World

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The UN Security Council yesterday expanded sanctions against Eritrea for continuing to provide support to Islamist militants, including al Shabaab, in the virtually lawless Horn of Africa nation of Somalia.

Movie actor and director Dev  Anand, known for his joie de vivre as Bollywood’s “evergreen  hero”, has died aged 88, Reuters reported yesterday bringing, it said, the end to an  era of Indian cinema.

ORDOS, China, (Reuters) – The monumental,  neo-Mongolian sculptures, empty plazas and hulking concrete  shells of buildings in Ordos, deep in the steppes of Inner  Mongolia, are a potent symbol of how China’s property boom can  turn to bust.

MOSCOW, (Reuters) – Russian voters dealt  Vladimir Putin’s ruling party a heavy blow yesterday by cutting  its parliamentary majority in an election that showed growing  unease with his domination of the country as he prepares to  reclaim the presidency.

RIO DE JANEIRO, (Reuters) – Brazil’s Labour Minis-ter  Carlos Lupi resigned yesterday in the face of mounting  corruption allegations, the latest in a series of  scandal-driven departures from President Dilma Rousseff’s  cabinet.

(Reuters) – At least a dozen Syrian secret  police have defected from an intelligence compound, activists  said, in what appeared to be the first major desertion from a  service that has acted as a pillar of President Bashar  al-Assad’s rule.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The sun’s abundant energy,  if harvested in space, could provide a cost-effective way to  meet global power needs in as little as 30 years with seed  money from governments, according to a study by an  international scientific group.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – President Barack Obama yesterday called Pakistan’s president to offer condolences over a  NATO air strike that killed 24 Pakistani troops and provoked a  crisis in relations between the two countries.

MUMBAI, (Reuters) – India has put a plan to open  up its retail industry to foreign supermarkets on hold, a senior  government source said yesterday, an embarrassing turnaround for  a beleaguered government fighting to retain the support of key  allies.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood called on its rivals to accept the will of the people yesterday after a first-round vote set its party on course to take the most seats in the country’s first freely elected parliament in six decades.

CARACAS (Reuters) – A new Latin American and Caribbean organization backed Argentina’s claim to sovereignty over the British-ruled Falkland Islands and slammed US sanctions on Cuba at yesterday’s end of a two-day summit.

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin’s ruling party could see its vast parliamentary majority cut back in elections that began today in the icy tundra and sparsely-populated swathes of Russia’s far east.

ATLANTA (Reuters) – US Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain effectively ended his 2012 White House race yesterday, saying “false and unproved” sexual accusations have made it impossible for him to carry on a credible campaign.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – At least 23 people were reported killed in Syria yesterday as violence intensified in the eighth month of an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, pushing the death toll close to 4,600, an activist group said.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – The storming of the British Embassy in Tehran has bared a rift in Iran’s ruling elite with conservative hardliners pushing Iran towards global isolation as they manoeuvre for the upper hand over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ahead of elections in 2012.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Showing off new energy after his  recent cancer treatment, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez  hosted Latin American leaders at a meeting yesterday to create  a new regional body that pointedly excludes the United States.

PARIS/BERLIN – British Prime Minister David Cameron  threatened yesterday to obstruct a Franco-German drive for swift  change to the European Union’s treaty, a sign of the difficulty  leaders will face transforming Europe to save the euro.  – – – –         CAIRO – More than eight million Egyptians voted in the  opening round of their first free vote in six decades in what  the election chief said yesterday was a turnout of 62 percent,  far higher than in the rigged polls of deposed President Hosni  Mubarak.  – – – –         TEHRAN/LONDON – All Iranian diplomats left Britain yesterday, expelled in response to protesters storming the British  embassy in Tehran, hardening a confrontation between Tehran and  the West over its nuclear programme.  – – – –         GENEVA – The United Nations top human rights forum strongly  condemned Syria yesterday for “gross and systematic” violations  by its forces, including executions, and set the stage for  possible action by U.N.

(Reuters) – A cyber warfare expert claims he has  linked the Stuxnet computer virus that attacked Iran’s nuclear  program in 2010 to Conficker, a mysterious “worm” that surfaced  in late 2008 and infected millions of PCs.

GENEVA,  (Reuters) – Syria is on the cusp of  civil war as rebel soldiers and others take up arms against the  government of President Bashar al-Assad, the top U.N.

PALENQUE, Mexico, (Reuters) – If you are worried the  world will end next year based on the Mayan calendar, relax:  the end of time is still far off.