World

MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto, embroiled along with his wife and finance minister in a scandal over homes bought from and financed by a government contractor, plans no mea culpa, his spokesman said on Tuesday, dismissing any conflict of interest.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – CIA inspector general David Buckley, who investigated a dispute between the agency and Congress over the handling of records of the CIA’s detention and interrogation activities, is resigning effective January 31, the CIA said yesterday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors yesterday charged a Texas businessman who allegedly wanted to be the president of Gambia with conspiring with a former US Army sergeant and others to orchestrate a deadly coup attempt in the tiny African nation last week.

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Hundreds of firefighters are battling to contain Australia’s worst wildfires in 30 years as the danger is expected to rise with soaring temperatures and changing winds tomorrow.

BOGOTA (Reuters) – President Juan Manuel Santos called yesterday for the smaller of Colombia’s two leftist rebel groups, the ELN, to join the larger FARC guerrillas in declaring a unilateral ceasefire as peace talks advance to end a 50-year war.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Syria has complained to the United Nations that US Senator John McCain, former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and former US diplomat Peter Galbraith entered the country without visas in separate visits in violation of its sovereignty.

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Guatemala’s Supreme Court yesterday began a retrial of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt for genocide, but in a fresh twist to a bizarre legal saga suspended it as the defense sought the removal of one of the judges hearing the case.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Pakistan accused India of killing four civilians on the border of the two nuclear powers and India said one of its border guards was killed, heightening tensions before a visit by US President Barack Obama.

LONDON/NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Buckingham Palace stepped up its denial that Prince Andrew had sex with an underage girl introduced to him by a disgraced U.S.

RAMALLAH, West Bank, (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday he was discussing with Jordan plans to resubmit to the United Nations Security Council a resolution calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state that failed to win enough votes last week.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, (Reuters) – Islamist militants have overrun an army base in the remote northeast Nigerian town of Baga, two security sources said yesterday.

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – New York City police turned out in their thousands yesterday for the funeral of the second of two officers murdered last month, but in a sign of persistent tensions with Mayor Bill de Blasio, hundreds turned their backs when he delivered his eulogy.

  (Reuters) – Revelers ringing in the new year this week need to watch out for the next day’s hangover.

VATICAN CITY, (Reuters) – Pope Francis on Sunday named new cardinals to the group that will choose his successor, with appointments that strengthened the Catholic Church in Asia, Africa and Latin America and further shifted its power centre away from the developed world.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel will withhold critical tax revenue and seek ways to bring war crimes prosecutions against Palestinian leaders in retaliation for Palestinian moves to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), Israeli officials said yesterday.

(Reuters) – A suspected al Qaeda figure alleged to have helped plan the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya has died in New York just days ahead of his scheduled trial, his son and the prosecutor said yesterday.

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) – Indian police have arrested five men in connection with the alleged abduction and gang-rape of a 23-year-old Japanese tourist, officials said yesterday.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The founder of a vigilante group in Mexico’s restive western state of Michoacan was arrested yesterday along with 26 followers for their alleged role in 10 deaths during a shootout with a rival group last month.

(Reuters) – Edward Brooke, the Massachusetts Republican who was the first African-American to be popularly elected to the US Senate, died yesterday, according to Massachusetts Republican Party spokeswoman Kirsten Hughes.

RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA, (Reuters) – When federal investigators first identified signs of corruption at Petrobras in 2009, Dilma Rousseff insisted Brazil’s state-run oil company had nothing to hide.