Yahoo! News: World News

---

• Beirut bomb kills anti-Syrian intelligence official
• Peace envoy Brahimi pushes in Syria for ceasefire
• U.N. Security Council plans sanctions on Congo rebels, others
• Pakistani girl shot by Taliban "doing well"
• Palestinian push for U.N. upgrade likely to succeed: Jeremic
• Leaders meet on Mali crisis but little progress made
• Kuwait ruler orders electoral system changes
• Colombia's Santos: Land restitution law undermines rebels
• Muslim protesters fight police in Tanzania, popular cleric freed
• Katatni elected as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood party chief
• Top security official among 8 dead in Beirut blast
• Doctors say shot Pakistani girl improving
• UN envoy arrives in Syria amid calls for truce
• Austria probes gruesome fate of Nazi-era disabled
• Blast in Afghanistan kills 19 en route to wedding
• Progress but few rulings in Sept. 11 case at Gitmo
• After lawsuit threat, Twitter to pull racist posts
• Afghan police school tries to fix struggling force
• Al-Qaida suicide raid kills 14 Yemeni soldiers
• Shark finning hitting Persian Gulf sharks hard
• Beirut bombing kills anti-Assad official, bringing Syrian war to Lebanon
• Uruguay's Senate approves abortion bill: Will there be a ripple effect?
• Polish city of Wroclaw comes to terms with its German past
• Bangladesh worries plot to blow up the Federal Reserve will hurt moderate image
• China's naval exercises in East China Sea send warning to regional rivals
• Good reads: a 'hidden' nuclear crisis, how China sees the US, and 'Chilecon Valley'
• Steven Amstrup says it's not too late to save polar bears – and ourselves

Beirut bomb kills anti-Syrian intelligence official Posted: 19 Oct 2012 03:10 PM PDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - A prominent Lebanese intelligence official opposed to President Bashar al-Assad was killed in a huge car bomb in Beirut in another sign that Syria's civil war is dragging its volatile neighbor into the conflict. Wissam al-Hassan, who led an investigation that implicated Syria and Hezbollah in the assassination of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, and seven other people were killed when the bomb exploded in central Beirut on Friday afternoon. ...

Peace envoy Brahimi pushes in Syria for ceasefire Posted: 19 Oct 2012 12:56 PM PDT DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Mediator Lakhdar Brahimi will meet Syrian officials over the next few days in an effort to secure a brief ceasefire in the worsening war between President Bashar al-Assad's government and rebel forces. Brahimi, who arrived in the capital Damascus on Friday afternoon, will meet Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem on Saturday morning, the U.N. spokesman in Damascus, Khaled al-Masri, said. He did not say whether the envoy would meet Assad. "We will talk about the ceasefire and the Syrian issue in general. ...

U.N. Security Council plans sanctions on Congo rebels, others Posted: 19 Oct 2012 01:50 PM PDT UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council intends to impose sanctions on the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo's M23 rebels and others violating an arms embargo on the country, according to a statement the council unanimously adopted on Friday. Rwandan Defense Minister James Kabarebe is commanding the insurgency in eastern Congo that is being armed by Rwanda and Uganda, both of which also sent troops to aid deadly attacks, according to a U.N. experts' confidential report seen by Reuters on Tuesday. ...

Pakistani girl shot by Taliban "doing well" Posted: 19 Oct 2012 07:08 AM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - A Pakistani girl shot in the head by Taliban gunmen is "not out of the woods" but is doing well and has been able to stand for the first time, doctors at the British hospital treating her said on Friday. Malala Yousufzai, who was shot for vocally opposing the Taliban, was flown from Pakistan to Birmingham to receive treatment after the attack earlier this month, which drew widespread international condemnation. She has become a symbol of resistance to the Islamist group's effort to deny women education and other rights. ...

