• Progress watch 2012: Smart phones, jobs returning to America, and war crimes trials

No end to Syria war if sides refuse to talk: envoy Posted: 30 Dec 2012 08:56 AM PST AZAZ, Syria/CAIRO (Reuters) - The international peace negotiator for Syria pleaded with outside countries on Sunday to push the warring parties to the table for talks, warning that the country would become a failed state ruled by warlords unless diplomacy is given a chance. Lakhdar Brahimi, who inherited the seemingly impossible task of bringing an end to the war after his predecessor Kofi Annan resigned in frustration in July, has launched an intensified diplomatic campaign to win backing for a peace plan. He spent five days this week in Damascus, where he met President Bashar al-Assad. ...

Pakistan militants kill 41 in mass execution, attack on Shi'ites Posted: 30 Dec 2012 08:36 AM PST PESHWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani militants, who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, killed at least 41 people in two separate incidents, officials said on Sunday, challenging assertions that military offensives have broken the back of hardline Islamist groups. The United States has long pressured nuclear-armed ally Pakistan to crack down harder on both homegrown militants groups such as the Taliban and others which are based on its soil and attack Western forces in Afghanistan. ...

Monti's reform path faces test beyond Italy elections Posted: 30 Dec 2012 07:46 AM PST ROME (Reuters) - Mario Monti declared "mission accomplished" when he resigned as Italy's prime minister, having seen off the debt crisis that loomed as he took office just over a year ago but 2013 will test whether he has laid the foundations for lasting economic change. Elections on February 24-25 will give Italian voters their first chance to decide whether they want to stick to the broad course he has set or turn to a growing chorus of politicians who have attacked his austerity medicine. ...

Sudanese police block protest at human rights commission Posted: 30 Dec 2012 09:58 AM PST KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudanese security forces on Sunday blocked activists trying to deliver a petition criticizing the government to the country's human rights commission, drawing a rare rebuke from the state-appointed body. Sudan has avoided mass "Arab Spring" protests that unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia, but President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who seized power in 1989, has faced dissent over a severe economic crisis and corruption. ...

Obama: U.S. has good leads on who carried out Benghazi attacks Posted: 30 Dec 2012 06:06 AM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has some "very good leads" about who carried out the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans including the U.S. ambassador in September, President Barack Obama said in an interview broadcast on Sunday. Obama told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the United States would carry out all of the recommendations put forward in an independent review of the September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi in which Ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed. "We're not going to pretend that this was not a problem. This was a huge problem. ...

Car bomb attempt on Northern Irish policeman foiled Posted: 30 Dec 2012 11:47 AM PST BELFAST (Reuters) - An attempt by militant nationalists to kill a Northern Irish policeman was foiled when a booby trap bomb was found under his car, police said on Sunday. The attack was the latest by splinter groups of Irish republicans opposed to British rule of the province and a 1998 peace agreement that ended 30 years of sectarian conflict. It came two months after the first murder of a prison officer in almost 20 years and followed two weeks of rioting by pro-British loyalists protesting against restrictions on the flying of Britain's union flag from Belfast City Hall. ...

Bahrain policemen jailed for beating opposition member to death Posted: 30 Dec 2012 10:33 AM PST DUBAI (Reuters) - Two Bahraini policemen were sentenced to jail for seven years each on Sunday for beating to death a Shi'ite opposition activist in custody during last year's crackdown on protesters. The sentences, reported by state news agency BNA, were criticized as too lenient by critics and may do little to blunt international criticism of human rights abuses since Bahrain's Sunni Muslim rulers quelled a Shi'ite-led uprising last year. ...

Attack on Libyan church building kills two Posted: 30 Dec 2012 12:00 PM PST TRIPOLI (Reuters) - An explosion on Sunday at a building belonging to a Coptic church in western Libya killed two Egyptian men and wounded two others, a military spokesman said. Attackers threw a homemade bomb at an administration building belonging to the Egyptian Coptic church in Dafniya, close to the western city of Misrata, said Ibrahim Rajab of Misrata military council. The Egyptian consul in the city, Tareq Dahrouj, said he had visited the church and the building where the two church workers were killed early on Sunday. ...

