World

QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa yesterday cast the Andean country’s tensions with Britain over asylum for WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange as a menace to Latin America, warning the UK that it should think twice before trampling on the region’s sovereignty.

MARIKANA, South Africa (Reuters) – The bloody protest by South African miners that ended in a hail of police gunfire and 34 deaths this week could also wound the ruling ANC and its main labour ally, laying bare workers’ anger over enduring inequalities in Africa’s biggest economy.

(Reuters) – Miss China, a 23-year-old music lover who wants to work with the poor, was crowned Miss World 2012 at a ceremony in Inner Mongolia, pageant organizers said yesterday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria dismissed reports that President Bashar al-Assad’s deputy had defected and its forces pursued an offensive against rebels, bombarding parts of Aleppo in the north and attacking an insurgent-held town in the oil-producing east.

MIAMI/LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – The Obama administration’s new policy to grant temporary legal status to millions of young illegal immigrants will end the immediate threat of deportation but may not give them the same privileges as legal residents.

BEIRUT, (Reuters) – A plot hatched by Damascus and allegedly aimed at igniting a Lebanese civil war through a series of bomb attacks has come as little surprise in a nation where blame for political violence has often been laid at Syria’s door.

MARIKANA, South Africa, (Reuters) – The police killing of 34 striking platinum miners in the bloodiest security operation since the end of white rule cut to the core of South Africa’s psyche yesterday, with searching questions asked of its post-apartheid soul.

BEIRUT/UNITED NATIONS,  (Reuters) – The United Nations yesterday confirmed that veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi would become the new international mediator on Syria, as the 17-month-old conflict slid deeper into civil war and refugees fled to Turkey in increasing numbers.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Julian Assange’s supporters outside the London embassy where he is confined say he is being persecuted for speaking truth to power, but free speech campaigners further afield say the WikiLeaks founder has lost his way and damaged the cause.

MARIKANA, South Africa, (Reuters) – South African police opened fire on striking miners armed with machetes and sticks at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine yesterday, killing at least a dozen men in scenes that evoked comparisons with apartheid-era brutality.

BEIRUT,  (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad’s feared brother Maher lost a leg in a bomb attack on the Syrian leader’s security cabinet a month ago, Western and Gulf sources said yesterday.

BAGHDAD,  (Reuters) – A series of bombings and shootings killed more than 70 people across Iraq yesterday in a bloody day of attacks underscoring the country’s struggle with a stubborn insurgency more than half a year after the U.S.

KAMRA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Islamist militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons fought their way into one of Pakistan’s largest air bases yesterday, the air force said, in a brazen challenge to the nuclear-armed country’s powerful military.

LONDON/QUITO,  (Reuters) – Ecuador granted political asylum to WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange yesterday, a day after it said Britain had threatened to raid the Ecuadorean embassy in London to arrest the former hacker.

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – Facebook Inc shares sank 6.3 percent to a record closing low after early investors got the greenlight to sell for the first time since the No.

QUITO/LONDON,  (Reuters) – The diplomatic standoff over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange escalated yesterday after Britain threatened to raid Ecuador’s embassy in London if Quito did not hand over Assange, who has been taking refuge there for two months.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The United States yesterday imposed financial sanctions on two Guatemalans and 24 companies with ties to a Central American drug lord, prohibiting U.S.

MIAMI, (Reuters) – Marlon Morraz, 19, an undocumented immigrant from Nicaragua, wasted no time to sign up for temporary legal status in the United States under the Obama administration’s relaxed deportation rules that took effect yesterday.

PHOENIX,  (Reuters) – Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer, in yet another clash with the White House, issued an order on Wednesday barring illegal immigrants who qualify for temporary legal status in the United States from receiving any state or local public benefits.

CANBERRA, (Reuters) – Australia’s highest court endorsed tough new anti-tobacco marketing laws yesterday, dismissing a legal challenge from global cigarette companies in a major test case between tobacco giants and anti-smoking campaigners.