World

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican is hopeful it can improve ties with China after decades of tension, the Roman Catholic Church’s highest-ranking diplomat said yesterday, adding that warmer relations would benefit the whole world.

PARIS,  (Reuters) – A French court yesterday suspended a ban on women wearing full-body “burkini” swimsuits on a Mediterranean town’s beach but the prime minister said the debate was not over, calling the outfit a symbol of a “backwards, deadly Islamism”.

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD,  (Reuters) – When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met top aides to prepare last week’s annual Independence Day address, some senior bureaucrats warned him against mentioning Baluchistan, arch-rival Pakistan’s restive southwestern province.

HARARE,  (Reuters) – President Robert Mugabe warned protesters yesterday there would be no “Arab Spring” in Zimbabwe after anti-government demonstrations descended into some of the worst violence seen in the southern African nation for two decades.

TORONTO, (Reuters) – A Toronto bank robber known as the “fake beard bandit” was charged with three counts of first-degree murder after three people were killed in a crossbow attack in the city’s east end, police in Canada’s largest city said yesterday. 

HARARE, (Reuters) – Zimbabwean police today fired tear gas at opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and former vice president Joice Mujuru as a protest rally against President Robert Mugabe descended into violence, a Reuters witness said.

BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Brazil’s Senate began the trial of suspended President Dilma Rousseff yesterday after a lengthy impeachment process that has paralyzed the politics of Latin America’s largest nation and is expected to culminate in her removal from office next week.

PORT-AU-PRINCE,  (Reuters) – Haiti’s long-delayed presidential vote must take place on Oct.

LA PAZ,  (Reuters) – Bolivian Deputy Interior Minister Rodolfo Illanes was beaten to death by striking mineworkers after being kidnapped, local media reported yesterday, citing a radio station director who said he saw his body.

WELLINGTON/SYDNEY,  (Reuters) – A New Zealand pizza chain aims to become the world’s first company to offer a commercial drone delivery service, a milestone in the once-unthinkable quest to save time and money with an air-borne supply chain dispensing with people.

HAVANA,  (Reuters) – Colombia’s government and leftist FARC rebels signed a final peace deal yesterday to end a 50-year-old guerrilla war, one of the world’s longest conflicts which took the resource-rich country to the brink of collapse.

KARKAMIS, Turkey/ANKARA, (Reuters) – Syrian rebels backed by Turkish special forces, tanks and warplanes entered one of Islamic State’s last strongholds on the Turkish-Syrian border yesterday, in Turkey’s first major U.S.-backed

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – If the U.S. presidential election were held today, Democrat Hillary Clinton would win the key swing states of Florida, Ohio and Virginia and have a 95 percent chance of beating Republican Donald Trump to become America’s first female president, according to the Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project.

OTTAWA,  (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was knocked off message as he marshaled his cabinet back to work this week, distracted by recent spending miscues involving top ministers in the first major wobble of his Liberal government.

CHICAGO,  (Reuters) – Florida Governor Rick Scott yesterday said the federal government has so far not delivered all of the Zika antibody tests and laboratory support he has requested as the state battles the spread of the virus.

UNITED NATIONS,  (Reuters) – Syrian government troops were responsible for two toxic gas attacks and Islamic State militants used sulfur mustard gas, a joint investigation by the United Nations and the global chemical weapons watchdog found yesterday, according to a confidential report seen by Reuters.

ACCUMOLI, Italy, (Reuters) – An earthquake flattened towns in central Italy in the early hours of  yesterday, killing at least 120 people and burying some alive in their sleep, with volunteers and firefighters racing to free those trapped under mounds of rubble as darkness fell.

AUSTIN, Texas,  (Reuters) – U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump held out the possibility yesterday of a softening of his hardline position on illegal immigration, a move that could help move him to the political centre but hurt him with his most ardent supporters.

MEXICO CITY,  (Reuters) – El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala will launch a new force aimed at combating criminal gangs and drug traffickers next month, presidents of the three Central American nations agreed yesterday.

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton leads Republican rival Donald Trump by 12 percentage points among likely voters, her strongest showing this month, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released yesterday.