Court to rule on legality of Egyptian parliament Posted: 30 Dec 2012 09:26 AM PST CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's highest court is to examine the legitimacy of the upper house of parliament, a case likely to increase the legal uncertainty of the country's political transition and leave it without a legislature. The Supreme Constitutional Court has already forced the lower house to dissolve under a June ruling that said an electoral law used to elect both chambers - and which resulted in an Islamist dominated parliament - was unfair. ...

African Union head visits Central African Republic Posted: 30 Dec 2012 11:56 AM PST BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — The leader of the African Union, Benin's President Thomas Boni Yayi, has proposed a government of national unity to resolve the rebel conflict in Central African Republic.

US family pleas for couple missing in Afghanistan Posted: 30 Dec 2012 03:21 PM PST KABUL (AP) — The family of an ailing, pregnant American woman missing in Afghanistan with her Canadian husband has broken months of silence over the mysterious case, making public appeals for the couple's safe return.

Car bombing targeting Shiites in Pakistan kills 19 Posted: 30 Dec 2012 04:51 PM PST QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A car bomb targeting a bus carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims killed 19 people in southwest Pakistan, officials and eyewitnesses said.

Venezuela VP: Chavez suffers 'new complications' Posted: 30 Dec 2012 05:11 PM PST CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Hugo Chavez has suffered "new complications" following his cancer surgery in Cuba, his vice president said Sunday, describing the Venezuelan leader's condition as delicate.

International envoy warns of failed state in Syria Posted: 30 Dec 2012 11:29 AM PST BEIRUT (AP) — The international envoy seeking to end Syria's civil war warned Sunday that the failure of the government and the rebels to pursue a political solution could lead to the "full collapse of the Syrian state" and threaten the world's security.

Nobel scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini dies in Rome Posted: 30 Dec 2012 09:05 AM PST ROME (AP) — Rita Levi-Montalcini, a biologist who conducted underground research in defiance of Fascist persecution and went on to win a Nobel Prize for helping unlock the mysteries of the cell, died at her home in Rome on Sunday. She was 103 and had worked well into her final years.

Brazil debates treatment options in crack epidemic Posted: 30 Dec 2012 04:45 PM PST RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Bobo has a method: Cocaine gets him through the day, when he cruises with a wheelbarrow around a slum on Rio's west side, sorting through trash for recyclables to sell. At night, he turns the day's profit into crack.

Yemen: Al-Qaida offers bounty for US ambassador Posted: 30 Dec 2012 01:08 PM PST SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Al-Qaida's branch in Yemen has offered to pay tens of thousands of dollars to anyone who kills the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa or an American soldier in the country.

Afghan violence falls in 2012, insider attacks up Posted: 30 Dec 2012 12:21 PM PST KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Violence in Afghanistan fell in 2012, but more Afghan troops and police who now shoulder most of the combat were killed, according to statistics compiled by The Associated Press.

AP photo essay: Ex-Soviet immigrants change Israel Posted: 30 Dec 2012 11:23 AM PST TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — In parts of Israel, it's hard to find a single Hebrew sign in a sea of Cyrillic. Shopkeepers address customers in Russian, and groceries are amply stocked with non-kosher pork, red caviar and rows of vodka. Russian pop beats thump at bars, and in some homes, people will as likely be hunched over a chessboard as a computer keyboard.

Secret cremation for gang-rape victim sparks anger against Indian government Posted: 30 Dec 2012 11:23 AM PST Protests became violent today in Delhi as the youth wing of the opposition Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) pelted stones at police and tried to climb over barricades following news of the secret cremation of the body of the Delhi gang rape victim.

Progress watch 2012: Smart phones, jobs returning to America, and war crimes trials Posted: 30 Dec 2012 08:49 AM PST Good news is hard to find. That's partly because, no matter what the topic, there's so much distracting bad news: ongoing violence in Syria, America's allegedly imminent fiscal demise, the National Hockey League lockout. From the front page to the sports page, so little looks good.

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