UK-World Summary
Obama says world moving quickly on Iran sanctions
WASHINGTON/TEHRAN - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the international community was moving "fairly quickly" towards imposing broader sanctions on Iran, as the Islamic Republic defiantly expanded its nuclear program. Obama said Iran's refusal to accept a U.N.-brokered atomic fuel swap deal suggested it was intent on trying to build nuclear weapons, despite its insistence that its nuclear program was only for the peaceful generation of electricity.
Sri Lanka parliament dissolved before April 8 poll
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's president has dissolved parliament before legislative elections on April 8, a senior government official said on Tuesday, a day after a leading opposition figure was arrested on military offences. The legislative poll will follow last month's presidential election, in which incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa beat former army commander General Sarath Fonseka by a landslide.
Ukraine's Tymoshenko girds to contest result
KIEV - Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko launched action on Tuesday to call rival Viktor Yanukovich's election into question, ignoring international endorsement of the poll and threatening a lengthy legal battle. Her refusal to accept the result of Sunday's presidential poll kept political tension high and could deny the former Soviet republic, battered by economic crisis, a swift return to stability.
Crisis-hit Greece sticks to guns on wages, taxes
ATHENS - Greece's Socialist government announced a tough incomes policy on Tuesday, a day before unions strike against austerity measures needed to exit a fiscal crisis, and sugared the pill by hiking taxes on the rich. On the eve of a 24-hour stoppage by the powerful ADEDY public sector union, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou announce a wage freeze and other measures that will save the state 800 million euros this year.
Second snowstorm bears down on U.S. East Coast
WASHINGTON by Wednesday night.
Haiti secure after quake, but escapees a concern - U.N.
PORT-AU-PRINCE - The top U.N. official in Haiti urged Haitians on Tuesday to turn in thousands of escaped criminals before they start trouble, but said the security situation in the quake-struck Caribbean nation is stable. Haitian authorities say some 5,000 prisoners fled the National Penitentiary and other jails when a massive earthquake on January 12 triggered the collapse of hundreds of buildings in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
China officers urge economic punch against U.S.
BEIJING - Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defence spending, adjust PLA deployments, and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan. The calls for broad retaliation over the planned U.S. weapons sales to the disputed island came from officers at China's National Defence University and Academy of Military Sciences, interviewed by Outlook Weekly, a Chinese-language magazine published by the official Xinhua news agency.
Sudan, Chad agree "definitive end" to proxy wars
KHARTOUM - Sudan and Chad agreed on Tuesday to end their proxy wars and work together to rebuild their border areas, a move seen aimed at bolstering security and credibility before impending polls in both nations. Chadian President Idriss Deby made a surprise visit to Khartoum for talks with President Omar Hassan al-Bashir after relations between the oil producers had hit rock bottom with each capital backing rebels fighting the other's government.
Nigerian VP assumes office as acting president
ABUJA - Nigerian Vice President Goodluck Jonathan assumed office as acting president on Tuesday to fill a power vacuum more than two months after President Umaru Yar'Adua left for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia. Parliament earlier recognised Jonathan as acting head of state in an effort to end uncertainty that has threatened to paralyse government business in Africa's most populous nation and reignite violence in the main oil region.
Somali pirates free Panama ship after ransom
MOGADISHU ransom Tuesday and had freed a Panama-flagged ship, the MV Al Khaliq, which they hijacked in October. "Our friends have disembarked and the ship set off into the ocean," one of the pirates, Hassan, told Reuters by telephone from the coastal pirate base of Haradheere.