World

 BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Brazil will get $8 billion in  financing from the World Bank to push its campaign to uproot  extreme hardship deeper into some of the country’s poorest  areas, the bank said yesterday.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A crisis facing U.S.  Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain threatened to  escalate yesterday even as he declared himself the victim of a  “smear campaign” over allegations of sexual harassment.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States said yesterday it had stopped funding UNESCO, the UN cultural agency, following its vote to grant the Palestinians full membership.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libya’s ruling National Tran-sitional Council has elected little-known academic Abdul Raheem al-Keeb as the new interim prime minister to guide the country as it emerges from a bitter civil war towards a new constitution and democratic elections.

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe denied speculation his health is failing and hinted at taking action against Swiss firms in retaliation for his wife and aides being denied visas to visit Geneva, the official Herald newspaper reported yesterday.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Devastation from a rare and deadly October snowstorm lingered in the US Northeast where 1.6 million homes were still without power yesterday, schools were closed and downed trees and powerlines snarled traffic.

DOHA (Reuters) – The Arab League awaited a response from Syria yesterday to its proposal to end seven months of increasingly violent unrest against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule and to start talks between Syrian authorities and their opponents.

AMMAN, (Reuters) – The Arab League handed Syrian officials a plan for ending seven months of increasingly violent unrest against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, and Assad told Russian Television he would cooperate with the opposition.

(Reuters) – Law enforcement officials in Arizona  seized thousands of pounds of narcotics and arrested at least  70 suspected drug smugglers with apparent ties to a violent  drug cartel in Mexico, an official involved with the  investigation in the U.S.

BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Colombians elected one-time  guerrilla Gustavo Petro as Bogota mayor, the Andean nation’s  second most powerful post after the presidency, in a poll yesterday devoid of the bloodshed that marked campaigning.

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – The wife and son of financial  swindler Bernard Madoff said in their first interview to be  broadcast on Sunday that they knew nothing of his estimated $65  billion Ponzi scheme, but feel shame for his “unforgiveable”  crime.

BAGHPAT, India, (TrustLaw) – When Munni arrived in  this fertile, sugarcane-growing region of north India as a young  bride years ago, little did she imagine she would be forced into  having sex and bearing children with her husband’s two brothers  who had failed to find wives.

LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – Animated movie “Puss in  Boots” landed on its feet with a $51 million global debut over  the weekend and likely set a Halloween weekend record for a  domestic opening, according to studio estimates released yesterday.

PERTH, Australia, (Reuters) – Commonwealth leaders yesterday defended their moves to toughen support for human rights,  rejecting criticism the group was becoming irrelevant and had  failed at their three-day summit to hold member Sri Lanka  accountable for alleged abuses.

TRIPOLI/BEIJING (Reuters) – The International Criminal Court said yesterday that Libya’s Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was in contact via intermediaries about surrendering for trial, but it also had information mercenaries were trying to spirit him to a friendly African nation.

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil’s popular former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was diagnosed with throat cancer yesterday, casting doubt on his political future in Latin America’s largest economy.

LONDON (Reuters) – Western powers risk causing an “earthquake” that would burn the Middle East if they intervene in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview with Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

KABUL (Reuters) – A suicide car bomber yesterday killed 13 troops and civilian employees of the NATO-led force in Kabul, including Americans and a Canadian, in the deadliest single ground attack against the coalition in 10 years of war in Afghanistan.

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian prosecutors are to investigate whether former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, jailed for abuse of power, was involved in the murder of a member of parliament, news agency Unian quoted a senior prosecutor yesterday as saying.

BOSTON (Reuters) – A rare October snowstorm bore down on the heavily populated US Northeast yesterday, knocking out electricity, delaying flights and threatening some areas with up to a foot (30 cm) of snow.