‘Security’ swimming pool lands South Africa’s Zuma in hot water
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s top anti-corruption watchdog says President Jacob Zuma should repay some of a $21 million publicly funded “security upgrade” to his private home that included a swimming pool and cattle enclosure, a newspaper sai…
Iraqi police find 18 men shot in head and seven decapitated
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Police discovered the bodies of 18 men who had been abducted and shot in the head near Baghdad on Friday, and the decapitated corpses of seven men killed in a separate attack in northern Iraq.
Thailand’s red-shirt heartland hides its strength
HUA KHUA, Thailand (Reuters) – Squatting on flat feet, their faces drawn with exhaustion from harvesting rice, Chantee Sanwang and Nang Laor still had the energy to tussle over who loathes Thailand’s anti-government protesters more.
Analysis: Ukraine fiasco raises doubts about EU neighborhood policy
PARIS (Reuters) – The European Union’s failure to conclude a landmark agreement with Ukraine this week raises questions about a policy designed to surround the bloc with a “ring of friends” that has done little so far to stabilize its neighborhood.
Italy PM Letta to call new confidence vote
ROME (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta said on Friday he would call a new confidence vote in parliament to confirm his government’s majority after the withdrawal of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party from the ruling coalition.
Ukraine holds key to Putin’s dream of a new union
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Ukraine’s refusal to sign a trade pact drawing it into Europe’s orbit marked a victory for Vladimir Putin, winning him time to lure Kiev into a project for a trade and political bloc stretching from the frontiers of China to the edge…
Protesting schoolchildren face expulsion in Bosnian language row
SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Several hundred children from the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia faced expulsion from school on Friday after camping out in Sarajevo for three months in protest at being denied lessons in their native Bosnian language.
Italy PM Letta to call new confidence vote
ROME (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta said on Friday he would call a new confidence vote in parliament to confirm his government’s majority after the withdrawal of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party from the ruling coalition.
Two men almost decapitated British soldier on London road, court hears
LONDON (Reuters) – Two men who killed a British soldier in broad daylight on a London street in a “cowardly and callous murder” tried to behead their victim after they had deliberately run him over, a court was told on Friday.
Fallen baron fuels debate in Germany from NY exile
BERLIN (Reuters) – No German politician of the post-war era has had such a meteoric rise, and precipitous fall from grace, as Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the Bavarian baron who fled Berlin for New York in 2011, his career in tatters over accusations of…
