March 9, 2010
STOCKHOLM – A dozen centuries-old shipwrecks — some of them unusually well-preserved — have been found in the Baltic Sea by a gas company building an underwater pipeline between Russia and Germany.
The oldest wreck probably dates back to medieval times and could be up to 800 years old, while the others are likely from the 17th to 19th centuries, Peter Norman of Sweden's National Heritage Board said Tuesday.
International
March 9, 2010
AMSTERDAM – China joined India on Tuesday in giving qualified approval to the Copenhagen climate accord calling for voluntary limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
The official messages to the U.N. climate change secretariat did little to ease the pessimism that a legal international agreement on global warming can be concluded this year.
International
March 9, 2010
Tehran: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit Afghanistan, the Mehr news agency reported Sunday.
Ahmadinejad will start the one-day visit on Monday and confer with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai on bilateral and international issues, the report said.
Afghanistan is one of the few countries where Iran and its arch-foe the United States have common interests, and common enemies such as the Taliban Islamists. Both sides also support the government of Karzai.
The Iranian president has often said the dilemma in Afghanistan could not be solved by military means.
International
March 9, 2010
JERUSALEM – Israel approved the construction of 1,600 new homes for Jews in disputed east Jerusalem on Tuesday — a move that immediately clouded a visit by Vice President Joe Biden aimed at repairing strained ties and kickstarting Mideast peace talks.
The Interior Ministry announced the construction plans just as Biden was wrapping up a series of warm meetings with Israeli leaders. There was no immediate reaction from the vice president.
Relations between Israel and the Obama administration have been chilly precisely because of the settlement issue.
International
March 9, 2010
RIYADH: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday Turkey is not ready to return its ambassador to Washington after a US Congress panel branded the World War I massacre of Armenians as genocide.
"As long as the situation does not get any clearer we will not send back our ambassador to Washington," Erdogan said about the tiff over the Armenia resolution passed by the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday.
"America should not let go of a strategic ally like Turkey over such an issue," he said.
International
March 9, 2010
LONDON: More than three-quarters of people across the world believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right, a poll carried out for a UK-based broakcaster indicated.
The poll, which questioned more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries, suggested strong support globally for access to the web.
The findings come as efforts are stepped up across the world to increase net access, with the United Nations leading a push for more people to be given the opportunity to get online.
Countries including Finland and Estonia have already ruled it is a human right, said the broadcaster.
International
March 9, 2010
JUAREZ: Cecilia Juarez, 22, incarcerated for drug trafficking, was crowned Miss Captive Beauty 2010 during a pageant for the women inmates at the Cereso prison in Juarez.
Municipal authorities organized the pageant, dubbed "Belleza Cautiva," or captive beauty, as part of the International Day of the Woman.
The jury chose the most beautiful inmate among 15 participants.
Juarez won the title by unanimous decision. She has been imprisoned for two months on drug charges and awaits sentencing.
International
March 9, 2010
DOGO NAHAWA: Villagers in central Nigeria buried dozens of bodies, including those of women and children, in a mass grave on Monday after attacks in which several hundred people were feared to have been killed.
Armed police and soldiers stood guard as residents of Dogo Nahawa, about 15 km (9 miles) south of the central city of Jos, carried bodies wrapped in multi-colored cloth from trucks and lowered them into a large open pit in the red-brown earth.
International
March 9, 2010
NEW YORK: Women head governments, run companies and comprise about half the world's workforce, but a global poll shows that one in four people, most of them young, believe a woman's place is in the home.
The survey of over 24,000 adults in 23 countries, conducted by a UK-based news agency and released on the eve of International Women's Day, showed that people from India (54 percent), Turkey (52 percent), Japan (48 percent), China, Russia, Hungary (34 percent each) and South Korea (33 percent) were most likely to agree that women should not work.
International
March 8, 2010
JERUSALEM: Israel has given the green light for the building of 112 new homes in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank despite a partial moratorium on such construction, a minister said on Monday.
The houses will be built in the Beitar Ilit settlement near Bethlehem, Environment Minister Gilad Erdan told public radio.
Israel's continued expansion of settlements is one of the biggest obstacles to the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians, now suspended for more than a year.
International
