Obama urges China, neighbors to avoid escalating maritime dispute
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday urged China and its neighbors to peacefully resolve a dispute over oil drilling in the South China Sea and avoid escalating tensions.
Two killed in Cairo clashes after Friday prayers: interior ministry
CAIRO (Reuters) – Two Egyptians were killed after Friday prayers between Islamist protesters and residents of a Cairo neighborhood, the interior ministry said in a statement.
U.S. says Thailand, Malaysia, Venezuela among worst human trafficking centers
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department downgraded Thailand, Malaysia and Venezuela on Friday to its list of the world’s worst centers of human trafficking, opening up the countries to possible sanctions and dumping them in the same category a…
Car bomb in Syria’s Hama province kills 34: state news
BEIRUT (Reuters) – A car bomb in Syria’s western Hama province killed 34 and wounded more than 50, Syria’s state news agency SANA said on Friday, blaming the attack on rebels fighting forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
Sarkozy allies see campaign scandal scuppering comeback
PARIS (Reuters) – Members of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s opposition UMP party are warning that he is too much of a political liability for victory in 2017 as a funding scandal over his 2012 election campaign escalates.
Israel kills Palestinian teen in escalating West Bank arrest raids
HEBRON West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli troops killed a Palestinian teenager in the occupied West Bank on Friday and arrested 25 people, pursuing a crackdown on Islamist militants and house-to-house searches for three Israeli teenagers who went missing ei…
NATO unlikely to grant Georgia step to membership: diplomats
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO countries, wary of antagonizing Russia, are unlikely to grant former Soviet republic Georgia a formal step towards membership of the alliance at a summit in September, NATO diplomats say.
Albanian village gains peace, loses livelihood as cannabis burns
LAZARAT Albania (Reuters) – Albanian police declared victory on Friday over drug producers who for more than 15 years had run the southern village of Lazarat as a personal fief, churning out marijuana on an industrial scale untouched by the NATO member…
President Karzai says U.N. should intervene in Afghan vote count
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai said on Friday that he was in favour of the United Nations intervening in the presidential election after one of the candidates dropped out of the process over allegations of mass fraud.
Nigeria says more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls still missing
ABUJA (Reuters) – More than 200 of the Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Islamist militant group Boko Haram are still missing, an official said on Friday, more than two months after a brazen and brutal kidnapping in the northeast.
