News/International

  Ukrainian paramedics help a homeless into an ambulance car in downtown Kiev, Ukraine, yesterday. The death toll from the cold spell reached 101 in Ukraine. KIEV: Temperatures plunged to new lows in Europe where a week-long cold snap has now cl...

THE HAGUE: The UN’s highest court ordered Italy yesterday to annul all compensation claims against Germany for Nazi war crimes, saying Rome breached international laws when its courts allowed the claims to be made. But it encouraged dialogue betwe...

  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (right) and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin talk before a meeting at the Security Council in the Gorki residence outside Moscow yesterday.

MOSCOW: Militants fighting to carve an Islamic state from Russia’s southern flank should avoid attacks on the country’s citizens  now that they are protesting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s 12-year rule, the leader of the insurgency said.  ...

  HARARE: Zimbabwe will bar all unregistered foreign newspapers, its media commission said yesterday, in what could be the start of a crackdown on outlets critical of President Robert Mugabe ahead of a possible election this year.     The commi...

  LONDON: British Energy Secretary Chris Huhne resigned yesterday after learning he would face criminal charges for allegedly lying to police, a fall from grace that could tweak the dynamics of the coalition government and weaken its environmenta...

  Queen Elizabeth attends a tree planting ceremony in the Diamond Jubilee Wood on her Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, eastern England, yesterday. LONDON: Queen Elizabeth II starts five months of diamond jubilee celebrations this weekend with the ...

LAS VEGAS: Republican Mitt Romney was riding high yesterday on the eve of Nevada’s presidential caucuses, after a new poll gave him a 20-point lead and real estate mogul Donald Trump endorsed his candidacy. The former Massachusetts governor, who s...

  WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama will receive British Prime Minister David Cameron March 13-14 on an official visit that will include talks on Afghanistan, Iran and the global economy, the White House said yesterday. White House Press Secretar...

  NEW YORK: Warm sun, white beaches, and million-dollar mansions notwithstanding, Miami has captured the dubious distinction of being the most miserable city in the United States, according to a new poll.     The playground of the rich and famo...

  Vehicles are stuck in a huge traffic jam after a heavy snowfall in the late afternoon that paralysed traffic in downtown Brussels yesterday. More than 1,100km of traffic jams have been reported in Belgium last afternoon by drivers associations....

  LONDON: Queen Elizabeth is throwing a star-studded party for him at Buckingham Palace and in Buenos Aires, leading cultural figures will gather in an old orphanage to read from his works. Charles Dickens may have died in 1870, but legions of f...

LONDON: The Decca music label is looking for a singer who can go where no other singer is believed to have gone before -- a low “E”, which is nearly three octaves below a middle “C” on the piano.     Paul Mealor, the composer behind the s...

WASHINGTON: Hacker group Anonymous, in an embarrassment for law enforcement, released a recording yesterday of a conference call between the FBI and Scotland Yard discussing operations against the hacking collective. The Federal Bureau of Investigat...

WASHINGTON: So much for “Facebook fatigue.”     A survey released yesterday shows that people who have used the social networking site over a long period - since its founding in 2004, say - show no sign that they have tired of posting picture...

Beijing: German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to reassure Beijing over the crisis in the eurozone and urged China to press Tehran on its nuclear programme as she began an official visit yesterday. “The euro as our common currency has made Europe...

port moresby: More than 200 people were plucked from waters off Papua New Guinea yesterday after a ferry sank but dozens remained missing with rescuers scouring the choppy seas for survivors. Operator Star Ships said it lost contact with the MV Raba...

WARSAW: A cold snap kept Europe in its icy grip yesterday, pushing the death toll to 160 as countries from Italy to Ukraine struggled to cope with temperatures that plunged to record lows in some places. Nine more people died in Poland overnight as ...

Seoul: Rights group Amnesty International yesterday urged the release of a South Korean activist accused of helping the “enemy” by re-tweeting messages from North Korea’s official Twitter account. Park Jeong-geun, a Socialist Party activist, w...

Seoul: North Korea’s top ruling body yesterday again rebuffed South Korea’s call for talks, saying Seoul’s conservative leaders should first “repent of their crimes” and honour past summit agreements. Seoul has said there is a “window of...

LONDON: British police are investigating The Times over claims that it hacked emails, it emerged yesterday, as the newspaper’s editor was recalled for a second appearance before an inquiry into press ethics. James Harding, the editor of the Rupert...

LAS VEGAS, Nevada: Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney holds a huge lead two days before Nevada’s caucuses, a poll showed yesterday, as he looked to build on a Florida win to lock up his party’s nomination. The new survey came as Romney and his r...

LONDON: Britain’s crackdown on immigration is intended not just to cut the numbers of people coming to find work but also to ensure “the right people are coming here”, the immigration minister said yesterday. Damian Green said Prime Minister D...

NEW YORK: The New York Police Department recommended increasing surveillance of thousands of Shias and their mosques, based solely on their religion, as a way to sweep the Northeast for signs of Iranian terrorists, according to interviews and a newly...

  LONDON: Prince William arrived in the Falkland Islands yesterday for a six-week deployment with the Royal Air Force (RAF), British officials said, a move Argentina has condemned as a “provocation”. The 29-year-old, who is second in line to t...

  CHICAGO: Alzheimer’s disease appears to spread in a predictable pattern, infecting brain cell after brain cell as the disease spreads along linked circuits known as synapses, according to a new study.      The findings, published in the o...

WASHINGTON: US scientists said they have found a way to decode how the brain hears words, in what researchers described as a major step toward one day helping people communicate after paralysis or stroke. By placing electrodes on the brains of resea...

WASHINGTON: International astronomers yesterday said they have found the fourth potentially habitable planet outside our solar system with temperatures that could support water and life about 22 light-years from Earth. The team analysed data from th...

Jakarta: Indonesia, a developing Muslim nation which claims the world’s third-largest community of Facebook users, has become a showcase for the social networking site’s global power and reach. Facebook has broken technological and social barrie...

  People walk on frozen Black Sea waters next to an ice-covered dam in Constanta city, some 230km east of Bucharest, yesterday.  Temperatures plunged to minus 34 Celsius in central Romania, local media said. WARSAW: Europe shivered in some of t...