World

CAIRO (Reuters) – The race for the Egyptian presidency took a dramatic turn yesterday when the authorities disqualified front-runners including Hosni Mubarak’s spy chief, a Muslim Brotherhood candidate and a Salafi cleric whose lawyer warned that “a major crisis” was looming.

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla has admitted for the first time that the country’s brutal 1976-1983 dictatorship “disappeared” leftist opponents, a euphemism for kidnapped and murdered, and said babies were taken from their parents.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – At their first meeting after a year of sanctions and sabre-rattling over Iran’s nuclear programme, negotiators from Tehran and six world powers said “constructive” talks yesterday meant they would sit down again together next month.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez will not attend this weekend’s hemispheric summit in Colombia and will instead fly straight to Cuba to continue radiation treatment for cancer, his foreign minister said yesterday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – No one is exactly using the words “reading” and “baboons” in the same sentence, but a study published Thursday comes close.

CARTAGENA, Colombia (Reuters) – US President Barack Obama tried yesterday to convince skeptical Latin Americans that Washington has not turned its back on them, but ruled out a drug policy U-turn that some in the region want.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s most lurid political scandal in years could claim yet another victim – the boldness to grasp difficult reforms needed to ward off mounting risks to growth and stability.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Tensions among some of the world’s leading economies have boiled up over a plan to raise new resources for the International Monetary Fund to contain the euro zone debt crisis, and a quest by emerging economies to win more say in the global lender.

LONDON (Reuters) – Singer Robin Gibb, a founding member of the disco-era hit machine the Bee Gees, is in a coma after contracting pneumonia, his official website said yesterday.

CARTAGENA, Colombia, (Reuters) – Washington should turn back to alliances with neighbours in Latin America rather than focus on faraway conflicts like Afghanistan, Colombia’s president said yesterday before welcoming U.S.

WASHINGTON/BRASILIA,  (Reuters) – Former Colombian finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo yesterday withdrew his candidacy for World Bank president, leaving two candidates in a race that he said had turned highly political.

BEIRUT, (Reuters) – Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad shot dead five protesters after Friday prayers, activists reported, while the government said an army officer was killed as violence marred a ceasefire brokered by international peace envoy Kofi Annan.

BUENOS AIRES, (Reuters) – A baby declared stillborn and then later found alive by her parents at a morgue in Argentina was in critical condition yesterday after taking a turn for the worse overnight, a hospital official said.

MADRID, (Reuters) – Spain yesterday threatened Argentina with retaliation if it nationalised oil major Repsol’s YPF operation, raising the stakes in a long-running row over production at the Argentine unit.

BEIRUT,  (Reuters) – Syrian troops held their fire yesterday after a U.N.-backed

SEOUL,  (Reuters) – North Korea’s much hyped long-range rocket apparently crashed into the sea a few minutes after launch yesterday, U.S.

BISSAU, (Reuters) – Soldiers in Guinea-Bissau attacked the residence of former Prime Minister and presidential election front-runner Carlos Gomes Junior yesterday in what regional ministers condemned as an attempted coup in the small West African state.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The Pentagon is establishing a fast-track acquisition process that would enable it to develop new cyber warfare capabilities within days or months if urgently needed, the Defense Department said in a report to Congress.

BEIJING,  (Reuters) – China’s most lurid political scandal in years could claim yet another victim – the boldness to grasp difficult reforms needed to ward off mounting risks to growth and stability.

OSLO,  (Reuters) – Anders Behring Breivik was sane when he killed 77 people in attacks he saw as punishing pro-immigration “traitors” in Norway, a psychiatric team said on Tuesday, contradicting a prior report that found him psychotic.