World

PHOENIX, (Reuters) – Veteran Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio, self-described as “America’s toughest sheriff,” denied yesterday that his deputies targeted people because of the color of their skin in a controversial crackdown on illegal immigration.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Western states expressed alarm after Syria acknowledged for the first time that it has chemical and biological weapons and said it could use them if foreign countries intervene.

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Thousands of people have fled their homes in India’s northeastern Assam state after fighting between indigenous tribes and Muslim settlers killed at least 19 people, wounded many more, and left villages in flames, police said yesterday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – At least 107 people were killed in bomb and gun attacks in Iraq yesterday, a day after 20 died in explosions, in a coordinated surge of violence against mostly Shi’ite Muslim targets.

BAB AL-SALAM, Syria, (Reuters) – Syrian troops have driven rebel fighters out of two districts of Damascus a week after the insurgents launched a major assault on the capital.

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – Pranab Mukherjee, a former finance minister of India and senior leader of the ruling Congress party, has been elected as the new president, a government official said yesterday.

AURORA, Colo., (Reuters) – President Barack Obama visited with friends and family of the Colorado movie theater shooting victims yesterday, joining local officials and residents in mourning those who died.

BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Colombia’s largest rebel group has blown up a section of the 220,000-barrel-per-day-capacity Cano Limon-Covenas oil pipeline, Ecopetrol and the army said yesterday, in the latest in a series of attacks on oil infrastructure.

OSLO,  (Reuters) – Vietnam, Laos and Mozambique are the countries that do the least to crack down on an illegal trade in animal parts that is threatening the survival of elephants, rhinos and tigers, the WWF conservation group said yesterday.

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian troops and armoured vehicles pushed into a rebel-held district of Aleppo yesterday and struck back in Damascus against fighters emboldened by a bomb attack against President Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle.

LONDON (Reuters) – News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch has stepped down from a string of boards overseeing the Sun, Times and Sunday Times newspapers in Britain, the company said in an internal memo yesterday.

(Reuters) – As darkness descended over Damascus last Saturday, few of its 1.7 million residents could have had any inkling that a decisive battle to wrest the city from the grasp of President Bashar al-Assad was about to begin.

AURORA, Colo.,  (Reuters) – A gunman in a gas mask and body armour killed 12 people at a midnight premiere of the new “Batman” movie in a suburb of Denver early yesterday, opening fire on moviegoers after hurling a gas canister into the theater.

SAN ANTONIO, (Reuters) – Among the victims of yesterday’s mass shooting at a midnight screening of the latest “Batman” movie was an aspiring sportscaster from Texas who missed by minutes being on the scene of another shooting rampage just a month before in Toronto.

BEIJING, (Reuters) – Impoverished North Korea is gearing up to experiment with agricultural and economic reforms after young leader Kim Jong-un and his powerful uncle purged the country’s top general for opposing change, a source with ties to both Pyongyang and Beijing said.

AMMAN/CILVEGOZU, Turkey, (Reuters) – Rebels seized control of sections of Syria’s international borders and torched the main police headquarters in the heart of old Damascus, advancing relentlessly after the assassination of President Bashar al-Assad’s closest lieutenants.

BEIJING, (Reuters) – Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday offered $20 billion in loans to African countries over the next three years, boosting a relationship that has been criticised by the West and given Beijing growing access to the resource-rich continent.

(Reuters) – Thousands of mourners, including Bollywood stars, gathered yesterday for the funeral of actor Rajesh Khanna, braving heavy rains and traffic jams in Mumbai.

HOUSTON,  (Reuters) – Allen Stanford, convicted of leading a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, is serving his 110-year sentence in a high-security federal prison in central Florida, according to the U.S

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The suicide bomber who attacked a crisis meeting of Bashar al-Assad’s security officials yesterday did more than just kill and wound some of Syria’s most senior figures.