World

BEIJING, (Reuters) – Two shallow 5.6 magnitude earthquakes hit mountainous southwestern China yesterday, killing at least 64 people and forcing tens of thousands of people from damaged buildings, state media said.

CAIRO, (Reuters) – Egypt’s president yesterday promised to put Cairo back at the heart of Arab affairs and made an impassioned appeal to Arab states to work to end the bloodshed in Syria, saying the time had come to change the Syrian government.

LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – Michelle Obama sent TV viewing figures soaring after an emotional speech at the Democratic National Convention that lit up the Twitterverse with messages suggesting she should one day be a presidential candidate herself.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., (Reuters) – Florida officials yesterday were reviewing a federal judge’s ruling ordering the state to stop charging U.S.-born

DALLAS, (Reuters) – The number of U.S. cases of West Nile virus rose 25 percent in the latest week, putting the 2012 outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease on track to be the most severe on record in the United States, health officials said yesterday.

NEW YORK/HELSINKIA, (Reuters) – Nokia shares plummeted 13 percent after its new Lumia smartphones failed to impress investors looking for transformational handsets to rescue the struggling Finnish company.

BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Colombia’s peace talks with leftist FARC guerrillas to try and end Latin America’s longest-running insurgency will begin next month in Norway before moving to Cuba, President Juan Manuel Santos said yesterday.

NEW DELHI,  (Reuters) – Federal law enforcement officials have named an MP from India’s ruling Congress party in an investigation into irregularities in the award of coalfield concessions, piling more pressure on the government firefighting the latest in a series of scandals.

MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – Mexico has captured a leader of the country’s Gulf Cartel in one of the highest-profile arrests in months in President Felipe Calderon’s war on drug gangs.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian rebels said they planted bombs inside the Syrian army’s General Staff headquarters in central Damascus on Sunday as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces bulldozed buildings to the ground in parts of the capital that have backed the uprising.

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Small South Pacific island nations are cashing in on new aid rivalry between China and the United States as both powers vie to boost their influence in a vast region of mostly micro-nations.

LONDON (Reuters) – Police in Northern Ireland fired plastic bullets and water cannon on rioters late yesterday in a second night of sectarian clashes between Catholics and Protestants that left nine police officers injured.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Venezuela and indigenous groups are disputing whether an alleged massacre of Amazon villagers took place after Venezuela’s government said it found no evidence of an attack.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actor Michael Clarke Duncan, nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of a death row inmate in the 1999 drama The Green Mile, died in a hospital yesterday, less than eight weeks after suffering a heart attack, a spokeswoman said.

CANBERRA, (Reuters) – Australian on Friday approved a Chinese company’s bid for giant cotton farm, igniting new concerns about foreign investment in agriculture where resource-hungry China is showing growing interest.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama enters an important campaign week tied with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found yesterday, leaving the incumbent an opportunity to edge ahead of his opponent at the Democratic National Convention.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Developers rushing to build top-quality London homes to cash in on strong overseas demand are in danger of being stung by a price crash as they flood the market, property consultancy EC Harris said.

SEOUL,  (Reuters) – Sun Myung Moon, the founder and head of the Unification Church which has millions of followers around the world, died at a retreat near the South Korean capital Seoul yesterday, church officials said.

AMMAN,  (Reuters) – Syrian rebels said they planted bombs inside the Syrian army’s General Staff headquarters in central Damascus yesterday as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces bulldozed buildings to the ground in parts of the capital that have backed the uprising.

ROME (Reuters) – The former archbishop of Milan and papal candidate Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said the Catholic Church as “200 years out of date” in his final interview before his death, published yesterday.