SAO PAULO: Soldiers clashed with supporters of striking police in Brazil’s third-largest city on Monday, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at the feet of people trying to join officers occupying the Bahia state legislature building.
WASHINGTON: Congress went beyond its powers by requiring Americans to buy insurance under President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care overhaul, opponents told the US Supreme Court on Monday in arguing the law’s centerpiece provision should be struck down.
ATHENS, Greece: Greece’s coalition government caved in to demands to cut civil service jobs, announcing 15,000 positions would go this year, amid mounting international pressure to agree on austerity measures needed to secure major new debt agreements.
ROME: Catholic clergy must report paedophile priests to police, a top Vatican official told the Holy See’s first conference on the sex abuse crisis on Monday, but victims’ groups demanded the Vatican face up to its past and publish its files on abuse.
SAN DIEGO: A federal judge for the first time in US history heard arguments Monday in a case that could determine whether animals enjoy the same constitutional protection against slavery as human beings.
OSLO, Norway: The right-wing extremist who confessed to a bombing and mass shooting that killed 77 people goes before a Norwegian court Monday in the last scheduled detention hearing before his trial starts.
BUCHAREST, Romania: The Romanian prime minister on Monday announced the immediate resignation of himself and his government, saying he wanted to protect the stability of the country.
LAGOS, Nigeria: The burning inferno of what used to be a Chevron Corp. natural gas rig still stains the night’s sky orange more than two weeks after the rig caught fire, and no one can say when it will end as swarms of dead fish surface.
LAS VEGAS: A defiant Newt Gingrich vowed on Saturday to continue in the 2012 Republican primary race and predicted that he could pull even with Mitt Romney in the delegate count within two months.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina: Bosnian authorities have started using helicopters to evacuate sick people and deliver food to thousands of people who have been cut off by the heaviest snow the country has ever recorded.
KABUL: Last year was the deadliest on record for civilians in the Afghan war, with 3,021 killed as insurgents ratcheted up violence with suicide attacks and roadside bombs, the United Nations said Saturday.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's prime minister will travel to Qatar next week to talk with officials from the Gulf Arab state on the Afghan reconciliation process, a senior government official said on Saturday.
SITAPUR, India: One of India's most powerful and controversial politicians rises from a throne-like armchair, a clutch of candidates standing deferentially behind her and two large portraits flanking the stage. A gated semicircle keeps tens of thousands of supporters 20 yards (meters) away.
NEW DELHI: India's beleaguered government won some rare relief on Saturday when a court threw out a corruption case against one its top ministers ahead of crucial state elections next week.
LOS ANGELES: Federal prosecutors on Friday dropped an investigation centered on whether seven-time Tour De France champion Lance Armstrong and his teammates cheated the sponsor of their bike racing team with a secret doping program.
LONDON: British Prime Minister David Cameron was making a third unwanted shake up of his government Friday, after prosecutors charged Cabinet Minister Chris Huhne over an alleged attempt to pin a speeding penalty on his ex-wife.
ISLAMABAD: A question being frequently asked in Pakistan as to what kind of new ties Pakistan needs to develop with its strategic ally, America, especially after the Salala post attack by US jets that killed 24 soldiers.
SHAKTIKHOR MAOIST CAMP, Nepal: Nepal’s former communist rebels have begun leaving the camps they’ve called home for five years after receiving government checks as part of a plan to integrate them into society.
MANILA: A strong earthquake in the central Philippines killed at least 13 people Monday as it destroyed buildings and triggered landslides that buried dozens of houses, trapping residents. At least 29 people were missing.
CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other leaders in the left-leaning ALBA bloc backed Argentina on Saturday in its long-running dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands.
CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez mounted a lavish celebration on Saturday to mark the 20th anniversary of the failed coup that helped launch his political career, as opposition leaders slammed the event as a blemish on the country’s democracy.
KIEV/LONDON: Bitterly cold weather sweeping across Europe claimed more victims on Sunday and brought widespread disruption to transport services, with warnings that the chilling temperatures would remain into next week.
LAS VEGAS: Republican front-runner Mitt Romney cruised to an easy victory in Nevada on Saturday, crushing his three remaining rivals and taking firm command of the party's volatile presidential nominating race. With support from a broad cross-section of Republicans, Romney won by a big double-digit margin over former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Representative Ron Paul and former Senator Rick Santorum.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan: A car bomb exploded just outside the police headquarters of a southern Afghanistan city on Sunday, killing at least seven people, officials said.
MOSCOW: Tens of thousands of Russians defied bitter cold in Moscow on Saturday to demand fair elections in a march against Vladimir Putin’s 12-year rule, and thousands of others staged a rally supporting the prime minister.
MALE, Maldives: Few of the million or so tourists who visit the Maldives each year would catch even a whiff of the troubled politics or growing militant threat roiling the islands of one of the world’s most renowned get-away-from-it-all destinations.
PERTH: Thousands of Australians were forced from their homes on Monday because of floods that have risen to record levels in some areas and killed one person, and authorities issued warnings for more than a dozen rivers in Queensland and New South Wales states.
