World

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.

 (Reuters) – Ten big rival drug companies have formed a pact to cooperate on a government-backed effort to accelerate the discovery of new drugs, the Wall Street Journal reported.

(Reuters) – A fisherman thought to be from El Salvador who washed ashore on the Marshall Islands said he survived more than a year adrift in the Pacific Ocean, drinking turtle blood and catching fish and birds with his bare hands.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Britain secretly helped India plan a deadly assault on Sikh separatists holed up in the Golden Temple at Amritsar in 1984, the government said yesterday, saying London’s influence was limited and there was therefore no need for an apology.

SAN JOSE,  (Reuters) – A centre-left former diplomat who has emerged as the surprise leader of Costa Rica’s presidential race vows if he wins a runoff vote to prepare the ground for eventual tax hikes seen as crucial to preserving the credit rating of Central America’s No.

PARIS,  (Reuters) – A thief who kissed the owner of a Paris jewellery shop he was robbing was arrested with the help of the DNA he left on her face, a French newspaper reported yesterday.

MIAMI,  (Reuters) – The unearthing of the remains of a 2,000-year-old Native American village where downtown Miami meets Biscayne Bay has thrown a wrench into a multibillion-dollar development project that survived the city’s real estate and financial meltdown.

BANGUI (Reuters) – At least 70 people have been killed and dozens of houses torched in clashes between Muslim and Christian communities in a town in Central African Republic, a local police official said yesterday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than $410 billion in illicit money crossed the borders of the Philippines from 1960 to 2011, with customs fraud related to imported goods surging in recent years, according to a study released yesterday by a US-based anti-graft watchdog group.

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich will not use force to clear the streets and may challenge his opponents to early elections if they fail to compromise, according to reported comments by a political ally.