World News

Ukrainian authorities yesterday conceded to one of the demands of weeks-long protests gripping the capital, opening investigations against four top officials and suspending two of them from office over the violent police response to a small demonstration last month.

Last week's opening of Mexico's oil industry to private and foreign investment caps a remarkable series of legislative victories by a president trying to re-engineer the country's most dysfunctional institutions.

Thailand's armed forces took centre stage yesterday in the country's ongoing political drama, showing off its gentler side in hosting a forum to allow the leader of a protest movement to present his demand for an immediate change of government.

Church bells tolled in Newtown, Connecticut, yesterday to mark the anniversary of the shooting massacre that killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and President Barack Obama called on Americans to help prevent future violence in a radio address on the tragedy.

The once-powerful uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been executed after being booted from office for corruption.

SAN JUAN (CMC): The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency says a former Puerto Rico Police Department officer has been jailed for 25 years followed by 15 years of supervised release for production of child pornography....

NEW JERSEY, United States (AP):New Jersey's two US senators are planning a 24-hour fast in solidarity with protesters in Washington, DC pushing for immigration law changes...

SYDNEY (AP): Australia's highest court struck down a landmark law yesterday that had begun allowing the country's first gay marriages, shattering the dreams of more than two dozen same-sex newly-weds whose marriages will now be annulled less than a week...

CHICAGO (AP): A man who says Chicago police tortured him until he confessed to a rape he didn't commit was expected to walk out of an Illinois prison yesterday after 30 years behind bars....

BEIRUT (AP):Major international news organisations sent a letter to the leadership of the armed opposition in Syria yesterday, calling for urgent action against rebel groups increasingly targeting...

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP):Advocacy groups representing parents and public education are suing North Carolina officials after the General Assembly passed a law this year allowing taxpayer money to help pay private-school tuition.The North Carolina...

A stowaway from Jamaica was arrested after US authorities found him with nearly four pounds of marijuana on an inbound cargo ship at the Port of Tampa, Florida.