Rape trial puts focus on India’s death penalty paradox
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – An Indian judge will announce on Friday whether four men should hang for fatally raping a young woman on a bus last December, in one of the biggest tests in years of India’s paradoxical attitude towards the death penalty.
U.S., Russia differ on military force as Syria talks open
GENEVA (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov opened high-stakes talks on Thursday on disarming Syria’s chemical weapons programs, but differences emerged at the outset over U.S. military threats again…
Syria now full member of chemical arms pact: Syria’s U.N. envoy
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Syria became a full member of the global anti-chemical weapons treaty on Thursday, the country’s U.N. envoy said, a move that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had promised as part of a deal to avoid U.S. air…
Britain’s Cameron retaliates in Barroso eurosceptic row
LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron struck back at European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday for suggesting Britain’s ruling Conservatives had copied a right-wing rival’s eurosceptic policies and would be punished at the…
Local Mexican politician killed with machete in troubled state
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Armed men in a Mexican state that is struggling to contain gang violence hacked a local congressman to death with a machete while he was being interviewed by a journalist, authorities said on Thursday.
Merkel rival causes stir with vulgar gesture
BERLIN (Reuters) – A magazine photograph that depicts Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-left challenger making a vulgar gesture stirred sharp criticism from his political rivals on Thursday, 10 days before the German election.
EU could punish Croatia over extradition row next week
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission is likely to punish Croatia next week in a row over extradition rules that has marred the former Yugoslav state’s first months as a member of the European Union and may endanger EU aid for border control imp…
U.S. warns Syria against stalling over chemical weapons
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Documents Syria sent to the United Nations on joining the global anti-chemical weapons treaty cannot be a substitute for disarmament or a stalling tactic, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday.
Spain strengthens transparency law intended to fight corruption
MADRID (Reuters) – Lawmakers on Thursday passed amendments to beef up Spain’s first freedom of information law, intended to attack corruption and restore plummeting public trust in politics and government.
Twenty years on, Oslo failures haunt new Middle East talks
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Two decades after Israeli and Palestinian leaders met on a sun-soaked White House lawn, hopes that their historic encounter would lead to peace have faded along with photographs of their hesitant handshake.
