World

LONDON, (Reuters) – British detectives investigating claims of phone-hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World newspaper in 2006 were impeded by the company’s staff and feared violence when they tried to search its offices, police said yesterday.

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) – U.N. humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos said yesterday she was “deeply disappointed” that Syria has refused to allow her to the visit the country, where she had hoped to assess the need for emergency relief in besieged towns.

LONDON, (Reuters) – One of Rupert Murdoch’s most senior newspaper executives was given a retired police horse to ride at her country house, police said yesterday, one of the more unusual disclosures in a phone-hacking scandal that has shaken the British media.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe, one of the few remaining Republican moderates in Congress, stunned both parties yesterday by announcing she will not seek re-election for a fourth six-year term in November, citing partisan gridlock.

UNITED NATIONS,  (Reuters) – The United States has drafted an outline for a new U.N.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Texas financier Allen Stanford’s attorneys wound up their defence in his criminal fraud trial yesterday without calling Stanford himself to the stand, ending suspense over whether he would testify.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian artillery pounded rebel-held areas of Homs as President Bashar al-Assad’s government announced that voters had overwhelmingly approved a new constitution in a referendum derided as a sham by his critics at home and abroad.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Security services in Russia and Ukraine said yesterday they had foiled a plot to kill Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, but his opponents ridiculed the announcement as a campaign stunt six days before he runs in Russia’s presidential election.

OSLO (Reuters) – Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning, and former U.S.

ROME (Reuters) – A liner owned by the same company as the Costa Concordia, on which at least 25 people died when it ran aground off Italy last month, was adrift in the Indian Ocean yesterday after a fire in the engine room left it without power, the company said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hollywood showed some love for its history at the Oscars on Sunday, giving its best film award and four others to silent movie The Artist in a ceremony that recalled why cinema is special to so many people.

By Bernd Debusmann As Syrian government forces bombard Homs and other cities with merciless brutality, day after day, calls for arming the opposition are becoming louder.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin said Russia is concerned about the “growing threat” of an attack on Iran over its nuclear programme and warned that the consequences would be “truly catastrophic”.

BOGOTA  (Reuters) – Colombia’s feared FARC rebel group said it would abandon its decades-long policy of kidnapping for ransom and free all military and police hostages it holds in jungle camps, another sign the drug-funded leftist insurgents may want a move toward peace.

LONDON (Reuters) – The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said it would begin publishing more than five million emails on Monday from a US-based global security think tank, apparently obtained by hackers.

DAKAR (Reuters) – Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade, who is seeking to extend his 12-year rule in the West African state despite complaints he is violating term limits, was heckled by scores of voters as he cast his ballot yesterday.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Prominent members of the main Syrian National Council formed a splinter organisation yesterday, exposing the most serious rift among President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents since a popular uprising against his repressive rule erupted in March.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – At least 59 Syrian civilians and soldiers were killed yesterday in bloodshed that coincided with a vote on a new constitution that could keep President Bashar al-Assad in power until 2028.

KATERINI, Greece (Reuters) – Struggling to cope with austerity, hundreds of Greeks in the town of Katerini at the foot of Mount Olympus have turned to a cheap way to do groceries: ordering potatoes on the Internet and picking them up in a parking lot.

KABUL (Reuters) – Two American officers were shot dead at close range in Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry yesterday, a US official said, as rage gripped the country for a fifth day over the burning of the Muslim holy book at a NATO base.