World

ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) – Twelve Mexican policemen were killed in a mountain highway ambush hours after the severed heads of 10 people were dumped in a small town in a key illegal-drug-growing region, an official said yesterday.

NABI SALEH, West Bank (Reuters) – Jewish settlers have seized dozens of natural springs in the occupied West Bank, barring Palestinians or limiting their access to scarce water sources, a United Nations report said yesterday.

TANGAIL, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Their faces painted heavy with make-up, teenage girls in short, tight blouses and long petticoats loiter in squalid alleys, laughing and gesturing to potential clients who roam Tangail town’s infamous red light area in the early evening.

MEXICO CITY,  (Reuters) – The unity that helped Mexico’s ruling conservatives end seven decades of one-party rule is cracking under the weight of infighting, scandal and defections that threaten their hopes of retaining the presidency in July.

AMMAN, (Reuters) – A heavy firefight broke out last night between Free Syrian Army rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in a main district of the capital Damascus, witnesses said.

BISSAU,  (Reuters) – Guinea Bissau’s former head of military intelligence, Colonel Samba Diallo, was shot dead at a bar near his residence in the capital Bissau late yesterday, hours after a presidential election, witnesses and a security source said.

JAKARTA,  (Reuters) – Indonesian police shot dead five suspected militants in Bali overnight who had identified and surveyed targets they were planning to attack, the national counter terrorism agency said last night, and were linked to the banned Jemaah Islamiah group.

BANGKOK,  (Reuters) – Chaleo Yoovidhya, who rose from poverty to become one of the world’s richest men thanks to astute marketing of the “Red Bull” energy drink, has died in his native Thailand.

COTONOU,  (Reuters) – Leaders of eight African Union countries failed on Saturday to break a deadlock over the leadership of the 54-member body, highlighting divisions that have repeatedly stymied its decision-making.

(Jamaica Observer) A young, reformed gangster who said he committed his first murder when he was 14 years old confessed that during his days as a member of the Fatherless Crew he was contracted to kill Parliamentarian Dr Omar Davies.

SAN FRANCISCO, (Reuters) – Apple Inc, the world’s most valuable company, is poised today to confront one of the biggest questions in corporate America: what it plans to do with its $98 billion cash hoard.

BARA, Pakistan, (Reuters) – Villagers found 14 bullet-ridden bodies scattered around the Bara area of the northwestern Khyber tribal region near the Afghanistan border yesterday, as Pakistani security forces step up military offensives against militants.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Two explosions struck the heart of Damascus yesterday, killing at least 27 people in an attack on security installations that state television blamed on “terrorists” seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sang, danced with his daughter and vowed yesterday to win a presidential election this year, a day after returning from what he said was a successful operation to remove a second tumour.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan authorities said yesterday that 11 members of an investigative police unit were suspected in the fatal late-night shooting of a Chilean diplomat’s teenage daughter while she was riding in a car with her brother.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China put rare public pressure on ally North Korea over the reclusive state’s plan to launch a long-range rocket which is raising tension in the region and could scupper a recent aid deal with the United States.

NOUAKCHOTT/TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Mauritania arrested Muammar Gaddafi’s ex-spy chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, after he arrived on an overnight flight, officials said yesterday, triggering a three-way tussle for his extradition.

TACOMA/WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The soldier implicated in the massacre of 16 villagers in Afghanistan this week, an incident that sent American-Afghan relations into a tailspin, is U.S.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – Syrian estrangement from fellow Arab leaders is a deeply personal affair, as apparently hacked emails between President Bashar al-Assad and his wife illustrate.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who has agonised about schisms in the Anglican Communion over women and gay bishops and same-sex unions, announced unexpectedly on Friday that he would step down at the end of the year.