5 Somalis, 7 militants die in attack on UN office
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Al-Qaida-linked militants detonated multiple bomb blasts and breached the main U.N. compound in Mogadishu on Wednesday, sparking gun battles with security forces that killed at least 12 people. U.N. personnel who reached the compound's secure bunker all survived, though officials hinted not all reached that bunker....
Karzai sets new conditions for talks with Taliban
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghanistan's president says he will not pursue peace talks with the Taliban unless the United States steps out of the negotiations and the militant group stops its violent attacks on the ground....
Obama: 'Lives have been saved' by NSA programs
BERLIN (AP) -- Trying to tamp down concerns about government over-reach, President Barack Obama on Wednesday defended U.S. Internet and phone surveillance programs as narrowly targeted efforts that have saved lives and thwarted at least 50 terror threats....
Social-network gaffes plague Japanese politicians
TOKYO (AP) -- On the Internet, no one can save you from yourself. That is a lesson many Japanese politicians have learned recently in painful, awkward and at times costly fashion....
Turkey's 'standing man' to join ranks of icons?
The image was stark: a silent, solitary figure standing in passive defiance to the Turkish prime minister's demand for protesters to clear Taksim Square in central Istanbul....
Protesters out again in Brazil's biggest city
SAO PAULO (AP) -- Tens of thousands of Brazilians again flooded the streets of the country's biggest city to raise a collective cry against a longstanding lament - people are weighed down by high taxes and high prices but get low-quality public services and a system of government infected with corruption....
Dutch manure silo fall kills 3 farmworkers
AMSTERDAM (AP) -- Dutch police say three farmworkers have died and a fourth has been critically injured after they fell into a silo filled with manure for use as fertilizer in the northern town of Makkinga....
Japan formally OKs new nuke safety requirements
TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's nuclear watchdog formally approved a set of new safety requirements for atomic power plants Wednesday, paving the way for the reopening of facilities shut down since the Fukushima disaster....
Floods close Lourdes pilgrimage site in Pyrenees
PARIS (AP) -- Heavy floods in southwest France have forced the closure of the Catholic pilgrimage site in Lourdes and the evacuation of pilgrims from nearby hotels....
World Bank highlights climate-poverty link
STOCKHOLM (AP) -- The World Bank says it will increasingly view its efforts to help developing countries fight poverty through a "climate lens."...