Palestinian push for U.N. upgrade likely to succeed: Jeremic Posted: 19 Oct 2012 04:14 PM PDT UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The push by the Palestinians for upgraded status at the United Nations is likely to succeed, the president of the U.N. General Assembly said on Friday, while warning the United States against cutting U.N. funding over the issue. In his first major interview since winning a divisive campaign for the largely ceremonial U.N. post in June, former Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic also said he was seeking to improve coordination between the world body and the Group of 20 bloc of key developed and developing nations. Having failed last year to secure full U.N. ...

Leaders meet on Mali crisis but little progress made Posted: 19 Oct 2012 04:49 PM PDT BAMAKO/DAKAR (Reuters) - Regional leaders and international organizations met in Mali's capital Bamako on Friday to seek a response to the occupation of the north of the country by al Qaeda-linked Islamists, but failed to resolve differences on how to tackle the growing security threat. Mali remains paralyzed by twin crises, with the leadership in Bamako still divided since a March coup that toppled the president and the rebel takeover of the north of the country. ...

Kuwait ruler orders electoral system changes Posted: 19 Oct 2012 02:49 PM PDT KUWAIT (Reuters) - Kuwait's emir said on Friday he had ordered partial changes to the Gulf Arab state's electoral system to fix deficiencies ahead of expected elections, prompting opposition threats to boycott the vote. Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah dissolved parliament last week to pave the way for new election which many hoped would end a persistent political turmoil that had held up development projects in the major oil producer and U.S. ally. ...

Colombia's Santos: Land restitution law undermines rebels Posted: 19 Oct 2012 11:03 AM PDT BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on Friday defended his signature law that returns land seized by illegal armed groups to peasants after leftist rebels assailed the measure at the start of peace talks. Negotiations to end five decades of war started out bumpy this week when Ivan Marquez, lead negotiator for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, called Santos' restitution law a "trap. "When these gentlemen from the FARC say this law is a lie it's because ... ...

Muslim protesters fight police in Tanzania, popular cleric freed Posted: 19 Oct 2012 04:26 PM PDT STONE TOWN/DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Muslim protesters clashed with police in Tanzania's commercial capital and on the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar on Friday, raising religious tensions in the east African country. In Dar es Salaam, protests against the arrest of a hardline Muslim cleric turned violent, while in Zanzibar, supporters of an Islamist separatist group have repeatedly fought police over the disappearance of their spiritual leader, who was then released after nearly four days in captivity. ...

Katatni elected as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood party chief Posted: 19 Oct 2012 04:36 PM PDT CAIRO (Reuters) - The Muslim Brotherhood's political party, Egypt's biggest, chose veteran conservative Saad al-Katatni as its new leader on Friday to replace Mohamed Mursi who went on to become his country's first elected president. Katatni, 61, a microbiologist who joined the Islamist movement in 1979, is seen as more conservative than his main challenger for the post, Essam el-Erian, and less ready to compromise with liberals and leftists. ...

Top security official among 8 dead in Beirut blast Posted: 19 Oct 2012 03:36 PM PDT A powerful car bomb tore through the heart of Beirut's Christian sector Friday, killing a top security official and seven others in a devastating attack that threatened to bring the war in Syria directly to Lebanon's doorstep. The blast sheared the balconies off apartment buildings, upended cars and sent dazed rescue workers carrying bloodied children into the streets.

Doctors say shot Pakistani girl improving Posted: 19 Oct 2012 02:27 PM PDT Doctors treating 15-year-old Pakistani shooting victim Malala Yousufzai said Friday that she is able to stand with help and to write, though she still shows signs of infection.

UN envoy arrives in Syria amid calls for truce Posted: 19 Oct 2012 12:51 PM PDT Turkey and Germany on Friday threw their weight behind calls for a Syrian cease-fire during a Muslim holiday next week as the international envoy for the conflict arrived in Damascus to push for the plan.

Austria probes gruesome fate of Nazi-era disabled Posted: 19 Oct 2012 01:49 AM PDT Forensic crews scraping away dirt from the remains of the Nazi-era psychiatric patients were puzzled: The skeletal fingers were entwined in rosary beads. Why, the experts wondered, would the Nazis — who considered these people less than human — respect them enough to let them take their religious symbols to their graves?

