World

JERUSALEM,  (Reuters) – President Barack Obama pledged yesterday to hold Syria to account if it used chemical weapons and assured Israel, in his first official visit to the Jewish state, of U.S.

NICOSIA,  (Reuters) – Cyprus considered nationalising pension funds and ordered banks to stay shut till next week to avert financial chaos after it rejected the terms of a European Union bailout and turned to Russia for aid.

DENVER,  (Reuters) – The head of Colorado’s prison system was shot to death as he answered the doorbell at his home in what police said may have been a targeted slaying linked to his high-profile position.

MEXICO CITY,  (Reuters) – Survivors of Guatemala’s bloody civil war relived the massacre of relatives as they testified yesterday against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who is accused of overseeing genocide during the 36-year conflict.

PARIS, (Reuters) – The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said today that Kenya president-elect Uhuru Kenyatta would face a trial on charges of crimes against humanity but when that would happen was unknown.

PARIS,  (Reuters) – French police searched the Paris apartment of IMF chief Christine Lagarde today as part of an investigation into her awarding of a 2008 arbitration payment to a businessman supporter of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, her lawyer said.

NICOSIA,  (Reuters) – Cyprus pleaded for a new loan from Russia today to avert a financial meltdown, but won no immediate relief after the island’s parliament rejected the terms of a European bailout, raising the risk of default and a bank crash.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The United States said yesterday it was evaluating allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria, but dismissed charges that the opposition had used such weapons in the two-year-old conflict.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – Britain’s main political parties agreed to create a new system to regulate the news media on Monday, hoping to end an era when tabloid newspapers trawled through people’s mobile phone messages to dredge up salacious stories.

VATICAN CITY, (Reuters) – Pope Francis set the tone for a new, humbler papacy at his inaugural Mass yesterday where he called for the Church to defend the weak and protect the environment.

GUATEMALA CITY, (Reuters) – Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt’s defense team rejected charges he allowed the slaughter of civilians in Guatemala’s civil war, as his country became the world’s first to prosecute an ex-head of state for genocide and crimes against humanity.

MADRID,  (Reuters) – The head of Spanish intelligence was quizzed behind closed doors in parliament yesterday over whether public money had been spent on a woman whose friendship with King Juan Carlos has fueled talk of scandal and abdication.

MADRID,  (Reuters) – The head of Spanish intelligence was quizzed behind closed doors in parliament today over whether public money had been spent on a woman whose friendship with King Juan Carlos has fueled talk of scandal and abdication.

NICOSIA,  (Reuters) – Cyprus’s parliament overwhelmingly rejected a proposed levy on bank deposits as a condition for a European bailout today, throwing international efforts to rescue the latest casualty of the euro zone debt crisis into disarray.

LAS VEGAS,  (Reuters) – A mortar explosion at a U.S. Army munitions depot in Nevada killed seven Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and injured seven other service members during a live-fire training exercise, U.S.

HARARE, (Reuters) – Zimbabweans have approved a new constitution that curbs the powers of the president and puts the turbulent southern African country a step closer to holding full elections in the next few months, the election commission said today.

BEIRUT,  (Reuters) – Syria’s government and rebels accused each other of firing a rocket loaded with chemical agents outside the northern city of Aleppo today, an attack which a cabinet minister said killed 16 people and wounded 86.

BAGHDAD, (Reuters) – A dozen car bombs and suicide blasts tore into Shi’ite districts in Baghdad and south of the Iraqi capital today, killing more than 50 people on the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led

(Reuters) – It was a surprisingly meek end of a career for “The Terminator”, one of the world’s most wanted war crime fugitives.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Violence linked to culture was the main reason for a 20 per cent rise in deaths and injuries of females in Afghanistan last year, UN special envoy to Afghanistan Jan Kubis said yesterday.