| Attacks kill at least 18 people in Iraq Posted: 20 Apr 2014 11:07 AM PDT  BAGHDAD (AP) — A series of attacks, including a coordinated assault on a private Shiite college in Baghdad, killed at least 18 people and wounded nearly 50 in Iraq on Sunday, officials said.
|
| Iraq attacks kill 14 as bomber hits university Posted: 20 Apr 2014 09:38 AM PDT  Attacks in Iraq, including a suicide bombing at a university in north Baghdad, killed at least 14 people on Sunday, security and medical officials said. The attacks, which come as Iraq suffers a prolonged surge in bloodshed, took place less than two weeks before a parliamentary election that will be a major test for security forces. Officials gave varying accounts of the bombing of Baghdad's Imam Kadhim University. A police colonel said a suicide attacker entered the university before setting off explosives, while another bomber and a gunman were killed by security forces.
|
| 4 French journalists home after long Syrian ordeal Posted: 20 Apr 2014 07:44 AM PDT  PARIS (AP) — Four French journalists kidnapped and held for 10 months in Syria returned home Sunday to joyful families, a presidential welcome and questions about how France managed to obtain their freedom from Islamic extremists.
|
| Attacks kill at least 15 people in Iraq Posted: 20 Apr 2014 07:23 AM PDT BAGHDAD (AP) — A series of attacks, including a coordinated assault on a private Shiite college in Baghdad, killed at least 15 people and wounded nearly 50 others in Iraq on Sunday, officials said. |
| Syria's Assad visits recaptured Christian village Posted: 20 Apr 2014 06:31 AM PDT  BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's president marked Easter with a tour Sunday of an ancient Christian village recently recaptured by his forces, state media said, as the country's Greek Orthodox Patriarch vowed that country's Christians "will not submit and yield" to extremists.
|
| Syria media reports Assad visits Christian village Posted: 20 Apr 2014 05:44 AM PDT BEIRUT (AP) — President Bashar Assad on Sunday toured a historic Christian village his forces recently captured from rebels, state media said, as the country's Greek Orthodox Patriarch vowed that Christians in the war-ravaged country "will not submit and yield" to extremists. |
| Pope's Easter Message 'Urbi et Orbi' Posted: 20 Apr 2014 04:45 AM PDT VATICAN CITY (AP) — The following is the text of the Vatican's official English-language translation of Pope Francis' Easter Sunday "Urbi et Orbi" (Latin for 'to the city and to the world') read by him in Italian from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica. |
| On Easter, Pope calls for end to war, condemns waste exacerbating hunger Posted: 20 Apr 2014 03:35 AM PDT  By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, in his Easter address before a huge crowd, on Sunday denounced the "immense wastefulness" in the world while many go hungry and called for an end to conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Africa. "We ask you, Lord Jesus, to put an end to all war and every conflict, whether great or small, ancient or recent," he said in his "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message. Francis, marking the second Easter season of his pontificate, celebrated a Mass to an overflowing crowd of at least 150,000 in St. Peter's Square and beyond.
|
| When Congress is on Break, Crises Can Wait Posted: 20 Apr 2014 03:15 AM PDT  Secretary of State John Kerry was slamming Russian President Vladimir Putin when he said "You just don't, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion," but he could have just as well been talking about the U.S. Congress, which is still operating at a leisurely pace better suited to a bygone era. With international crises crashing around President Obama's head and a legislative hopper groaning from stacks of unfinished business, members of Congress are rarely on hand to respond to crises in real time, offer reassuring words from the floor of the House or Senate, or publicly signal a sense of engagement to unfolding events at home or abroad. Although Congress and the president share authority over foreign policy under the Constitution, as columnist George Will has noted, President Obama has exerted inordinate power over foreign policy "only because Congress, over many years, has become too supine to wield its constitutional powers." But another reason is lawmakers' slavish devotion to a legislative calendar that keeps them in Washington for less than half the year.
|
| Iraq: Separate attacks kill at least 12 people Posted: 20 Apr 2014 02:44 AM PDT BAGHDAD (AP) — Officials say attacks in Iraq have killed at least 12 people and wounded 35 others. |
| Joyful homecoming for four French journalists after Syria captivity Posted: 20 Apr 2014 02:11 AM PDT  By Sunaina Karkarey VILLACOUBLAY AIRBASE, France (Reuters) - Four French journalists held captive in Syria for more than 10 months returned home to France on Sunday, freshly shaved and beaming, where they were met at an airbase by President Francois Hollande, their families and friends. Nicolas Henin, Pierre Torres, Edouard Elias and Didier Francois smiled at a crowd of journalists, some of them colleagues, after descending from a military helicopter at the Villacoublay airbase southwest of Paris.
|
| 4 French journalists back home after Syria ordeal Posted: 20 Apr 2014 01:23 AM PDT  PARIS (AP) — Four French journalists kidnapped and held for 10 months in Syria returned home on Sunday to joyful families awaiting them at a military airport outside Paris.
|
| Female candidates fight for rights in Iraq campaign Posted: 20 Apr 2014 12:32 AM PDT  With fears that women's rights are being eroded in Iraq, prospective female lawmakers are determined to push women's issues to the fore of campaigning for this month's elections. Despite a constitutional requirement that a quarter of all MPs be women, Iraq lags on key indicators such as female employment and literacy, and there is a bill before parliament that opponents say dramatically curtails women's rights. Also at issue ahead of April 30 elections are high levels of violence against women, discrimination at the workplace, and poor school attendance. "I did not expect that we will fight for women's rights in this country," said Inam Abdul Majed, a television news presenter and an election hopeful running in Baghdad.
|
| Former U.S. soldier says his friendly-fire shots might have killed Tillman Posted: 19 Apr 2014 09:50 PM PDT (Reuters) - A former U.S. Army Ranger who was in the same platoon as ex-NFL player Pat Tillman has stated in a television interview that he believes he might have fired the shots that killed Tillman in a 2004 friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan. Steven Elliott, 33, told ESPN program "Outside the Lines" in an interview scheduled to air on Sunday that he regrets joining other soldiers in firing on the spot where Tillman had taken position during a chaotic incident in a mountainous area. Tillman gave up a multimillion dollar career as a defensive back with the Arizona Cardinals football team to enlist in the military in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks and served in the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, becoming one of the U.S. military's most high-profile service members. |
| Researchers use Twitter to predict crime Posted: 19 Apr 2014 07:13 PM PDT  Hidden in the Twittersphere are nuggets of information that could prove useful to crime fighters -- even before a crime has been committed. Researchers at the University of Virginia demonstrated tweets could predict certain kinds of crimes if the correct analysis is applied. The results are surprising, especially when one considers that people rarely tweet about crimes directly, said lead researcher Matthew Gerber of the university's Predictive Technology Lab. Gerber said even tweets that have no direct link to crimes may contain information about activities often associated with them.
|
