World

GENEVA,  (Reuters) – The World Health Organization said today there was no sign of “sustained human-to-human transmission” of the H7N9 virus in China, but it was important to check on 400 people who had been in close contact with the 14 confirmed cases.

GUATEMALA CITY,  (Reuters) – A former member of Guatemala’s armed forces implicated President Otto Perez in civil war atrocities as he testified yesterday at the genocide trial of ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt.

MADRID/FRANKFURT, (Reuters) – Chinese tourists have overtaken Germans as the world’s biggest-spending travellers after a decade of robust growth in the number of Chinese holidaying abroad, the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) said yesterday.

DAKAR/PRAIA,  (Reuters) – U.S. anti-narcotics agents have arrested the former navy chief of Guinea-Bissau, wanted by Washington as a suspected kingpin of the international drugs trade, in a sting operation off the coast of West Africa, sources familiar with the operation said.

CHICAGO,  (Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said yesterday it was monitoring a new strain of bird flu and has started work on a vaccine just in case it is needed.

WASHINGTON  (Reuters) – North Korea’s explicit threats this week to strike the United States with nuclear weapons are rhetorical bluster, as the isolated nation does not yet have the means to make good on them, Western officials and security experts say.

OLMOS, Peru, (Reuters) – Peru’s Olmos Valley might be a desert now, with rare rains and rivers that trickle to life for just a few months a year, but a radical engineering solution for water scarcity could soon create an agricultural bonanza here.

PRAIA,  (Reuters) – U.S. anti-narcotics officers have arrested the former navy chief of Guinea Bissau, wanted by Washington as a kingpin of the international drugs trade, in an operation off the coast of West Africa, two sources familiar with the operation said.

SEOUL/WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The United States said it would soon send a missile defence system to Guam to defend it from North Korea, as the U.S.

ROME,  (Reuters) – Pope Francis stressed the “fundamental” importance of women in the Roman Catholic Church yesterday, a message hailed as a significant shift from the position of his predecessor Benedict.

HERAT, Afghanistan, (Reuters) – Nine Taliban suicide bombers killed themselves and 44 others yesterday in an attack on a courtroom in western Afghanistan where 10 of their comrades were on trial, a local official said.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan for press regulation threatens press freedom and could serve as a precedent for authoritarian governments across the world who want to gag their journalists, a leading media watchdog said yesterday.

LA PLATA, Argentina, (Reuters) – Flash floods killed at least 46 people and forced about 1,500 residents to evacuate the Argentine city of La Plata, capital of Buenos Aires province, government officials said yesterday.

LONDON, (Reuters) – King Edward VIII may be best known for giving up the throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, but it wasn’t the first time his love affairs posed a threat to the British monarchy.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – President Barack Obama plans to give back 5 percent of his pay in a gesture of solidarity with government workers who must take unpaid leave as a result of deep spending cuts that went into effect last month.

MADRID,  (Reuters) – Spain’s Princess Cristina, daughter of King Juan Carlos, was charged today with being an accomplice in an embezzlement case against her husband, the latest high-level graft investigation to anger Spaniards suffering a severe recession.

CARACAS,  (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition presidential candidate tore into government leaders today as false revolutionaries lining their pockets while professing faith to the late Hugo Chavez’s radical socialism.

BEIJING,  (Reuters) – A Chinese diplomat has met ambassadors from the United States and both Koreas to express “serious concern” over the situation on the Korean peninsula, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, following a spike in tension.

SEOUL,  (Reuters) – North Korea said yesterday it would revive a mothballed nuclear reactor able to produce bomb-grade plutonium but stressed it was seeking a deterrent capacity and did not repeat recent threats to attack South Korea and the United States.

KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia,  (Reuters) – The island of Borneo may be all that stands between Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and an unprecedented election defeat within weeks for his ruling coalition.