World

(Reuters) – Over the last two weeks, Obama administration officials have signaled – sometimes intentionally, sometimes not – that a worst-case scenario is emerging in Syria.

KIEV, (Reuters) – A top U.S. diplomat tried to play down the damage to Washington’s diplomacy in Ukraine from a leaked telephone callyesterday, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel called an obscene remark about the EU “absolutely unacceptable.”

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – U.S. job creation slowed sharply over the past two months, turning in the weakest performance in three years and raising the prospect that the economy may be losing momentum.

TUZLA/SARAJEVO, Bosnia, (Reuters) – Protesters across Bosnia set fire to government buildings and fought with riot police yesterday as long-simmering anger over lack of jobs and political inertia fuelled a third day of the worst civil unrest in Bosnia since a 1992-95 war.

MADRID, (Reuters) – The Spanish government approved a law yesterday allowing descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from the country in 1492 to seek Spanish nationality without giving up their current citizenship.

OTTAWA,  (Reuters) – Canada will toughen citizenship rules to prevent foreigners from picking up Canadian passports of convenience without spending much time in the country, part of a sweeping package of reforms under legislation introduced yesterday.

SAN SALVADOR, (Reuters) – El Salvador’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the country’s top prosecutor to investigate the alleged massacre of dozens of civilians in 1981 by army troops during the nation’s bloody civil war.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives appear increasingly unlikely to pass an immigration overhaul this year, preferring to focus their election-year strategy on a unified assault on President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – India has launched an investigation after a media report alleged that Chinese telecoms company Huawei had hacked into state-run telecoms carrier Bharat Sanchar Nigam, a senior government official said.

OTTAWA,  (Reuters) – Canada will toughen citizenship rules to prevent foreigners from picking up Canadian passports of convenience without spending much time in the country, part of a sweeping package of reforms under legislation introduced on Thursday.

GENEVA/VATICAN CITY,  (Reuters) – The United Nations yesterday accused the Vatican of systematically turning a blind eye to decades of sexual abuse of children by priests, and demanded it immediately turn over known or suspected offenders to civil justice.

MADRID,  (Reuters) – A planned extension of the Panama Canal, one of the world’s most important shipping routes, was thrown into doubt yesterday after a group of companies said its talks with Panama’s government over how to expand the canal had fallen apart.

THE HAGUE,  (Reuters) – The International Criminal Court has no realistic chance of successfully prosecuting Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in the face of the Nairobi government’s “pure obstructionism”, prosecutors said yesterday.

(Reuters) – CVS Caremark Corp will stop selling tobacco products at its 7,600 stores by Oct.

SAN FRANCISCO, (Reuters) – Twitter Inc yesterday reported its slowest pace of user growth in recent company history, dimming hopes that the social media phenomenon can sustain its torrid pace of expansion and wiping out nearly a fifth of the company’s value in after-hours trading.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The United States issued a warning yesterday to airports and to some airlines flying to Russia for the Olympics to watch for toothpaste tubes that could hold ingredients to make a bomb on a plane, a senior U.S.

CAPE TOWN,  (Reuters) – The World Bank wants to launch a $1 billion fund in July to map the mineral resources of Africa, using satellites and airborne surveys to fill geological gaps across the continent where a lack of adequate data hampers mining investments.

CARACAS,  (Reuters) – A Venezuelan opposition party demanded yesterday that President Nicolas Maduro’s government release seven protesters arrested following a weekend fracas outside the hotel of a visiting Cuban baseball team.

GENEVA,  (Reuters) – The United Nations demanded today that the Vatican “immediately remove” all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers and turn them over to civil authorities, in an unprecedented and scathing report.

SAO PAULO,  (Reuters) – Donor nations, rainforest-rich countries and multilateral institutions will have to spend tens of billions of dollars in the next few years to ensure that nations undergoing deforestation will have incentives to halt the practice, a report released on Monday said.