Yahoo! News: World News

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• U.N. monitors quit, saying Syrians choose "path of war"
• Bloody day of blasts in Iraq kills more than 70
• Exclusive: Algeria's Brahimi agrees to be Syria mediator - sources
• Ecuador grants asylum to Assange, angering Britain
• Militants attack major Pakistan air base; nine killed
• Analysis: Qaeda fight could bog down Yemen reconstruction drive
• South African police shoot dead striking miners
• Breivik report forces Norway police chief to quit
• Bahrain jails activist for three years over protests
• Six killed and 12 injured in unrest in Sudan's Darfur
• Ecuador grants asylum to WikiLeaks' Assange
• South African police shoot, kill striking miners
• Taliban say they have infiltrated Afghan forces
• Taliban carry out brazen attack on Pakistan base
• Women behind the mask of Russia's Pussy Riot band
• Japan's nuclear leaks sparked butterfly mutations
• 7 American troops die in Afghan helicopter crash
• S. Africa police fire at striking mine workers
• UN council OKs new Syria office after observers go
• Deadliest military crashes in Afghanistan

U.N. monitors quit, saying Syrians choose "path of war" Posted: 16 Aug 2012 03:47 PM PDT BEIRUT/ALEPPO (Reuters) - Syria's government and rebels have "chosen the path of war", a U.N. peacekeeping chief said as the world body ended its doomed monitoring mission to Damascus and deadlock persists among world powers over how to contain the spreading conflict. Two weeks after former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan quit as mediator in frustration with the failure of a four-month-old truce, military observers have no peace on the ground to monitor and U.N. officials said on Thursday the last of the few dozen remaining team members would quit Damascus by August 24. ...

Bloody day of blasts in Iraq kills more than 70 Posted: 16 Aug 2012 04:27 PM PDT BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A series of bombings and shootings killed more than 70 people across Iraq on Thursday in a bloody day of attacks underscoring the country's struggle with a stubborn insurgency more than half a year after the U.S. military withdrew. In the worst of the blasts that erupted in the morning and ended in the evening, at least 27 people were killed when a car bomb exploded outside a cafe in Baghdad's Zafraniya district as Iraqis took to the streets to end daily fasting for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. ...

Exclusive: Algeria's Brahimi agrees to be Syria mediator - sources Posted: 16 Aug 2012 01:51 PM PDT UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi has agreed to replace Kofi Annan as the international mediator on Syria, though he intends to take a fresh approach as the 17-month-old conflict slips deeper into civil war, U.N. sources said on Thursday Annan, a former U.N. secretary-general and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is stepping down at the end of August after six months in the job. He said his Syria peace plan was hampered by a divided and deadlocked U.N. Security Council. ...

Ecuador grants asylum to Assange, angering Britain Posted: 16 Aug 2012 12:57 PM PDT LONDON/QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuador granted political asylum to WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange on Thursday, a day after it said Britain had threatened to raid the Ecuadorean embassy in London to arrest the former hacker. Britain has said it is determined to extradite him to Sweden, where he is accused of rape and sexual assault. Assange fears he will ultimately be sent to the United States which is furious that his WikiLeaks website has leaked hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic and military cables. ...

Militants attack major Pakistan air base; nine killed Posted: 16 Aug 2012 12:54 PM PDT KAMRA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Islamist militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons fought their way into one of Pakistan's largest air bases on Thursday, the air force said, in a brazen challenge to the nuclear-armed country's powerful military. The attack was repelled and only one aircraft was damaged, said an air force spokesman, adding that the Minhas air base at Kamra, in central Punjab province, did not house nuclear weapons. "No air base is a nuclear air base in Pakistan," he said. ...

Analysis: Qaeda fight could bog down Yemen reconstruction drive Posted: 16 Aug 2012 12:10 PM PDT DUBAI (Reuters) - Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's drive to restore order to Yemen after last year's uprising against his predecessor risks being bogged down in a prolonged war with al Qaeda unless he moves swiftly on reconciliation talks and asserts control over the armed forces. Bickering between supporters and opponents of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the longstanding grievances of northern Shi'ite Muslim rebels and southern secessionists, and lawlessness in a country awash with arms, are just some of the obstacles to Hadi's reconstruction aims. ...

