French police on Monday neutralized a letter bomb sent to the Greek embassy in Paris from Italy in what appeared to be the latest in a string of explosive parcel attacks, officials said.
The Greek foreign ministry said in a statement it called Paris police after receiving a suspicious package addressed to the ambassador "without the name of the sender but sent from Italy.”
Full StoryA school bus taking primary students home slipped off a country road into an irrigation ditch in eastern China, killing 15 children and highlighting continuing safety problems in the country's school transport system following a similar tragedy last month.
Workers at a nearby factory heard cries for help and rushed to the overturned bus, broke open the windows and began pulling children out.
Full StoryU.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta arrived in Kabul on Tuesday to reaffirm America's commitment to Afghanistan as Washington starts to withdraw combat troops and hand over security to Afghan forces.
The Pentagon chief, who says violence is falling in the country where the United States has been at war with the Taliban for 10 years, is slated to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Defense Secretary Abdul Rahim Wardak.
Full StoryInternational Criminal Court member states on Monday unanimously elected Fatou Bensouda of Gambia as the new chief prosecutor for the main genocide and war crimes tribunal.
The post has become more prominent with the growth of international criminal justice over the past decade and Bensouda vowed to keep up pressure on leaders who order killings and violate rights.
Full StoryPresident Barack Obama on Monday acknowledged a U.S. drone was in Iranian hands for the first time and said the United States has asked Tehran to return the sophisticated spycraft.
"We've asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," Obama said at a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Full StorySeven workers died and at least a dozen others were injured when a melting furnace in an Iranian steel factory exploded, officials told Iranian media Monday.
"Several of those killed were foreign nationals," Azizollah Seifi, the governor of the central Yazd region where the blast occurred late Sunday, told ISNA news agency. He did not provide further details on the fatalities.
Full StoryThree Thai men were shot dead when unknown gunmen sprayed bullets at worshippers at a mosque in a tourist town on the kingdom's southern coast, police said Monday.
Nine Muslim men were sitting outside the building after evening prayers on Sunday when the attack happened, according to police in Ao Luek, Krabi, on Thailand's Andaman coast.
Full StoryIran will reverse-engineer the U.S. drone it has in its possession, and is in the "final stages" of unlocking the aircraft's software secrets, the head of Iran's parliamentary national security committee said on Monday.
"Our next action will be to reverse-engineer the aircraft," Parviz Sorouri said, according to the website of Iranian state television.
Full StoryHeavy fighting between the Sudanese army and southern-aligned rebels in the embattled state of South Kordofan has killed at least 19 government troops, a rebel spokesman said on Monday.
"There was heavy fighting on Saturday in Warni, in the far east of Talodi locality. The SPLA repelled an attack by the army. They left 19 bodies on the ground," Arnu Ngutulu Lodi told Agence France Presse.
Full StoryRussian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's spokesman said Monday the results of contested parliamentary polls will stand despite massive street protests and a probe by the election authorities.
"Even if you add up all this so-called evidence, it accounts for just over 0.5 percent of the total number of votes," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Agence France Presse in a telephone interview.
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