World

LONDON (Reuters) – An obsession with sex and divorce is running rampant through British society, the Bishop of London said yesterday, urging Britons to use Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations as a chance to reflect and change their ways.

(Reuters) – Florida, a key US electoral battleground where the 2000 presidential election was decided by a few hundred ballots, will decide in the coming days whether to heed a US Justice Department warning to stop its campaign to purge ineligible voters, a state spokesman said yesterday.

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan  (Reuters) – A NATO rescue team dropped by helicopter in the remote mountains of northern Afghanistan early yesterday freed four aid workers, including two foreigners, who had been seized by the Taliban last month, the alliance said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Desperate Housewives” actress Kathryn Joosten, who won two Emmy awards for her supporting role as a nosy neighbour on the recently ended hit show, died of lung cancer on Saturday, her spokeswoman said.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A radical plan to slash public employee pension benefits gets voted on by the residents of Silicon Valley’s San Jose on Tuesday – a decision that could set an important precedent for many other cities, not only in California but across the nation.

TROMSO, Norway (Reuters) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sailed yesterday through a sliver of the Arctic Ocean, where the world’s big powers are vying for vast oil, gas and mineral deposits becoming available as polar ice recedes.

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) – Iran is poised to offer the Syrian authorities a short-term food lifeline with vital grains purchases as Western sanctions and mounting violence deter trade houses from doing deals with Damascus, international traders say.

HONG KONG,  (Reuters) – A Chinese state security official has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the United States, sources said, a case both countries have kept quiet for several months as they strive to prevent a fresh crisis in relations.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – Cristina Iaboni had the dubious distinction of being not quite obese enough.

BANGKOK,  (Reuters) – Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi urged foreign firms yesterday to invest cautiously in fast-changing Myanmar and give priority to creating jobs as much as making profits to help defuse the “time bomb” that is the country’s high unemployment rate.

BEIRUT – Peace envoy Kofi Annan said yesterday he was “frustrated and impatient” a week after a massacre in Syria of 108 people shocked the world, and there were signs Russia might be moving closer to the West’s position on tackling the crisis.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Fukushima, Japan, last year wreaked havoc in the skies above as well, disturbing electrons in the upper atmosphere, NASA reported.

OSLO, (Reuters) – The United States and Norway each pledged yesterday to give in the range of $75 million to help protect mothers during labour, delivery and the first 24 hours after birth.

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT,  (Reuters) – The U.S. military is prepared for any action against Syria that may be necessary, but officials are still focused on more aggressive international pressure to bring about the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, U.S.

LONDON, (Reuters) – British cabinet ministers worked behind the scenes to support James Murdoch’s bid to take over a pay-TV company, a public inquiry heard yesterday, adding weight to opposition criticism of the government’s ties to powerful media barons.

GREENSBORO, N.C.,  (Reuters) – Former U.S. Senator John Edwards was acquitted yesterday on one count of accepting illegal campaign contributions, and the judge declared a mistrial on five other counts because the jury was deadlocked.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – The number of people with cancer is set to surge by more than 75 percent across the world by 2030, with particularly sharp rises in poor countries as they adopt unhealthy “Westernised” lifestyles, a study said yesterday.

SAO PAULO,  (Reuters) – A pair of women’s underwear that fell out of a Brazilian legislator’s briefcase on the floor of Congress two weeks ago has been incinerated after no one stepped forward to claim them, O Globo newspaper reported yesterday.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – A scientific study likely to stir the souls of chocoholics has suggested that eating dark chocolate every day for 10 years could reduce the likelihood of heart attacks and strokes in some high-risk patients.

THE HAGUE,  (Reuters) – Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was jailed for 50 years yesterday for helping Sierra Leonean rebels commit what a court in The Hague called some of the worst war crimes in history.