LOS ANGELES Consumer groups will deliver a petition from more than 350,000 people to the KFC restaurant chain on Wednesday, calling on the Yum Brands Inc unit (YUM.N) to stop the routine use of antibiotics by the companies that supply its chicken. Several fast... More »
BANGKOK The mother of a leading activist against the military junta in Thailand was charged on Monday with insulting the country’s monarchy in a one-word Facebook post. Patnaree Chankij was brought to a military court in Bangkok after the country’s attorney ge... More »
DUBAI Islamic State on Sunday condemned as an “apostate” a U.S. Muslim soldier killed in Iraq whose story has re-ignited debate in the 2016 presidential election on the role of Muslims in American life. Dabiq, the militant group’s online magazine, showed a pic... More »
HONG KONG When activists began setting fire to trash bins and hurling bricks at police during a February riot in Hong Kong, Chris Lee became more convinced his decision to leave his siblings and mother behind and move to Taiwan was the right one. Hong Kong, lo... More »
BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq About 40,000 residents of Falluja, Islamic State’s besieged stronghold near Baghdad, have fled in the last three weeks, but a similar number are trapped despite the Iraqi army’s attempts to secure escape routes for them, officials said on T... More »
MANCHESTER, N.H./WASHINGTON Republican Donald Trump on Monday placed responsibility for a mass shooting in Florida squarely at the feet of radical Muslims, who he said were entering the country amidst a flood of refugees and “trying to take over our children.”... More »
AMMAN The Syrian army pushed into Raqqa province, home to the de facto capital of Islamic State, after a major Russian-backed offensive against the militants, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday. The offensive is the third big assault on t... More »
After shooting dead a gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo to save a 3-year-old boy, zoo officials said they had collected a sample of his sperm, raising hopes among distraught fans that Harambe could sire offspring even in death. But officials at the main U.S. body ... More »
CONAKRY/MONROVIA Guinea will soon vaccinate people who have come into contact with more than 500 men who have recovered from Ebola, a senior health official said, the first time it has vaccinated the contacts of survivors. The decision reflects research that i... More »
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. North Carolina’s governor on Wednesday signed into law a measure that blocks local governments in the state from enacting ordinances to allow transgender people to use public bathrooms that match their gender identities. The legislation cam... More »
WASHINGTON The Supreme Court on Wednesday headed toward a possible 4-4 split over a legal challenge by Christian nonprofit employers who object to providing female workers insurance covering birth control as required by President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.... More »
BEIJING China is taking a “distinctly Chinese approach” to national security with a raft of new laws, including one on counterterrorism, the third-ranked leader said on Wednesday, offering a strong rebuttal to Western criticism. The U.S., Canadian, German and ... More »
MUMBAI India has given private assurances that it will not grant licences allowing local firms to override patents and make cheap copies of drugs by big Western drugmakers, a U.S. business advocacy group said. The comments were revealed in a submission last mo... More »
BANGKOK Sitting in her busy Bangkok noodle shop, Bunruen Klinnak professes “love” for Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a 2006 military coup and later fled abroad. But Klinnak, 55, also fears Thaksin’s return to politics c... More »
BEIRUT The Syrian army advanced toward the Turkish border on Monday in a major offensive backed by Russia and Iran that rebels say now threatens the future of their nearly five-year-old insurrection against President Bashar al-Assad. Iranian backed-militias pl... More »
PORT-AU-PRINCE A special mission sent by the Organization of American States met Haiti’s President Michel Martelly on Sunday as part of intensifying efforts to resolve an electoral crisis that threatens stability in the Caribbean nation. Martelly is due to lea... More »
GENEVA Syria’s main opposition group is considering a proposal by U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura that could pave the way to the delegation pressing ahead with talks after holding their first meeting with him on Sunday, a Western diplomatic source said. ... More »
WASHINGTON Facebook Inc (FB.O) prohibited global users from coordinating person-to-person private sales of firearms on its online social network and its Instagram photo-sharing service on Friday, countering concerns that it was increasingly being used to circu... More »
DAVOS, Switzerland Politicians and business leaders gathering in the Swiss Alps this week face an increasingly divided world, with the poor falling further behind the super-rich and political fissures in the United States, Europe and the Middle East running de... More »
BERLIN The fact that people of foreign descent were behind much of the violence in Cologne on New Year’s Eve should not be kept quiet but neither should it lead people to general suspicion toward all refugees and migrants, the German interior minister said on ... More »
BANGKOK Thai police on Monday said they will charge 11 activists who tried to stage a protest over suspected corruption in an army-built park with illegal assembly as allegations of irregularities in the park’s funding persist. Dozens of students activists wer... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Sunday that Democrat Hillary Clinton was a “liar” for claiming that his proposal to ban entry of all foreign Muslims into the United States has aided Islamic State’s propaganda efforts. Spe... More »
HONG KONG/SINGAPORE Almost a year after students ended pro-democracy street protests in Hong Kong, they face an online battle against what Western security experts say are China-sponsored hackers using techniques rarely seen elsewhere. Hackers have expanded th... More »
BEIJING China has appealed for international help in the battle it says it is waging against Islamist militants in its far western region of Xinjiang, as Beijing seeks Western support for its own “war on terror” in the wake of the Paris attacks. Hundreds of pe... More »
BRUSSELS “A breeding ground for violence” the mayor of Molenbeek called her borough on Sunday, speaking of unemployment and overcrowding among Arab immigrant families, of youthful despair finding refuge in radical Islam. But as the Brussels district on the wro... More »
SHANGHAI Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, enjoys strong support in the United States, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told Chinese officials during a visit this week to the Himalayan region, while expressing concern about human rights there. Pel... More »
KABUL Police and residents said Afghan government forces had regained control of most of the besieged city of Kunduz on Monday, and some shops in the center of the provincial capital opened for the first time since it fell to Taliban fighters a week ago.Reside... More »
HAVANA Amnesty International on Tuesday declared a Cuban graffiti artist as the country’s only prisoner of conscience, demanding the release of a man held for “disrespect of the leaders of the revolution” over a satire of Fidel and Raul Castro. Danilo Maldonad... More »
UNITED NATIONS (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and a host of celebrities kicked off a campaign on Saturday to make Internet access universal, saying this was critical to fulfilling the United Nations’ newly adopted agenda to com... More »
Companies and organizations are pledging to provide funds, goods and services to help thousands of migrants arriving in Europe from war-torn and impoverished countries. Companies are helping through both corporate and employee schemes. Following are some examp... More »
WASHINGTON, August 3 Women’s health group Planned Parenthood, under attack by anti-abortionists posting hidden-camera videos online, will be the focus of a partisan showdown on Monday in the U.S. Senate, with any wider influence on voters from the charge still... More »
CAIRO The United States and Egypt are returning to a “stronger base” in bilateral ties despite tensions and human rights concerns, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday after talks with his Egyptian counterpart. “Egypt remains vital … to engagement... More »
ADEN, Yemen Yemeni fighters backed by Saudi-led air strikes battled to take back northern suburbs of Aden from Houthi opponents on Tuesday, residents said, a day after completing their capture of the center of the strategic port city. The country’s dominant Ho... More »
SIEM REAP, Cambodia Pit, only two and with just one eye, needed only 11 minutes before he detected a deadly mine buried in a Cambodian field, work that humans with metal detectors could have taken up to five days to investigate. But Pit is not human. He is par... More »
