World

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain launched a public consultation today to ask whether controversial “three-parent” fertility treatments should be available to families hoping to avoid passing on incurable diseases.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A California man linked to an anti-Islam film that sparked violent protests across the Muslim world was taken in for questioning yesterday by authorities investigating possible violations of his probation for a bank fraud conviction.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Thousands of Chinese besieged the Japanese embassy in Beijing  yesterday, hurling rocks, eggs and bottles, and protests broke out in other Chinese cities in an angry dispute over a group of remote islands.

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, whose wedding plans appeared to have been thwarted when a court ruled he was already wed to a former flame, pressed ahead with his marriage yesterday under a custom that permits polygamy.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping appeared in public yesterday for the first time in about two weeks, visiting a Beijing university in what appeared to be an effort to dispel rumours of serious illness and a troubled succession.

DUBLIN/LONDON (Reuters) – An Irish tabloid newspaper broke ranks with its British and Irish rivals to publish topless pictures of the wife of Prince William yesterday, risking legal action from the royal family and prompting its British co-owner to cut ties with the title.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc rejected a request by the White House yesterday to reconsider its decision to keep online a controversial YouTube movie clip that has ignited anti-American protests in the Middle East.

BANJUL (Reuters) – Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh has placed a moratorium on the execution of the remaining 38 prisoners on death row in the west African state following appeals from regional leaders, the government said in a statement late yesterday.

KABUL (Reuters) – Two US Marines were killed and other Americans were wounded yesterday during a Taliban attack on a base in southern Afghanistan where Britain’s Prince Harry is stationed, US officials told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

SANAA/CAIRO (Reuters) – Demonstrators attacked the US embassies in Yemen and Egypt yesterday in protest at a film they consider blasphemous to Islam, and the United States sent war ships towards Libya, where the US ambassador was killed in related violence this week.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Six Chinese patrol ships entered Japanese waters near disputed islands claimed by both Beijing and Tokyo today, said Japan’s Coast Guard, further heightening tensions in a long-running territorial dispute between Asia’s two biggest economies.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican prosecutors said yesterday they were investigating a 16-year-old suspected hitman who was believed to have participated in at least 50 murders while working for a drug gang.

LONDON (Reuters) – Engineers in Britain have developed an ultrasound scanner that costs under 40 pounds to make and could improve prenatal care in parts of the developing world where this technology is out of reach.

WASHINGTON/BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – President Barack Obama vowed yesterday to “bring to justice” the Islamist gunmen responsible for a ferocious assault that killed the US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans – an attack that may have been organized in advance.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China’s biggest telecommunications equipment maker said its path into the United States had been blocked by unsubstantiated “allegations based on allegations” that threatened to harm ties between the world’s two biggest economies.

LONDON (Reuters) – Countries across the world are making rapid progress on child survival rates, showing it is possible to bring down child mortality significantly in two decades, the United Nations Children’s Fund said today.

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – A Guatemalan judge yesterday ordered an alleged Costa Rican drug trafficker to stand trial for the murder of Argentine singer and composer Facundo Cabral.

LIMA (Reuters) – Peru will crack down on the political wing of the Shining Path and quash armed remnants of the insurgency, President Ollanta Humala said yesterday, dismissing the idea of holding peace talks with the rebels.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programme yesterday and reaffirmed their united determination to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, the White House said.

WASHINGTON/CAIRO/BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Protesters in Egypt and Libya attacked US diplomatic missions yesterday, leading to the death of an American staffer at the consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi after fierce clashes at the compound, a Libyan official said.