World

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – A judge yesterday delayed the sentencing of Jamaican drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke for months by requiring federal prosecutors to prove the gang leader’s life of violence extended far beyond his admitted crimes.

KABUL,  (Reuters) – President Hamid Karzai called yesterday for NATO troops to leave Afghan villages and confine themselves to major bases after the slaughter of 16 villagers by a U.S.

BEIRUT/LONDON,  (Reuters) – “I’ve been a walking heartache; I’ve made a mess of me” – the first words of a country music lament which, it seems, Syria’s president e-mailed to his wife as his army shelled the rebellious city of Homs last month.

(Reuters) – Pop star Rihanna called her recent musical collaboration with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown “innocent,” after critics and fans split on the duo working together three years after Brown assaulted the pop star.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – British police and support staff must prove their fitness in annual tests or have their pay docked after a survey found 64 percent were overweight, obese or morbidly obese, a review concluded yesterday.

BEIRUT – Syrian forces pressed their military offensive in the northern province of Idlib, driving 1,000 refugees across the Turkish border as the bloody revolt against President Bashar al-Assad entered a second year with no sign of political solution.

BUENOS AIRES, (Reuters) – Argentina will take legal action against any companies involved in oil exploration off the disputed Falkland Islands as part of a drive to pressure Britain into sovereignty talks, the foreign minister said yesterday.

MEXICO CITY,  (Reuters) – Mexico has yielded to Brazilian pressure to slash auto sales to the southern giant, fixing an export quota for the next three years to save a decade-old trade agreement between Latin America’s two dominant economies.

BEIRUT,  (Reuters) – Syria marks the first anniversary yesterday of an increasingly bloody uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, with recent army gains unlikely to quell the revolt and no diplomatic solution in sight.

MARACAIBO, Venezuela, (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition candidate sharply criticized socialist President Hugo Chavez for having cancer treatment in Cuba rather than trusting doctors at home, saying it sends a terrible message to ordinary Venezuelans.

THE HAGUE,  (Reuters) – The war crimes court at The Hague found Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty yesterday in its first ever ruling after a decade of work limited largely to Africa while major cases elsewhere remain beyond its reach.

MOSCOW,  (Reuters) – Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg is considering suing RUSAL over accusations that he failed to fulfil his duties as its chairman, intensifying a battle with rival oligarch Oleg Deripaska at the world’s largest aluminium producer.

LONDON/NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs faced an unprecedented assault from one of its own yesterday after a banker published a withering resignation letter in the New York Times, calling the Wall Street titan a “toxic” place where managing directors referred to their own clients as “muppets.”

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Rick Santorum is winning the hearts of Republican conservatives but the cold realities of time and math are working against his presidential election effort.

NEW DELHI,  (Reuters) – Rahul Gandhi slept under the stars in rural India, he shared simple meals of lentil curry and bread with poor villagers, and he was even arrested for joining farmers in a land protest.

BEIRUT,  (Reuters) – U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan kept up efforts to broker a halt to hostilities as Syrian government forces killed dozens of people in the northern city of Idlib, dumping their bodies in a mosque, opposition activists said.

MOSCOW, (Reuters) – Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg quit yesterday as chairman of the world’s largest aluminium producer, UC RUSAL, saying the heavily indebted company was in deep crisis after a long battle with rival oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

WASHINGTON/KABUL,  (Reuters) – President Barack Obama sought yesterday to dispel Afghan anger over a U.S.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – In yet another sign of the growing dominance of the digital publishing market, the oldest English-language encyclopedia still in print is moving solely into the digital age.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – The BBC has suffered a sophisticated cyber-attack following a campaign by Iranian authorities against its Persian service, director-general Mark Thompson said yesterday.