4 women strip, protest Vatican gay marriage stance

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Four women have gone topless in St. Peter's Square to protest the Vatican's opposition to gay marriage.Police quickly took the women away Sunday, and the pope appeared not to have been disturbed as he delivered his traditional prayer from his studio window overlooking the piazza.On their bare backs, the women had painted slogans "In Gay We Trust," and "Shut Up." One of them, Inna...

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Steam train chugs through London's subway system

LONDON (AP) — Tourists waiting for their morning subway train to Madame Tussauds were treated to an unusual sight Sunday: a 19th- century steam engine chugging down the tracks.Transit officials sent the Met Locomotive 1, built in 1898, down London's Metropolitan Line to mark the 150th anniversary of the capital's Tube network, the world's oldest.Hundreds of train fans, costume-wearing enthusiasts,...

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Ahead of failed rescue in Somalia, hostage chained

PARIS (AP) — France's defense minister says the intelligence agent held hostage for more than three years by Islamic militants in Somalia was chained up, mistreated and constantly moved around by his captors ahead of a failed rescue operation.Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Sunday the decision was made to attempt the rescue because the agent, known by his code-name Denis Allex, was finally...

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5 die in plane crash in French Alps

PARIS (AP) — Police say five people have died after their plane crashed shortly after taking off from an airport in the French Alps.The plane crashed in a forest in an uninhabited area outside Grenoble, a city that is the gateway to the mountain resorts of the Alps in southeastern France.An official with the French gendarmerie said the plane crashed Saturday shortly after it took off from Grenoble's...

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Family of 5 dies in plane crash near French Alps

PARIS (AP) — A Moroccan family of five returning home died Saturday when their plane crashed shortly after takeoff from an airport near the French Alps, officials said.The twin-engine plane hit a hill and crashed in a forest in an uninhabited area outside Grenoble, a city that is the gateway to the Alpine resorts in southeastern France.Bruno Charlot, a local government official, said all five aboard...

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6 Russians die in snowmobile crash in Italy

ROME (AP) — Six Russians were killed and two seriously injured when the snowmobile and sled they were riding veered off an Italian Alpine ski slope at night, slammed into a barrier and flew through the air into a ravine.The accident occurred Friday, and when rescuers arrived at the scene six of the victims were found dead on the slope of Mount Cermis, in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northeast...

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For Egypt's satirists, Morsi's power is no joke

There are few things dictators hate more than satirists, with their uncomfortable habit of piercing hypocrisy and self-importance with just a few well-placed verbal or written barbs.Under Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian public's rich horde of satirical memes was an underground phenomenon, the province of cafe talk and SMS messages. That former President Mubarak was commonly called La Vache qui rit ("The...

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Taiwan undersea oil plans raise neighbors' eyebrows

Taiwan, a normally quiet claimant to portions of the disputed South China Sea, plans to explore for undersea oil there, a move likely to test fragile relations with China and upset major Southeast Asian nations.Ringed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and others, the waters are believed to hold as many as 213 billion barrels of oil but competing claims from the six bordering nations have...

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US drone strike in Pakistan kills influential Taliban commander

Key Pakistani Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir – considered a "good" Taliban by some among the Pakistani military – died in a US drone strike that left at least six dead on Thursday, according to local reports.According to Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, Taliban and local government officials confirm that Mr. Nazir and at least two of his deputies were killed when a US drone hit their vehicle in South Waziristan,...

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Russia plans biggest war games since Soviet era

The Russian navy has announced that it will hold its biggest war games since Soviet times in the Mediterranean and Black seas later this month.The ambitious exercises, which will involve ships from all four major Russian fleets, are a sign of growing confidence on the part of Russia's military as it begins to enjoy the benefits of President Vladimir Putin's huge budget allocations for renewing and...

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Gerard Depardieu's latest drama: a Russian passport

Vladimir Putin flourished his pen Thursday morning and signed what must be the oddest decree of his long years in power: an order granting a Russian passport to French actor and tax exile Gerard Depardieu.A terse announcement posted on the Kremlin website noted that Mr. Putin acted "to satisfy an application for citizenship of the Russian Federation by Gerard Xavier Depardieu, who was born in 1948...

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Benazir Bhutto's son takes up the family trade in Pakistan

Five years after the assassination of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, her son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari made his first major speech today aimed at galvanizing supporters of the Bhutto family-led Pakistan Peoples Party.The speech, delivered in the family’s hometown of Garhi Khuda Bux in Pakistan’s Sindh Province, was attended by thousands of party supporters gathered to mark the anniversary...

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India gang rape spurs national dialogue

The Indian government’s crackdown on the anti-rape protests that have continued for nearly two weeks in New Delhi has only aggravated public anger and concern about women’s safety.The protests were sparked by the gang rape and brutal assault of a 23-year-old student on a bus in the elite South Delhi district on Dec. 16.As the girl battles for her life in a Singapore hospital, Indians are debating...

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Putin signs antiadoption law, throwing pending adoptions into confusion

President Vladimir Putin signed the Dima Yakovlev Act into law Friday, banning all adoptions of Russian orphans by US citizens as of Jan. 1 and throwing dozens of currently ongoing adoptions into confusion.The mood among workers in the almost 40 Russia-accredited adoption agencies, which have survived repeated bouts of political tensions and ever-tightening regulations over the years, was near despair...

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US embassy evacuated as rebels surge in Cental African Republic

Rebels are closing in on the capital of the impoverished Central African Republic, threatening to topple the weak government and push yet another African nation into civil war, failure, or outright collapse, The Associated Press and other news outlets are reporting.The former French colony joins a string of countries stretching from Mali and the Ivory Coast to Congo and South Sudan where war and turmoil...

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In 2013, possibilities for stability from Somalia to South China Sea

The international news of any year is a disparate affair, a global chronicle of courage, calamity, and close calls. The interconnectedness of events is not always clear.But looking ahead to 2013, whether in Syria, South America, or the South China Sea, policymakers have a common New Year's wish: for unity to usher in and consolidate political and economic stability.EUROPE TURNS TOWARD INTEGRATIONAfter...

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