Blast in Afghanistan kills 19 en route to wedding Posted: 19 Oct 2012 11:15 AM PDT A roadside bomb tore through a minibus carrying people to a wedding celebration in northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least 19 people and wounding 16, authorities said.

Progress but few rulings in Sept. 11 case at Gitmo Posted: 19 Oct 2012 01:43 PM PDT A weeklong pretrial hearing for the Sept. 11 terrorism case has come to a close at Guantanamo Bay without rulings on the most important of more than two dozen motions.

After lawsuit threat, Twitter to pull racist posts Posted: 19 Oct 2012 12:39 PM PDT Twitter agreed to pull racist and anti-Semitic tweets under a pair of French hash tags after a Jewish group threatened to sue the social network for running afoul of national laws against hate speech, the organization said. The decision came a day after Twitter bowed to German law and blocked an account of a banned neo-Nazi group there.

Afghan police school tries to fix struggling force Posted: 18 Oct 2012 10:34 PM PDT At the gate to the National Police Academy, on the western edge of the Afghan capital, the guard's rifle bolts into firing position. "Stop!" he shouts.

Al-Qaida suicide raid kills 14 Yemeni soldiers Posted: 19 Oct 2012 09:38 AM PDT Suspected al-Qaida suicide bombers disguised in military uniforms stormed into an army base in southern Yemen on Friday, killing 14 soldiers and wounding more than 20, Yemeni officials said.

Shark finning hitting Persian Gulf sharks hard Posted: 19 Oct 2012 10:45 AM PDT Armed with a clip board and wearing bright yellow waders, Rima Jabado looked the part of a government inspector at the Dubai fish market as workers sawed the fins off hundreds of dead sharks from Oman and bagged them for export to Asian restaurants.

Beirut bombing kills anti-Assad official, bringing Syrian war to Lebanon Posted: 19 Oct 2012 11:15 AM PDT Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, a top Lebanese security chief and staunch opponent of the Syrian regime, was reported killed today in a powerful car bomb explosion.

Uruguay's Senate approves abortion bill: Will there be a ripple effect? Posted: 19 Oct 2012 11:05 AM PDT Uruguay paved the way for one of the most far-reaching abortion rights laws in Latin America this week when its Senate voted to legalize the procedure during the first trimester of pregnancy. The controversial decision has sparked speculation as to whether regional neighbors – from liberal Argentina to conservative Chile – could follow suit.

Polish city of Wroclaw comes to terms with its German past Posted: 19 Oct 2012 10:49 AM PDT If there is one sign of Wroclaw's transformation from a peripheral city in southwest Poland into an assertive Central European cosmopolis, it is the popularity of its new literary hero, Eberhard Mock.

Bangladesh worries plot to blow up the Federal Reserve will hurt moderate image Posted: 19 Oct 2012 08:53 AM PDT The case of the 21-year-old Bangladeshi man charged with plotting to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York has raised concern among Bangladeshis that this will hurt their country's image as a moderate Muslim nation.

China's naval exercises in East China Sea send warning to regional rivals Posted: 19 Oct 2012 05:49 AM PDT • A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Good reads: a 'hidden' nuclear crisis, how China sees the US, and 'Chilecon Valley' Posted: 19 Oct 2012 05:16 AM PDT The world thought that the Cuban missile crisis ended in October 1962 when the United States lifted its quarantine around Cuba and the Soviet Union withdrew its medium-range missiles. However, "the secret crisis still simmered" through November, writes Svetlana Savranskaya in Foreign Policy . Unknown to American intelligence, the Soviets had also delivered almost 100 tactical weapons including 80 nuclear front cruise missiles, 12 nuclear warheads for dual-use Luna short-range rockets, and 6 nuclear bombs for IL-28 bombers.

Steven Amstrup says it's not too late to save polar bears – and ourselves Posted: 19 Oct 2012 05:00 AM PDT With apologies to "The Tipping Point" author Malcolm Gladwell, there is no tipping point – at least, not when it comes to global warming and sea ice.

You are subscribed to email updates from World News Headlines - Yahoo! News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610