World

LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – Singer-songwriter Carly Simon, 66, known for 1970s smash hits like “You’re So Vain,” is being honoured this week with the prestigious ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) Founders Award.

BEIRUT, (Reuters) – A United Nations mission to oversee an end to violence in Syria may need to bring in its own aircraft and deploy more troops to ensure that a firm ceasefire takes hold throughout the country, U.N.

CHONGQING, China, (Reuters) – Chinese politician Bo Xilai initially agreed to a police probe of his wife’s role in the murder of a British businessman before abruptly reversing course and demoting his police chief, causing upheavals that led to the downfall of both men, sources said.

TORONTO/OTTAWA, (Reuters) – Canada will streamline the way it reviews major industrial projects in a bid to speed the development of mines and pipelines, a move opponents said could trigger an environmental disaster.

(Reuters) – Berkshire Hatha-way Inc Chief Executive Warren Buffett disclosed yesterday that he has stage 1 prostate cancer but said his condition “is not remotely life-threatening or even debilitating in any meaningful way.”

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – U.S. Secret Service agents and military personnel took as many as 21 women back to their hotel in Colombia in an incident last week involving alleged misconduct with prostitutes, a Republican senator said yesterday.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A U.S. government official at the center of an election-year spending scandal kept traveling far and wide at taxpayers’ expense – long after his boss was advised a year ago of suspected abuses, according to a congressional review released yesterday.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – A British court sentenced the former governor of a Nigerian oil state to 13 years in prison today after he pleaded guilty to embezzling 50 million pounds ($79 million) in one of the biggest money-laundering cases seen in Britain.

LONDON, (Reuters) – A British prosecutor yesterday charted the extraordinary rise of James Ibori from a petty thief in London to a powerful governor in Nigeria, describing a web of bogus firms he used to buy mansions and luxury cars in Britain with his stolen millions.

LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – Eight men charged with running an elaborate online narcotics market that sold drugs to 3,000 people in the United States and 34 other countries have been arrested following a two-year investigation dubbed “Operation Adam Bomb,” prosecutors said on Monday.

(Trinidad Guardian) Trinidad and Tobago and other Caricom states are expected to benefit from US$130 million in financial assistance from US President Barack Obama to deal with crime and security in the region.

CHONGQING, China, (Reuters) – The British businessman whose murder has sparked political upheaval in China was poisoned after he threatened to expose a plan by a Chinese leader’s wife to move money abroad, two sources with knowledge of the police investigation said.

CARTAGENA, Colombia, (Reuters) – President Barack Obama sat patiently through diatribes, interruptions and even the occasional eye-ball roll at the weekend Summit of the Americas in an effort to win over Latin American leaders fed up with U.S.

CARTAGENA, Colombia, (Reuters) – Unprecedented Latin American opposition to U.S. sanctions on Cuba left President Barack Obama isolated at a summit yesterday and illustrated Washington’s declining influence in a region being aggressively courted by China.

CARTAGENA, Colombia, (Reuters) – The U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement will enter into force next month, far earlier than expected, as a result of what the Obama administration called “historic” progress for Colombian worker protections and human rights.

BEIRUT, (Reuters) – U.N. peace monitors are due to start their mission in Syria today to oversee a shaky ceasefire undermined by persistent violence and the shelling of the opposition stronghold of Homs by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

KABUL,  (Reuters) – Heavy explosions, rockets and gunfire rattled Kabul yesterday as Afghanistan’s Taliban launched a “spring offensive” with multiple attacks targeting Western embassies, the NATO force’s headquarters and the parliament building.

SAN SALVADOR,  (Reuters) – No one was murdered in El Salvador on Saturday, officials said, in what was the first homicide-free day in nearly three years for the Central American country plagued by violent drug gangs.

OKLAHOMA CITY, (Reuters) – Clean-up efforts were underway across the Midwest yesterday after dozens of tornadoes ripped across the region, killing five people in one Oklahoma town, three of them young girls, after storm sirens failed to sound and houses were reduced to rubble.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The United Nations will send an advance team of observers to Syria today to start monitoring a shaky ceasefire, even as a surge in violence on the ground threatened to derail international efforts to end more than a year of bloodshed.