World

(Reuters) Jackie Collins, the best-selling author of dozens of steamy novels who depicted the boardrooms and bedrooms of Hollywood’s power crowd, died on Saturday of breast cancer at age 77, her family said.

Reuters) – The United States and China have been engaged in urgent negotiations in recent weeks on a cybersecurity deal and may announce an agreement when President Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington on a state visit on Thursday, the New York Times said on Saturday.

BELI MANASTIR/HARMICA, Croatia (Reuters) – Hungary and Croatia traded threats yesterday as thousands of exhausted migrants poured over their borders, deepening the disarray in Europe over how to handle the tide of humanity.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) – At least 55 militants were killed when Turkish warplanes hit Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) camps in northern Iraq overnight, security sources said yesterday, as Ankara shows no sign of easing up strikes on insurgents ahead of a November 1 election.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition staged small protests in the country’s main cities yesterday to decry the near 14-year jail sentence handed to politician Leopoldo Lopez and galvanize support for the December parliamentary elections they are forecast to win.

LONDON, (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said today Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has to go but the timing of his departure should be decided through negotiation.

TOVARNIK, Croatia/ZAGREB (Reuters) – After suddenly finding itself in the path of Europe’s biggest tide of migrants for decades, Croatia said yesterday it could no longer offer them refuge and would wave them on, challenging the EU to find a policy to receive them.

Dissidents accuse Cuba of ‘social cleansing’ for pope visit HAVANA (Reuters) – A dissident human rights group yesterday accused the Cuban government of “social cleansing” ahead of a three-night visit by Pope Francis, saying police had rounded up thousands of beggars and homeless people in three cities where the pope will travel.

LONDON (Reuters) US President Barack Obama believes that holding military talks with Russia on Syria is an important next step and hopes they will take place very shortly, Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday.

ZAGREB, (Reuters) – Croatia cannot and will not accept the burden of thousands of migrants any longer, nor register or accommodate them, Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said today.

TOVARNIK, Croatia (Reuters) – Croatia threatened to close its border with Serbia yesterday as migrants fled from overwhelmed police, trekked through fields and tried to steal into Slovenia by train in a desperate march westwards that is sowing discord and recrimination in Europe.

TONGOY, Chile (Reuters) – Residents sifted through rubble yesterday and saved what they could from homes destroyed by a magnitude 8.3 earthquake in central Chile that killed 11 people, forced 1 million from their homes and sent giant waves crashing into coastal areas.

ABUJA (Reuters) – The number of children forced to flee Boko Haram’s insurgency in Nigeria and neighbouring countries has reached 1.4 million, the UN children agency UNICEF said yesterday.

BISSAU (Reuters) – Veteran politician Carlos Correia was sworn in as Guinea-Bissau’s new prime minister yesterday amid hopes that his appointment might diffuse a weeks-long political crisis in the coup-prone West African state.

SANTIAGO, (Reuters) – Strong aftershocks rippled through Chile today after a magnitude 8.3 earthquake that killed at least eight people and slammed powerful waves into coastal towns, forcing more than a million people from their homes.

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – A magnitude 8.3 earthquake hit off the coast of Chile yesterday, shaking buildings in the capital city of Santiago and generating a tsunami warning for Chile and Peru.

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – Soldiers fired warning shots to disperse hundreds of protesters outside Burkina Faso’s presidential palace yesterday after the presidential guard burst into a Cabinet meeting and arrested the interim president, stirring fears of a military coup.

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s economic powerhouse is slowing, destabilizing global markets.

QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuador called on Latin American neighbours on Tuesday to help it battle forest fires that have forced families to flee some neighborhoods of the capital Quito and its outskirts.

SID, Serbia/ROSZKE, Hungary (Reuters) – Hungary yesterday detained 29 people including a “terrorist” as migrants demanding to be let through the country’s newly shut EU frontier clashed with riot police firing water cannon and tear gas while refugees searched for new ways to enter the bloc.