World

By Bill Schneider  (Bill Schneider is professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University.

BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos yesterday warned that the country’s patience with Marxist FARC rebels is wearing thin and that the peace process to end five decades of war must have a deadline.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Argentina announced yesterday it had started legal proceedings in one of its own courts against five companies, including three British, who are drilling for oil and gas off the Falkland Islands, a move Britain denounced as bullying.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Everyone’s body is brimming with bacteria, and these microbes do plenty of good things like building the immune system and helping digestion.

MOSCOW, (Reuters) – Two Russian opposition parties agreed yesterday to run on a joint platform in 2016 parliamentary elections, aiming to make a first step in uniting fractious Kremlin adversaries after the killing of party leader Boris Nemtsov.

NEW ORLEANS, (Reuters) – Two conservative U.S. appeals court judges expressed skepticism yesterday over arguments to lift an injunction blocking President Barack Obama’s efforts to overhaul immigration law without congressional action.

SAN FRANCISCO, (Reuters) – Hackers have managed to penetrate computer networks associated with the Israeli military in an espionage campaign that skillfully packages existing attack software with trick emails, according to security researchers at Blue Coat Systems Inc.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Haitian officials are reporting a spike in cholera cases late last year and carrying over into the first three months of 2015 as an early start to the rainy season has public health workers worried.

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) – Iran’s foreign minister yesterday submitted a letter to U.N.

MELBOURNE, (Reuters) – Australian police arrested five teenagers in the country’s second-largest city yesterday over an alleged terrorist plot to target police officers, authorities said.

ABUJA, (Reuters) – As Muhammadu Buhari closed in on Nigeria’s presidency, an aide to election commission chairman Attahiru Jega sent a text message to an independent voting monitor, warning of an imminent threat to the electoral process.

MADRID, (Reuters) – The home and office of former International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato were searched yesterday as part of a tax and money laundering investigation into his personal wealth, Spanish judicial officials said.

ABUJA, (Reuters) – Oil firms keen to know how Nigeria’s president elect Muhammadu Buhari plans to tax them could be waiting a long time as he makes ending corruption and reforming the opaque national oil company his most urgent sector priorities.

BRUSSELS, (Reuters) – The European Union accused Google Inc yesterday of cheating consumers and competitors by distorting Web search results to favour its own shopping service, after a five-year investigation that could change the rules for business online.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The “do-nothing” U.S. Congress may actually be starting to do things.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A Florida man was arrested after he landed his small helicopter on the west lawn of the U.S.

(Reuters) – Some people like the sound of knuckle-cracking and others loathe it, but for years there has been disagreement among scientists about what actually causes it.

BOGOTA/HAVANA, (Reuters) – Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos ordered the resumption of bombing raids against FARC rebels yesterday after an attack he blamed on the group killed 10 soldiers, a move that will intensify combat after efforts to cool tensions.

AMSTERDAM, (Reuters) – Lawyers for Costa Rica told a United Nations court yesterday that neighbour Nicaragua had caused ecological damage to the protected wetlands at the mouth of the San Juan river by sending armed forces to dredge in Costa Rica’s territory.

GANDHINAGAR, India, (Reuters) – India’s push to accommodate a booming urban population and attract investment rests in large part with dozens of “smart” cities like the one being built on the dusty banks of the Sabarmati river in western India.