World

ASSISI, Italy, (Reuters) – Pope Benedict, leading a  global inter-religious meeting,  acknowledged yesterday “with  great shame” that Christianity had used force in its long  history as he joined other religious leaders in condemning  violence and terrorism in God’s name.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors charged 11  people yesterday in connection with an alleged $1 billion  fraud involving hundreds of railroad workers filing false  disability claims.

DUBAI, (Reuters) – Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, fearing for  his life if captured in Libya, has tried to arrange for an  aircraft to fly him out of his desert refuge and into the  custody of The Hague war crimes court, a senior Libyan official  said yesterday.

AMMAN, (Reuters) – Cracks in Syria’s military are  widening along sectarian lines, say analysts, fuelling an armed  mutiny that may pose an even greater threat to President Bashar  al-Assad than the street protests which have rocked the country  for months.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – Several new companies are betting  on the little-known pongamia pinnata tree as a biodiesel  feedstock that does not hurt food production, but a decade or  more of research and development is still needed to determine  its value as a commercial crop.

PERTH, Australia, (Reuters) – Common-wealth foreign  ministers meeting yesterday were split over how tough to get  on human rights abuses in member countries, an issue which one  official said their leaders were unlikely to resolve at a summit  later in the week.

BUENOS AIRES, (Reuters) – Alfredo Astiz, Argentina’s  infamous “Blond Angel of Death,” and 11 other death squad  members from the 1970s were jailed for life on Wednesday in one  of the country’s biggest human rights cases.

MONTEVIDEO, (Reuters) – Uruguay’s Congress passed  legislation  yesterday that allows fresh investigations into  human rights abuses committed by the military during a  1973-1985 dictatorship despite a controversial amnesty law.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Taking two aspirin a day for two  years reduces the long-term risk of bowel cancer in people with  a family history of the disease by around 60 percent, according  to a British study published yesterday.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Saif al-Islam Gaddafi wants to turn himself in to The Hague war crimes court, a senior Libyan official told Reuters yesterday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Rajat Gupta, who sat on the boards of some of America’s most prestigious companies, was arrested and charged yesterday with being the “illegal eyes and ears” for his friend Raj Rajaratnam, the central figure in a broad US crackdown on insider trading at hedge funds.

ERCIS Turkey (Reuters) – Turkey struggled to provide shelter yesterday to tens of thousands left homeless by an earthquake that killed nearly 500, and rescue teams began taking painful decisions to call off searches for those buried alive.

AMMAN (Reuters) – At least 20 people died in clashes and strikes paralysed parts of Syria yesterday as President Bashar al-Assad held an inconclusive meeting with Arab ministers seeking to end months of violence.

TUNIS (Reuters) – When hundreds of Tunisians drove through the capital sounding their horns and waving scarves this week to celebrate the election victory of an Islamist party, there was little jubilation in the Ennasr neighbourhood.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The wife of financial swindler Bernard Madoff said in an interview to be aired on Sunday that the couple attempted suicide by taking pills on Christmas Eve 2008 after his estimated $65 billion Ponzi scheme was exposed.

TUNIS, (Reuters) – Tunisia’s moderate Islamist party  yesterday claimed a thumping victory in the country’s first  election, sending a message to the region that once-banned  Islamists are challenging for power after the “Arab Spring”.

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) – The U.N. General  Assembly called yesterday for the 20th straight year on the  United States to lift its trade embargo against Cuba, as the  communist-run island dismissed as fraudulent U.S.

ERCIS, Turkey, (Reuters) – Rescuers pulled a  two-week-old baby girl alive from a collapsed apartment block yesterday as they battled to find survivors of an earthquake in  eastern Turkey that killed more than 400 people and made tens of  thousands homeless.

LOS ROQUES, Venezuela, (Reuters) – Luxury yachts  weigh anchor in pristine turquoise bays and small boats carry  wealthy families with deck chairs and picnic baskets through  the waves to the white sands of Francisqui Island.

MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – Hurricane Rina intensified  in the Caribbean today, moving farther from recently  rain-hit coffee and sugar-growing countries in Central America  as it bears down on the popular Mexican resort Cancun.