World

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. military advisors have secretly operated in Somalia since around 2007 and Washington plans to deepen its security assistance to help the country fend off threats by Islamist militant group al Shabaab, U.S.

SYDNEY, (Reuters) – When it comes to resolving a big global food problem, a new breed of farmers and their financial backers are thinking small.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Scientists have for the first time produced live offspring from testicle tissue that has been cryopreserved, or deep frozen, and say a similar technique might one day be used to preserve the fertility of boys facing cancer treatment.

TOKYO, (Reuters) – Japan took a historic step away from its post-war pacifism yesterday by ending a ban that has kept the military from fighting abroad since 1945, a victory for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe but a move that has riled China and worries many Japanese voters.

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON/PARIS, (Reuters) – French bank BNP Paribas has pleaded guilty to two criminal charges and agreed to pay almost $9 billion to resolve accusations it violated U.S.

PARIS, (Reuters) – Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was placed under formal investigation yesterday, the prosecutor’s office said, on suspicions he tried to use his influence to thwart an investigation of his 2007 election campaign.

PANAMA CITY, (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday Washington would work with Central America to address the root causes of an immigration crisis, but kept up the Obama administration’s tough message that undocumented children would be deported.

NANTERRE, France, (Reuters) – Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was held for questioning today over suspicions that he received leaked details of an inquiry into alleged irregularities in his 2007 election campaign.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi troops battled to dislodge an al Qaeda splinter group from the city of Tikrit yesterday after its leader was declared caliph of a new Islamic state in lands seized this month across a swath of Iraq and Syria.

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said today government forces would renew offensive operations against rebels and “free our lands”, hours after a ceasefire to allow for peace talks with the pro-Russian separatists had expired.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) – The bodies of three missing Israeli teenagers were found in the occupied West Bank, and Israel vowed to punish Hamas, the Palestinian group it accuses of abducting and killing them.

  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – At least 22 suspected gang members were killed southwest of Mexico City early yesterday, the government said, in one of the bloodiest shootouts with security forces since President Enrique Pena Nieto took power.

BANGUI (Reuters) – Ugandan troops in Central African Republic (CAR) have killed at least 15 fighters from the mainly Muslim Seleka force, a group that has carved out fiefdoms in the country since leaving power earlier this year, local sources said yesterday.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said today he would take executive action to revamp the U.S.

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi never had a high opinion of the Planning Commission, an institutional vestige of the country’s attempts to mimic the Soviet command economy during the infancy of its independence more than half a century ago.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, (Reuters) – Suspected Islamist militants killed dozens of people yesterday in an attack on three Nigerian villages, including one targeting worshippers at a church, a few kilometres (three miles) from Chibok, the scene of an abduction of more than 200 school girls.

LONDON, (Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline yesterday confirmed the existence of an intimate video recording of its former China head, Mark Reilly, which the Sunday Times reported kicked off a bribery investigation that has damaged the drugmaker’s business in China.

BEIRUT, (Reuters) – An offshoot of al Qaeda which has seized territory in Iraq and Syria has declared itself an Islamic “caliphate” and called on factions worldwide to pledge their allegiance, a statement posted on Islamist websites and Twitter said yesterday.

BEIRUT, (Reuters) – As jihadists storm through the Sunni heartlands of Iraq towards Baghdad, where a Shi’ite government they regard as heretic clings on, they have lifted the veil on deep sectarianism which has also stoked the fires of Syria’s civil war and is spilling over into vulnerable mosaic societies such as Lebanon.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – British actress Keira Knightley, known for playing tragic heroines in period dramas, strayed into new territory with her first major singing role in “Begin Again,” a feel-good film about the music industry and starting over.