World News - Boston.com

Chinese premier heads to India to boost ties

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:27:03 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — Just weeks after a tense border standoff, China's new premier headed to India on Sunday for his first foreign trip as the neighboring giants look to speed up efforts to settle a decades-old boundary dispute and boost economic ties.

Death toll in collapsed Indonesia mine rises to 6

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:16:32 GMT

TIMIKA, Indonesia (AP) — Rescuers have pulled another body from a collapsed facility at a giant U.S.-owned gold and copper mine in Indonesia, bringing the death toll to six.

2024 Boston Olympics? Let’s check it out, they say

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:12:40 GMT

By John Laidler

Cannes helps actors Bejo and Rahim cross borders

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:07:04 GMT

CANNES, France (AP) — The magic and glamour of Cannes can be hard to spot on a day when rain is lashing the palm trees, roiling the gray Mediterranean and pooling in puddles along the Croisette.

Report: Iran hangs 2 men convicted of spying

Sun, 19 May 2013 06:11:41 GMT

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's state radio says authorities have executed two men convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad and the American CIA spy agency.

Report: Iran hangs 2 men convicted of spying

Sun, 19 May 2013 06:10:45 GMT

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's state radio says authorities have executed two men convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad and the American CIA spy agency.

Report: Iran hangs 2 men convicted of spying

Sun, 19 May 2013 06:10:41 GMT

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's state radio says authorities have executed two men convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad and the American CIA spy agency.

Retirement tests if Beckham built lasting brand

Sun, 19 May 2013 04:10:40 GMT

Never a stranger to the big stage, David Beckham was finally overwhelmed and reduced to tears as he went out in a burst of fireworks and cheers Saturday in his final home game for Paris Saint-Germain before retirement.

Chinese premier heads to India to boost ties

Sun, 19 May 2013 03:59:34 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — Just weeks after a tense border standoff, China's new premier is heading to India on his first foreign trip as the neighboring giants look to expedite efforts to settle a decades-old boundary dispute and boost economic ties.

Mexico judge orders prison for suspects in killing

Sun, 19 May 2013 02:57:43 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A judge on Saturday issued an order for the imprisonment of two waiters accused in the beating death of Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of civil rights activist Malcolm X, the Mexico City attorney general's office said.

Dissident ex-general released in Venezuela

Sun, 19 May 2013 02:23:06 GMT

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan authorities have released a dissident ex-general who was jailed on charges of inciting unrest after the country's disputed presidential election.

Denmark's de Forest wins Eurovision song contest

Sun, 19 May 2013 01:49:25 GMT

MALMO, Sweden (AP) — Denmark's Emmelie de Forest has won this year's Eurovision Song Contest with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune "Only Teardrops," despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

Geza Vermes, renowned Jesus scholar, dies at 88

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:39:20 GMT

LONDON — Geza Vermes, a translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls and renowned for books exploring the Jewish background of Jesus, has died at 88.

Brief panic as blanks fired during Cannes TV show

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:23:12 GMT

CANNES, France (AP) — A live outdoor television broadcast from the Cannes Film Festival was briefly interrupted Friday when what sounded like gunshots sent crew and spectators scurrying for cover.

French president signs law legalizing gay marriage, adoption

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:22:55 GMT

PARIS — France will see its first gay weddings within days, after President Francois Hollande signed a law Saturday authorizing marriage and adoption by same-sex couples and ending months of nationwide protests and wrenching debate. Hollande’s office said he signed the bill Saturday morning, a day after the Constitutional Council struck down a challenge to the law and ruled it in line with France’s constitution. Hollande, a Socialist, had made legalizing gay marriage one of his campaign pledges last year. While polls for years have shown majority support for gay marriage in France, adoption by same-sex couples is more controversial.

William Miles, 82, documentary filmmaker who chronicled black America

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:19:57 GMT

NEW YORK — William Miles, a self-taught filmmaker whose documentaries revealed untold stories of black America, including those of its heroic black soldiers and of life in its signature neighborhood Harlem, where he himself grew up, died May 12 in Queens. He was 82.

Joseph Farman, 82, scientist who documented hole in ozone layer

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:06:29 GMT

NEW YORK — Joseph Farman, a British researcher whose single-minded and at times officially derided study of atmospheric changes in the Antarctic established the existence of a hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole approximately the size of the United States — one of the most important environmental discoveries of the 20th century — died May 11 in Cambridge, England. He was 82.

Reporter remembers fear in Videla's Argentina

Sat, 18 May 2013 23:57:58 GMT

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — It was just about a day after Argentine strongman Jorge Rafael Videla had seized power in March of 1976, and the bloodletting was already beginning.

'Catching Fire' dampened but not drowned at Cannes

Sat, 18 May 2013 23:31:50 GMT

CANNES, France (AP) — Little could lessen the fever-pitched excitement for "Hunger Games: Catching Fire," but heavy rain nevertheless dampened the film's lavish Cannes party.

Pope leads pep rally at Vatican, meets with Merkel

Sat, 18 May 2013 23:26:19 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis lamented that investment losses by banks trigger more alarm in the economic crisis than the struggle of people to feed their families, as he led a huge rally Saturday to invigorate the church's moral conscience, hours after he held talks at the Vatican about the economic crisis with Germany's leader.

Legislation to toughen women’s rights laws in Afghanistan is withdrawn

Sat, 18 May 2013 23:15:57 GMT

KABUL — Afghan women, and sometimes even little girls, are sold or traded to pay family debts. So-called honor killings are a constant threat to women, especially in the country’s vast rural areas, where even talking to a man who is not a close relative can be perceived as a transgression punishable by death. Betrothals of girls as young as age 7 are not unknown; in some parts of the country, girls are routinely married at puberty.

Defiant Assad determined to ‘face the storm’ in Syria

Sat, 18 May 2013 22:42:55 GMT

BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday that he won’t step down and will instead ‘‘face the storm,’’ raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country’s civil war.

Egyptian custody case shows limits of American power

Sat, 18 May 2013 22:36:00 GMT

Colin Bower sits in a Beacon Hill conference room, laying out the gut-wrenching details yet again. How many times has he told this story? To friends and relatives, to police officers and FBI agents, to congressmen and senators and diplomats and TV reporters.

Denmark's Emmelie de Forest wins Eurovision song contest

Sat, 18 May 2013 22:27:58 GMT

MALMO, Sweden (AP) — Denmark's Emmelie de Forest wins Eurovision song contest .

North Korea launches three short-range missiles into sea off its eastern coast

Sat, 18 May 2013 21:46:43 GMT

SEOUL — North Korea launched three short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast on Saturday, the South Korean Defense Ministry said. The tests broke the recent relative silence from the North, but the move was much less provocative than what had been feared in the tense weeks after the country’s nuclear test in February.