UK-World Summary
U.S. House approves bill to overhaul healthcare
WASHINGTON - The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly endorsed on Saturday the biggest healthcare overhaul in decades, giving President Barack Obama a crucial victory in a battle that now moves to the Senate. By a 220-215 vote, including the support of one Republican, the House backed a bill that would expand coverage to nearly all Americans and bar insurance practices such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
Market attack in Pakistan kills at least 12
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A suicide bomber killed an anti-Taliban village mayor and 11 other people in an attack near Pakistan's volatile city of Peshawar on Sunday, officials said. The bomber blew himself up as Abdul Malik, mayor of Matni village, was visiting a market crowded with people and goats being sold for the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.
In eastern Europe, people pine for socialism
BELENE, Bulgaria - In the dense forests of the idyllic Danube island of Persin, home to the endangered sea eagle and the pygmy cormorant, lie the ghastly remains of a communist-era death camp. Hundreds "enemies of the regime" perished from beatings, malnutrition and exhaustion in 1949-59 in Bulgaria's Belene concentration camp, where dead bodies were fed to pigs.
Thousands in West Bank urge Abbas not to quit
HEBRON, West Bank - Thousands of Palestinians turned out in the West Bank Sunday to urge Mahmoud Abbas to run again for the presidency following his announcement that he did not want a second term in the job. Waving flags, Abbas supporters greeted the president as he conducted a rare tour of towns in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, part of the territories where the Palestinians aim to establish a state.
Afghan Taliban deny have missing U.S. troops' bodies
KABUL - The Taliban denied on Sunday they were holding the bodies of two U.S. soldiers who had gone missing last week in northwestern Afghanistan after earlier claiming they had recovered the two dead servicemen. The disappearance of the two paratroopers from U.S. 82nd Airborne Division during a resupply mission on Wednesday, triggered a search by NATO and Afghan forces of Badghis province, near the border with Turkmenistan.
Area seized by Yemen rebels recaptured, Saudis say
DUBAI - Saudi Arabia has regained control of territory seized by Yemeni rebels in an incursion last week, a senior official was quoted as saying, as the kingdom becomes more entangled in conflict to its south. Saudi Arabia launched air strikes on rebels in northern Yemen last week after Shi'ite Muslim insurgents crossed the border into the kingdom and said they had taken control of an area called Jabal Dukhan.
China to boost aid to Africa as ties blossom
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt in concessional loans over the next three years on Sunday, saying China was a "true and trusted friend" of the continent and its people. The aid offer is double that unveiled by President Hu Jintao at the last summit in Beijing in 2006, as China aims to boost a relationship which politically goes back decades and is now economically booming, to the discomfort of some in the West.
Thousands of Japanese protest U.S. base plan
GINOWAN, Japan - Thousands of Japanese gathered in sweltering heat on the southern island of Okinawa on Sunday to demand that a U.S. Marine base be moved out of the region, days ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama. The row over the re-siting of the Futenma air base threatens to stall a realignment of the 47,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan and sour defence ties between the two countries, seen as key in a region home to a rising China and an unpredictable North Korea.
Serbian president awaits EU signal on membership
VIENNA - Serbia will probably apply next month for eventual European Union membership, but will first wait for a green light from Brussels to proceed, the country's president said on Sunday. "It is up to the Europeans," Boris Tadic told Reuters. "Then we will analyse and decide."
Dalai Lama visits Indian state disputed by China
TAWANG, India - Thousands of Buddhist monks and supporters welcomed Tibet's exiled spiritual leader on Sunday to a remote Indian region also claimed by China, a trip that has renewed tensions between the Asian giants. The Dalai Lama arrived by helicopter in this remote Buddhist enclave nestled in the icy folds of the eastern Himalayas, where he had passed through after fleeing Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.