Israel’s ex-PM Sharon suffering multi-organ failure: hospital
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, comatose since a 2006 stroke, is close to death as his health continues to decline, the head of the hospital treating him said on Friday.
China says child deaths not linked to hepatitis vaccine
BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese health authorities said they have found no link between a hepatitis B vaccine and the deaths of nine children who had received those shots, state media said on Friday.
Drugs seized in raids on southern Chinese village
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Police in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have seized nearly three metric tons (3.3 tons) of the drug crystal methamphetamine and arrested 182 people in raids on a village notorious for producing narcotics.
China to centralize military command to improve operations
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s increasingly sophisticated military will establish a joint operational command structure for its forces to improve coordination between different parts of the country’s defense system, the official China Daily reported on Fr…
China tells police to be loyal to party amid graft crackdown
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s police chief wrote on Friday that his officers must uphold the leadership of the Communist Party and be loyal to it, as the government targets the domestic security apparatus in a crackdown on corruption.
Australia swelters after record hot 2013; farmers slaughter cattle, bushfire warning
SYDNEY (Reuters) – A searing heatwave is baking central and northern Australia, piling more misery on drought-hit cattle farmers who have been slaughtering livestock as Australia sweltered through the hottest year on record in 2013.
Panama presses Spain and Italy to resolve canal cost row
PANAMA CITY/MADRID (Reuters) – The president of Panama said on Thursday he would go to Spain and Italy to pressure companies to honor contracts to expand his country’s canal after a building consortium behind the project threatened to suspend work beca…
U.S. ship to depart soon on chemical weapons mission to Mediterranean
PORTSMOUTH, Virginia (Reuters) – The U.S.-owned cargo ship with the capability to destroy the nastiest of Syria’s chemical weapons will depart for the Mediterranean in about two weeks, officials said on Thursday as shipyard workers readied the vessel f…
Car bomb kills at least five in Hezbollah district of Beirut
BEIRUT (Reuters) – A car bomb killed at least five people in Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut on Thursday, the latest in a series of deadly attacks on Shi’ite and Sunni targets in Lebanon.
Briton, New Zealander killed in western Libya: security source
TRIPOLI (Reuters) – A Briton and a New Zealander, both with gunshot wounds, were found dead in western Libya on Thursday, while two Americans were arrested in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libyan security sources said.