South African police shoot dead striking miners Posted: 16 Aug 2012 04:09 PM PDT MARIKANA, South Africa (Reuters) - South African police opened fire on striking miners armed with machetes and sticks at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine on Thursday, killing at least a dozen men in scenes that evoked comparisons with apartheid-era brutality. In the incident, filmed by Reuters television, officers opened up with automatic weapons on a group of men who emerged from behind a vehicle and started loping towards police lines. The volley of bullets threw up clouds of dust, which cleared to reveal bodies lying on the ground. ...

Breivik report forces Norway police chief to quit Posted: 16 Aug 2012 02:18 PM PDT OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's police chief resigned on Thursday, days after an independent commission found that police could have prevented all or part of a bombing and shooting spree by far-right militant Anders Behring Breivik that killed 77 people. The bombing of central Oslo and shooting spree at the ruling Labour party's youth camp shook the tiny nation of 5 million people, raising questions about the prevalence of far-right views in Norway and the efficiency of the security services. ...

Bahrain jails activist for three years over protests Posted: 16 Aug 2012 02:15 PM PDT DUBAI (Reuters) - A prominent Bahraini opposition activist was sentenced to three years in jail on Thursday for anti-government protests, his lawyer said, a verdict Washington said was deeply troubling and rights campaigners called a "dark day for justice". Bahrain, the base of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, has been in turmoil since pro-democracy protests led by its Shi'ite Muslim majority erupted last year. Washington has called on its ally to talk to the opposition. ...

Six killed and 12 injured in unrest in Sudan's Darfur Posted: 16 Aug 2012 03:13 PM PDT KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Six people were killed and 12 injured in fresh unrest in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region, state news agency SUNA said on Thursday. The six died during three days of clashes between residents of the town of Mellit in North Darfur. The police and army had restored order, it said, without giving more details. Mainly non-Arab rebels took up arms in Darfur in 2003, complaining the central government in Khartoum had neglected the remote western region. ...

Ecuador grants asylum to WikiLeaks' Assange Posted: 16 Aug 2012 02:13 PM PDT He's won asylum in Ecuador, but Julian Assange is no closer to getting there.

South African police shoot, kill striking miners Posted: 16 Aug 2012 12:44 PM PDT South African police opened fire Thursday on a crowd of striking miners that charged a line of officers trying to disperse them, killing some and wounding others in one of the worst shootings by authorities since the end of the apartheid era.

Taliban say they have infiltrated Afghan forces Posted: 16 Aug 2012 01:18 PM PDT The leader of the Taliban says his fighters have infiltrated the Afghan police and army and are successfully killing a growing number of U.S.-led coalition forces.

Taliban carry out brazen attack on Pakistan base Posted: 16 Aug 2012 12:27 PM PDT Heavily armed Taliban fighters blasted their way into a Pakistani air force base with possible links to the country's nuclear program in a brazen assault that took two hours of fighting to put down, leaving a security officer and nine insurgents dead and underscoring the group's continued threat despite numerous military offensives.

Women behind the mask of Russia's Pussy Riot band Posted: 16 Aug 2012 08:55 AM PDT One of the key ideas behind the Russian punk provocateur band Pussy Riot was the supremacy of an idea over personality — thus the balaclavas that made the members both unrecognizable and fearsome.

Japan's nuclear leaks sparked butterfly mutations Posted: 16 Aug 2012 06:58 AM PDT Radiation that leaked from the Fukushima nuclear plant following last year's tsunami caused mutations in some butterflies — including dented eyes and stunted wings — though humans seem relatively unaffected, researchers say.

7 American troops die in Afghan helicopter crash Posted: 16 Aug 2012 11:22 AM PDT Seven American troops and four Afghans died in a Black Hawk helicopter crash on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, the NATO military coalition said. The Taliban claimed their fighters shot down the aircraft.

S. Africa police fire at striking mine workers Posted: 16 Aug 2012 10:09 AM PDT South African police opened fire Thursday on a crowd of striking workers at a platinum mine, leaving an unknown number of people injured and possibly dead. Motionless bodies lay on the ground in pools of blood.

UN council OKs new Syria office after observers go Posted: 16 Aug 2012 09:43 AM PDT The Security Council will let the U.N. military observer mission's mandate in Syria expire Sunday and will back a new civilian office there to support U.N. and Arab League efforts to end the country's 18-month conflict.

Deadliest military crashes in Afghanistan Posted: 16 Aug 2012 08:35 AM PDT Some of the deadliest military air crashes in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion on Oct. 7, 2001:

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