World

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio (Reuters) – Republi-can presidential candidate Mitt Romney is recovering ground in the critical swing state of Ohio as he rises in the polls and crowd numbers swell after his strong debate performance last week against President Barack Obama.

LONDON (Reuters) – Top-ranking retired British military officers have been secretly filmed talking about helping defence firms contact ministers and former colleagues in return for payment, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.

OSLO,  (Reuters) – The European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday for promoting peace, democracy and human rights over six decades, a morale boost for the bloc as it struggles to resolve its economic crisis.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, (Reuters) – One of the Taliban’s most feared commanders, Maulana Fazlullah, carefully briefed two killers from his special hit squad on their next target.

MIAMI,  (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Rafael formed over the eastern Caribbean Sea yesterday, triggering storm warnings for Puerto Rico, the U.S.

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council yesterday approved for another year the world body’s peacekeeping force in Haiti, but it will be cut in size by about 15 percent as it hands over security responsibility to the Haitian national police.

BEIRUT – Rebels battled to hold onto Syria’s main north-south highway yesterday as government forces fought insurgents on several fronts across the country.

DANVILLE, Ky.,  (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and rival Republican Paul Ryan battled fiercely over foreign policy and the economy in a lively debate yesterday, with Biden aggressively defending the administration’s policies and dismissing Ryan’s criticism.

STOCKHOLM, (Reuters) – Chinese writer Mo Yan won the 2012 Nobel prize for literature yesterday for works which combine “hallucinatory realism” with folk tales, history and contemporary life in China.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The “Shamoon” virus that attacked Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, ARAMCO, was probably the most destructive attack the business sector has seen to date, U.S.

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio,  (Reuters) – Not long ago, Republican Mitt Romney’s crowds on the campaign trail were mostly in the hundreds, he was fading in the polls and his calls to create jobs by limiting government’s reach seemed overrun by his own missteps.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan,  (Reuters) – A 14-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl campaigner shot by the Taliban had defied threats for years, believing the good work she was doing for her community was her best protection, her father said yesterday.

ISTANBUL, (Reuters) – Turkey scrambled fighters and briefly detained a Syrian passenger plane yesterday, suspecting it of carrying military equipment from Moscow, while Turkey’s military chief warned of a more forceful response if shelling continued to spill over the border.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court justices yesterday vigorously challenged a University of Texas admissions program that favors some African-American and Hispanic applicants in a case that could determine how universities use affirmative action at campuses nationwide.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.,  (Reuters) – In an embarrassing mistake, Florida Governor Rick Scott gave out a phone sex hotline number to Floridians seeking information on a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak.

OTTAWA, (Reuters) – Canada has no need to stop Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from doing business with Canadian telecommunications companies even though the Chinese equipment maker could very well try to engage in cyber-espionage for Beijing, a former Canadian intelligence official said yesterday.

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Venezuelan sovereign debt prices fell yesteday after socialist President Hugo Chavez won reelection, but the drop was limited because investors doubt he is healthy enough to serve a full six-year term.

MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – Mexico says it has killed the leader of the brutal Zetas drug gang, the most powerful kingpin to fall in a six-year battle against cartels, but in a surreal twist, his body was snatched from a funeral home by armed men.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Chevron Corp yesterday lost a U.S. Supreme Court bid to block an $18.2 billion judgment against it in Ecuador in a case over pollution in the Amazon jungle.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican officials said yesterday they had arrested a suspected drug cartel leader believed responsible for the murders in 2010 of dozens of migrants and an American who was killed as he jet skied on a lake on the Texas-Mexico border.