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Associated Press: World News

43 minutes ago

(AP) Officials say a Vietnam War-era artillery shell has exploded at a coffee plantation. Four men were injured, three seriously.Vo Cong Khanh, chief of Huong Tan village in central Quang Tri province, says the explosion occurred Sunday when a man working with a hoe hit the shell while weeding the plantation. ...

China declares new national food-safety campaign

43 minutes ago

(AP) China declared a new food-safety campaign Wednesday after contaminated milk products from an earlier scandal showed up repackaged in several places around the country, exposing weaknesses in the country's promise to stop such problems from happening again.Vice Premier Li Keqiang told the first meeting of a newly established food-safety commission ...

China jails young man for joining political party

43 minutes ago

(AP) A 20-year-old factory worker who joined a banned political party because he was unhappy with one-party rule in China was sentenced to jail for 18 months Wednesday, his mother said.A court in southern China's boomtown city of Shenzhen found Xue Mingkai guilty of subversion of state power because he joined ...

Middle East

Iran sentences another activist to death

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) Iran has convicted another opposition activist on charges related to the country's post-election turmoil and sentenced him to death, the judiciary said Tuesday, bringing to at least 10 the number of those facing the death penalty for the unrest following June's disputed presidential election.Meanwhile, the New York-based International Campaign for ...

Iran rewards Basij militia with political clout

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) During an Iranian government meeting late last month, a top adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brought a proposal to expand the political voice of a group more known for its street muscle: the civilian militia corps called the Basij.The motion passed easily, according to pro-government Web sites.And with it, Iranian ...

Netanyahu's government tries to save settler house

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) The Israeli government has stepped in to save a house built illegally by Jewish settlers in a volatile Palestinian neighborhood in east Jerusalem, complicating already troubled U.S. efforts to renew Mideast peacemaking.The move is meant to skirt a court order to evacuate and seal the house, thus easing settler anger ...

Palestinian refugee agency warns of funding gap

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) The head of the U.N. agency aiding Palestinian refugees is warning of a looming funding shortfall and appealing for another $100 million.Filippo Grandi says the money is necessary for education, health and social services for 4.7 million Palestinian refugees scattered across Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza ...

Life imitates art in Oscar-nominated Israeli film

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) There's a reason for the gritty feel of reality in "Ajami," an Oscar-nominated Israeli film about the lives of Arabs and Jews in the impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhoods of this Mediterranean city: Its amateur actors' lives eerily mirror their art.An actress who lost her ex-husband to gang violence plays a woman ...

Defiant Iran accelerates nuclear program

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) Iran began enriching uranium to a higher level on Tuesday, an acceleration of its nuclear program that was followed by a U.S. threat of a "significant regime of sanctions."Speaking in Washington, President Barack Obama said the process of developing an additional set of sanctions on Iran was moving along quickly, ...

Iran begins controversial new nuclear process

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) Iran's state TV says the country started enriching its uranium to a higher level of 20 percent, over the objections of the international community.The Tuesday report said enrichment began after Iranian scientists injected 25 kilograms of 3.5 percent enriched uranium gas into a cascade of centifuges in a laboratory in ...

Palestinian force makes gains in West Bank

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) The security men brandished their weapons and ordered the suspicious car to halt, forcing the occupants to get out and put their hands in their air. The suspects were quickly handcuffed, frisked and made to kneel on the ground as the vehicle was swept for explosives.The crackdown, carried out by ...

Netanyahu govt steps in to save settler house

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) The Israeli government has stepped in to try to save a house built illegally by Jewish settlers in a volatile Palestinian neighborhood in east Jerusalem.The case is complicating already troubled U.S. efforts to renew Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.The maneuver could ease settler anger over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to slow Jewish ...

Tel Aviv "savior" accused of enslaving women

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) The women tattooed his name and portrait on their bodies and gave their children his name _ Savior.They spoon-fed the bearded, one-time healer as if he were royalty, brushed his shoulder-length white locks, sent him text messages when they were ovulating and slept with him at his bidding.They turned over ...

Rights watchdog says Bahrain police using torture

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) After abolishing torture more than 10 years ago, Bahrain's security services are once more resorting to the practice to extract confessions from detainees, including many Shiite protesters, said a report released Monday by an international human rights group.The New York-based Human Rights Watch published an 89-page report, based on interviews ...

West Bank to hold municipal elections July 17

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

(AP) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' government decided Monday to hold municipal elections in the West Bank in July, the first voting since Abbas' Fatah movement was trounced by the militant Islamic Hamas in national polls four years ago.Abbas' rivals in Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, signaled they will not participate ...