World

VATICAN CITY,  (Reuters) – The Vatican said yesterday there was no link between its decision to accept the gift of a nativity scene in St Peter’s Square and allegations that it had previously paid inflated prices to have them built.

DUBAI/SAN FRANCISCO,  (Reuters) – An attempt by national governments to establish a worldwide policy for oversight of the Internet collapsed yesterday after many Western countries said a compromise plan gave too much power to United Nations and other officials.

CARACAS,  (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is in stable condition after his cancer operation in Cuba, Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said yesterday.]

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS,  (Reuters) – Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have fired Scud missiles at rebels trying to overthrow Syria’s government, a senior U.S.

TEGUCIGALPA,  (Reuters) – Honduran lawmakers yesterday dismissed four Supreme Court judges who had declared unconstitutional a law designed to purge the country’s police of corruption, deepening a conflict between the ruling party and the court.

MIAMI,  (Reuters) – John McAfee arrived in Miami last night after Guatemala deported the computer software pioneer who is wanted for questioning in Belize over the murder of a fellow American, according to fellow passengers on the American Airlines flight.

LOS ANGELES,  (Reuters) – Sitarist and composer Ravi Shankar, who helped introduce the sitar to the Western world through his collaborations with The Beatles, died in Southern California on Tuesday, his family said.

(Reuters) – HSBC Holdings Plc agreed to pay a record $1.92 billion in fines to US authorities for allowing itself to be used to launder a river of drug money flowing out of Mexico and other banking lapses.

BAMAKO (Reuters) – Mali’s prime minister was forced to resign yesterday by the soldiers who staged a coup in March, underscoring the military’s continuing grip and complicating international efforts to help push Islamists from the north.

SEOUL (Reuters) – Isolated North Korea launched a long-range rocket today in defiance of condemnation by critics who believe it is seeking to develop technology that will enable it to deliver a nuclear warhead, South Korean TV channel YTN reported.

(Reuters) – A Guatemalan accused of being a top drug trafficker in Central America aligned with Mexico’s deadly Zetas gang appeared in a US court yesterday after being extradited to the United States, authorities said.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – United Nations member states pledged $384 million yesterday to an emergency fund that will allow the world body to respond quickly to natural disasters and other crises in 2013, UN aid chief Valerie Amos said.

 (Reuters) – Researchers at Yale University have named a newly discovered dinosaur Obamadon gracilis in honour of the 44th president’s toothy grin.

PORTLAND, Ore (Reuters) – A gunman opened fire at an Oregon shopping mall outside Portland yesterday and several people were believed to have been shot, authorities said, while local media reported two had been killed.

ALBANY, NY (Reuters) – A New York state anti-terrorism law enacted in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks cannot be used to prosecute a street gang member convicted of shooting a 10-year-old girl and paralysing a rival gang member, the state’s Court of Appeals ruled yesterday.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The White House and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner’s office held more negotiations yesterday on ways to break the “fiscal cliff” stalemate, although neither side showed any public signs that they were ready to give ground.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a New York hotel maid who accused the former International Monetary Fund chief of sexual assault yesterday settled her civil lawsuit against him for an undisclosed sum, ending one chapter of a scandal that cost him his job and a chance to become president of France.

CAIRO,  (Reuters) – Nine people were hurt when unknown attackers fired at protesters camping at Tahrir Square in central Cairo yesterday, according to witnesses and Egyptian media, as opponents and supporters of President Mohamed Mursi’s plans to vote on a new constitution geared up for a day of street demonstrations.

DOHA,  (Reuters) – At the end of another lavishly-funded U.N. conference that yielded no progress on curbing greenhouse emissions, many of those most concerned about climate change are close to despair.

GENEVA,  (Reuters) – Mauritania and Maldives, which both permit citizens who renounce Islam to be sentenced to death, were on Monday elected as vice-presidents of the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2013.