World

MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – Mexican police captured  the suspected leader of a cult-like drug cartel yesterday in  the latest blow to a gang that was until recently one of the  most notorious in the country.

GENEVA, (Reuters) – The United Nations urged all  governments yesterday to refrain from sending back Haitians to  their country, which is still reeling from an earthquake 18  months ago.

TUNIS (Reuters) – A Tunisian court sentenced former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in absentia yesterday to 35 years in jail, six months after his overthrow in a revolution helped to inspire the “Arab Spring”.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s former President Hosni Mubarak is suffering from cancer, his defence lawyer said yesterday, citing a medical report to assess whether the former leader is fit enough to face trial.

LONDON (Reuters) – More investment in midwifery could save many of the millions of babies and hundreds of thousands of women who still die every year because of a lack of skilled healthcare during childbirth, the United Nations said yesterday.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – An eight-year-old Pakistani girl was kidnapped by Islamist militants who forced her to wear a suicide vest to attack security forces, police said yesterday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – At least 44 people were killed when a passenger plane broke up and caught fire on coming into land in heavy fog in north-western Russia, an Emergency Ministry spokeswoman said today.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – UN chief Ban Ki-moon may have almost blown his chances for re-election by antagonizing Moscow over the Balkans in 2008 but he has since focused on pleasing the United States, Russia and other big UN powers, making his re-election today a certainty.

BONN, Germany, (Reuters) – “Ask for a camel when you  expect to get a goat,” runs a Somali saying that sums up the  fading of ambitions for United Nations talks on slowing climate  change — aim high, but settle for far less.

MOSCOW, (Reuters) – Yelena Bonner, a relentless  critic of human rights abuses by Soviet-era authorities and the  widow of Nobel Peace laureate Andrei Sakharov, has died at the  age of 88, her children said.

BAGHDAD,  (Reuters) – Iraq’s parliament is chasing  about $17 billion of Iraqi oil money it says was stolen after  the 2003 U.S.-led

TRIPOLI – NATO admitted yesterday that its weapons destroyed  a house in Tripoli in which Libyan officials said nine civilians  were killed, an incident likely to sow new doubts inside the  alliance about its mission in Libya.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.,  (Reuters) – The pleated  ivory dress that blew around Marilyn Monroe in an iconic scene  from “The Seven Year Itch” sold for $4.6 million at a weekend  auction of Hollywood costumes — far exceeding its estimate.

KABUL (Reuters) – The United States is in contact with the Taliban about a possible settlement to the war in Afghanistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said yesterday, the first official confirmation of US involvement in negotiations.

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Rebels waging a drawn-out war to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have run out of money, their oil chief said yesterday, and he accused the West of failing to keep its promises of urgent financial aid.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner teamed up in a golf match yesterday to try to build a friendlier climate for troubled talks on the US debt and deficits.

LUSAKA (Reuters) – Frederick Chiluba, Zambia’s first democratically elected president who fought off corruption charges after standing down, has died aged 68, a government spokesman said yesterday.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian troops and gunmen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad stormed a town near the Turkish border yesterday, burning houses and arresting dozens, witnesses said, in a persistent military campaign to crush popular revolt.

PALERMO, Sicily, (Reuters) – Pope Benedict said yesterday the Mafia represented “a path of death” that Sicily’s  young should shun but he dismayed activists who said he was too  timid and should have given the crime group a moral hammering.