World

GENEVA, (Reuters) – Geneva’s public prosecutor will send $380 million confiscated from the family of Nigeria’s former military ruler Sani Abacha to Nigeria and closed a 16-year investigation into his funds, the prosecutor’s office said.

SYDNEY, (Reuters) – Former conservative Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who led the country from 1975 to 1983, has died, his office said in a statement yesterday.

SYDNEY, (Reuters) – Australia could invest as much as A$3 billion ($2.3 billion) to join the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a local newspaper said yesterday, citing leaked details of high-level ministerial discussions.

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Paul McCartney will induct his former Beatles band mate Ringo Starr into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next month at a ceremony in Cleveland, organizers said on Wednesday.

TUNIS, (Reuters) – Gunmen wearing military uniforms stormed Tunisia’s national museum yesterday, killing 17 foreign tourists and two Tunisians in one of the worst militant attacks in a country that had largely escaped the region’s “Arab Spring” turmoil.

JERUSALEM, (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged yesterday to form a new governing coalition quickly after an upset election victory that was built on a shift to the right and drew an immediate rebuke from the White House.

MOSCOW, (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty with Georgia’s rebel South Ossetia region yesterday that almost completely integrates it with Russia, alarming Georgia and the West a year after Moscow took over Crimea.

BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff accepted the resignation of Education Minister Cid Gomes yesterday after her allies in Congress demanded that he quit for calling them “extortionists.”

LONDON,  (Reuters) – King Richard III, the medieval English monarch whose remains were found under a car park three years ago, will be reburied next week nearly 530 years after he was slain in battle and dumped in an humble grave.

ATHENS/BERLIN, (Reuters) – Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras lambasted European partners yesterday for criticising a new anti-poverty law hours before it was voted on, saying it was the euro zone rather than Athens that must stop “unilateral actions” and keep its word.

JERUSALEM, (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed victory in Israel’s election after exit polls showed he had erased his centre-left rivals’ lead with a hard rightward shift in which he abandoned a commitment to negotiate a Palestinian state.

BERLIN/WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The United States has urged countries to think twice before signing up to a new China-led Asian development bank that Washington sees as a rival to the World Bank, after Germany, France and Italy followed Britain in saying they would join.

SAO PAULO, (Reuters) – Brazil’s main opposition party said yesterday it would call on the Supreme Court to investigate President Dilma Rousseff’s involvement in a corruption scheme at state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA .

DAKAR, (Reuters) – Senegal’s President Macky Sall said yesterday he would hold a referendum next year to reduce the presidential term to five years from seven, seeking to “set an example” at a time when some African leaders want to lift their term limit.

PORT VILA, (Reuters) – International aid agencies ramped up appeals for cyclone-hit Vanuatu yesterday, warning that the powerful storm which affected more than two-thirds of the South Pacific island nation had wiped out crops and destroyed fishing fleets, raising the risk of hunger and disease.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s march towards becoming the longest-serving leader of Israel could be halted today in an election that has exposed public fatigue with his stress on national security rather than socio-economic problems.

BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian prosecutors formally charged the treasurer of the ruling Workers’ Party and 26 others with corruption linked to state-run Petrobras yesterday, in the latest blow to President Dilma Rousseff from the widening scandal.

(Reuters) – France, Germany and Italy have agreed to follow Britain’s lead and join a China-led international development bank, dealing another blow to US efforts to keep Western nations out of the new institution, the Financial Times said today.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has a stern message for the younger generation about their political priorities: care more about climate change, and less about legalizing marijuana.

RIO DE JANEIRO, (Reuters) – Over one million demonstrators marched in cities and towns across Brazil yesterday to protest a sluggish economy, rising prices and corruption – and to call for the impeachment of leftist President Dilma Rousseff.