World News

China slammed the European Union on Friday, just weeks before the two sides hold a summit, for criticising the execution of nine people convicted of violent crimes during ethnic riots in Xinjiang.

A series of blasts tore through a Russian arms depot on Friday, local news agencies reported.
The RIA news agency quoted an emergency official as saying that blasts at the depot in Ulyanovsk, a city on the banks of the Volga River, had been reported by local residents.

France will issue recommendations against full face veils but not pass a law barring Muslim women from wearing them, a leading backer of a legal ban said on Friday.

The United States will send five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to New York to be tried in U.S. federal court, a U.S. official said on Friday.

The European Union is expected to approve plans next week to train some Somali armed forces, an EU official said on Friday.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian stocks and bonds will fall if market-friendly President Alvaro Uribe is barred by the courts from running for a third term next year, a ruling that would upset investors but create buying opportunities.

CHISINAU (Reuters) - Moldova is in a flap over accusations by its new pro-West leaders that communist ex-President Vladimir Voronin took hens, turkeys and even a cow with its calf from an official residence when he stepped down.

A magnitude 6.5 quake shook northern Chile early on Friday, the US Geological Survey said, but there were no reports of any damage or injuries, Chile's state emergency office said.

Delta Air Lines Inc said on Thursday it has suspended a pilot who was charged with attempting to run down police officers with his private plane at a metro-Atlanta airport.

Russia's top general said on Thursday that problems remained in concluding a nuclear arms treaty with the United States, Interfax news agency reported, weeks before the current START agreement expires.

A predominately white South African trade union accused the government on Thursday of putting racial job quotas ahead of fighting crime.

A former CIA agent whose unmasking led to the conviction of former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide lost an appeal on Thursday to declassify parts of her memoir.

Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, convicted last month for his role in an arms scandal in the 1990s, accused former President Jacques Chirac on Thursday of letting illegal weapons sales to Angola go ahead.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has created a powerful new intelligence organisation to try to quell any further public unrest following June's disputed election, an exiled Iranian opposition group said on Thursday.

Poor Hondurans are going hungry and their sick children cannot obtain medicines as donors cut aid to the country following a June coup that deposed President Manuel Zelaya, doctors and aid workers say.

Six Algerians have been arrested as part of a Europe-wide counterfeit ring that stole the identities of Algerian footballers and is believed to have funded terrorism, Italy's interior minister said on Thursday.

Russia's top general said on Thursday problems still remained in concluding a nuclear arms treaty with the United States, Interfax news agency reported, weeks before the current START agreement expires.

Two Swiss businessmen prevented from leaving Libya for more than a year will be tried for tax evasion and visa irregularities, Libya's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards force has replaced its commander for the greater Tehran area, its Web site said on Thursday.

Global food commodities prices are set to stay high in the medium term due to tight balance between supply and demand which can be easily rocked and trigger food price spikes similar to the 2007/08 crisis, agriculture experts say.