World

PILTON, England (Reuters) – Tomato fights, anarchic gymnasts and astrophysics drew festival-goers of all ages away from the mainstream music acts at Britain’s Glastonbury festival this weekend.

QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said on Saturday the United States had asked him not to grant asylum for former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden in a “cordial” telephone conversation he held with US Vice Presi-dent Joe Biden.

BERLIN,  (Reuters) – The United States has bugged European Union offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks, according to secret documents cited in a German magazine on Saturday, the latest in a series of exposures of alleged U.S.

ALEXANDRIA/CAIRO,  (Reuters) – Two people, one an American, were killed when protesters stormed an office of Egypt’s ruling Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria yesterday, adding to growing tension ahead of mass rallies aimed at unseating the Islamist president.

ROME,  (Reuters) – A senior Catholic cleric with connections to the Vatican bank was arrested yesterday for plotting to help rich friends smuggle tens of millions of euros in cash into Italy from Switzerland, in the latest blow to the Vatican’s image.

PRETORIA/JOHANNESBURG,  (Reuters) – South Africa’s ailing anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela is doing much better in hospital, his ex-wife Winnie said yesterday, as U.S.

NEW YORK/LONDON,  (Reuters) – Gold surged around 1 percent in very choppy trade yesterday as heavy short-covering and book-squaring activities on the last trading day of a dismal second quarter lifted the metal after the previous session’s drop.

BEIRUT – Syrian rebels said they had overrun a major military checkpoint in Deraa and hoped it would allow them to capture the southern city, the cradle of their 27-month-old uprising.

TORONTO,  (Reuters) – BlackBerry’s total market value plunged by more than one-fourth yesterday after the smartphone maker reported dismal quarterly results, prompting ever-deeper skepticism about a long-promised turnaround.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate approved a landmark immigration bill yesterday that would provide millions of undocumented immigrants a chance to become citizens, but the leader of the House of Representatives said the measure was dead on arrival in the House.

GOREE ISLAND, Senegal,  (Reuters) – Almost four centuries after Africans started being shipped to North America as slaves, the first U.S.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – President Barack Obama yesterday cut off longtime U.S.

QUITO, (Reuters) – Ecuador’s leftist government thumbed its nose at Washington yesterday by renouncing U.S.

BOSTON,  (Reuters) – Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was indicted by a federal grand jury yesterday on charges of killing four people in the largest mass-casualty attack on U.S.

CAIRO,  (Reuters) – President Mohamed Mursi came to office promising to be a president for all Egyptians.

CHICAGO, (Reuters) – Former President Jimmy Carter, who is sponsoring a conference this week on equality for women in religion, said that some religious institutions are sexist, including the Roman Catholic Church.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, (Reuters) – Costa Rica said yesterday it was investigating two men suspected of laundering money for Venezuelan government firms after detecting a shady scheme to buy millions of bars of soap.

JOHANNESBURG,  (Reuters) – South Africans prayed and waited today after another downturn in the condition of ailing anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela forced President Jacob Zuma to cancel a trip to neighbouring Mozambique.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark victory for gay rights yesterday by forcing the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in states where it is legal and paving the way for it in California, the most populous state.

VATICAN CITY,  (Reuters) – Pope Francis set up a special commission of inquiry yesterday to reform the Vatican bank, his boldest move yet to get to grips with an institution that has embarrassed the Catholic Church for decades.