Thousands march to protest Russia's adoption ban

MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of people marched through Moscow on Sunday to protest Russia's new law banning Americans from adopting Russian children, a far bigger number than expected in a sign that outrage over the ban has breathed some life into the dispirited anti-Kremlin opposition movement.Shouting "shame on the scum," protesters carried posters of President Vladimir Putin and members of Russia's...

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Beaches, bombs and gangsters _ Corsica's dilemma

AJACCIO, Corsica (AP) — The bombs exploded across hundreds of miles of Corsican coastline, gutting two dozen villas nearly simultaneously on some of Europe's most beautiful — and valuable — land. Elsewhere on the same French island off the Mediterranean coast, a young man was shot to death in his car, his stepson wounded beside him.The night of violence in early December epitomized the problems of...

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Gay marriage protest converges on Eiffel Tower

PARIS (AP) — Holding aloft ancient flags and young children, hundreds of thousands of people converged Sunday on the Eiffel Tower to protest the French president's plan to legalize gay marriage and thus allow same-sex couples to adopt and conceive children.The opposition to President Francois Hollande's plan has underscored divisions among the secular-but-Catholic French, especially more traditional...

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Nepali charged with torture appears in UK court

LONDON (AP) — A British court on Saturday denied bail to a colonel in the Nepalese army facing charges of torture allegedly committed during the Himalayan nation's civil war.Kumar Lama, 46, was arrested Thursday at a residential address in the English town of St. Leonards-on-Sea, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) southeast of London. He was later charged with intentionally "inflicting severe pain or...

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Missoni scion on small plane missing in Venezuela

ROME (AP) — Rescue crews used boats and aircraft on Saturday to search for a small plane that disappeared in Venezuela carrying the CEO of Italy's iconic Missoni fashion house and five other people.But 24 hours after the BN-2 Islander aircraft disappeared from radar screens on its short flight from Venzuela's coastal resort island of Los Roques to Caracas, the capital, no sign of the plane had been...

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Bulgarians celebrate Epiphany with an icy dip

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Thousands of young men are plunging into icy rivers and lakes across Bulgaria to retrieve crucifixes cast by priests in an old ritual marking the feast of Epiphany.By tradition, a wooden cross is cast into the water and it is believed that the person who retrieves it will be freed from evil spirits.In the central city of Kalofer, 350 men in traditional dress waded into the icy...

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Falklands again? Why Argentina's Kirchner keeps pushing the issue with Britain.

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner relaunched her offensive over the Falkland Islands today, a move that coincides with the 180th anniversary of Britain’s allegedly illegal usurpation of the South Atlantic archipelago.President Kirchner published an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron in British newspapers imploring him to respect a United Nations resolution that calls...

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Libyan cop in Benghazi kidnapped

Abdelsalam al-Mahdawi, the head of Benghazi's criminal investigation department, was kidnapped on his way to work today by gunmen at an intersection in Libya's second largest city.Benghazi was the heart of the uprising against Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, and since then it has failed to bring the militias that fought on the side of the revolution – some Islamist, some not – under any kind of government...

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Amid bloodshed and chaos, Syrian wages a war for neutral reporting

While Syria's state-run news outlets run a steady stream of reports about "terrorists" and international conspiracies against President Bashar al-Assad, opposition activists roll out their own endless barrage of footage highlighting atrocities and destruction by regime forces, with little in the way of context.With media access difficult or impossible in most of the country and no tradition of balanced...

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Good Taliban, Bad Taliban? Pakistani commander's killing exposes blurry lines

The US drone killing of Pakistani Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir threatens to unleash new anti-government violence against the country’s weak government or civilian targets, and expose fractures in the country’s military and security forces, analysts say.Mr. Nazir was traveling in a car in troubled South Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan, Thursday, when his vehicle was hit by a missile, according...

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Could gang-rape protests mark beginning of an age of activism for India?

The large-scale protests triggered by the gang rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi has renewed debate over the rise of a new urban middle-class activism in India. The strength and longevity of those protests, sustained as they were over several weeks and undeterred by police water cannons and teargas, took many by surprise. Student activism has generally been on the...

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On cusp of new year, Chavez's health keeps Venezuleans fixated on future

Dec. 31 is typically a time to recap the biggest events of the year. But in Venezuela this year, news that President Hugo Chavez has suffered “new complications” after surgery on Dec. 11 has kept Venezuelans anxiously fixated on what’s to come in 2013.In downtown Caracas, an annual free concert in Plaza Bolivar to welcome the New Year has been canceled, government officials said. They instead called...

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Egypt's opposition still hopeful, despite many defeats

When a controversial constitutional draft went to a vote earlier this month, the Egyptian opposition was, as usual, in disarray.It waffled for weeks between boycotting the referendum and calling for a no vote. When it finally chose the latter only days before the first round of voting on Dec. 15, it was too late to overcome the Muslim Brotherhood and their salafist allies’ strong campaign for a "yes."But...

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Happy new year, Cairo?

I'm back in Cairo after well over a year away, and my first thought was that little has changed.Getting out of Cairo airport is still a chaotic mess of taxi and hotel touts, though easy to navigate if you know the drill. Traffic was worse than I'd have expected for midday on Saturday, but Cairo zahma hardly has a predictable rhythm anyway. Parts of the city are always one flat tire away from being...

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Any end in sight? Syrian conflict enters third calendar year

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.The Syrian civil war entered its third calendar year with rebel forces displaying increased military prowess but still lacking adequate weapons and organization to gain a decisive edge over government forces.At the outset of 2012, many observers predicted it would be President Bashar al-Assad's last year, but now in 2013 the conflict appears locked...

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Indian court may suspend lawmakers facing crimes

Indian lawmakers facing sexual assault charges against women could be suspended from office if the country's top court rules in favor of a petition submitted following a gang-rape and murder that shocked the country.Six state lawmakers are facing rape prosecutions and two national parliamentarians are facing charges of crimes against women that fall short of rape, said Jagdeep S. Chhokar, an official...

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EU leaders in Norway to pick up Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO, Norway (AP) — European Union leaders on Sunday hailed the achievements of the 27-nation bloc, but acknowledged they need more integration and authority to solve problems, including its worst financial crisis, as they arrived in Norway to pick up this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Conceding that the EU lacked sufficient powers to stop the devastating 1992-95 Bosnia war, European Commission President...

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Romanian exit polls: center-left gov't wins vote

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania's center-left government won a clear victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections, according to exit polls. The result could inflame the personal rivalry between the nation's top two officials and bring yet more political upheaval. The prime minister's governing alliance had about 57 percent of seats in the 452-seat legislature, according to a poll published after...

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Georgia details nuke black market investigations

BATUMI, Georgia (AP) — On the gritty side of this casino resort town near the Turkish border, three men in a hotel suite gathered in secret to talk about a deal for radioactive material. The Georgian seller offered cesium, a byproduct of nuclear reactors that terrorists can use to arm a dirty bomb with the power to kill. But one of the Turkish men, wearing a suit and casually smoking a cigarette,...

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