World News
May 11, 2008KATHMANDU, Nepal - Police detained more than 600 female Tibetan protesters, including many Buddhist nuns, on Sunday after breaking up several demonstrations in Nepal's capital against China's recent crackdown in Tibet.
The protesters held three separate rallies in Kathmandu but were quickly stopped by police.
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama has overtaken Hillary Rodham Clinton in superdelegate endorsements for the first time.
Obama picked up four superdelegate endorsements, including two from the Virgin Islands who had previously endorsed Clinton.
YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's military rulers held a referendum Saturday aimed at solidifying their hold on power while brazenly turning cyclone relief efforts into a propaganda campaign.
In some cases, generals' names were scribbled onto boxes of foreign aid before being distributed.
BANGKOK, Thailand - Military-ruled Myanmar, among the globe's poorest and most authoritarian countries, is reeling from a natural disaster of such magnitude that both the people's suffering and political aftershocks are certain to persist long after the last emergency aid has been doled out.
As bloated bodies are counted and survivors face disease and hunger in the wake of cyclone Nargis, dramatic scenarios are foreseen in a country that has changed little since an army coup 46 years ago.
SENECA, Mo. - A tornado that spun across the Oklahoma-Missouri border killed at least 18 people as severe storms raked the region Saturday, injuring many and mangling buildings in the storm-weary region.
At least 12 people were killed after severe storms spawned tornadoes and high winds across sections of southwestern Missouri, the State Emergency Management Agency said. Ten of the dead were killed when a twister struck near Seneca, near the Oklahoma border.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan risks political crisis unless its ruling coalition can agree on how to restore judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf, a cabinet minister has warned.
Musharraf imposed emergency rule and purged the Supreme Court in November in order to halt legal challenges to his U.S.-backed presidency.
CRAWFORD, Texas - Jenna Bush couldn't see herself getting married at the White House surrounded by antique furniture and oil portraits of presidents.
She and Henry Hager said "I do" Saturday at President Bush's ranch in Crawford where the corn is thigh-high, roads are named Cattle Drive and the Texas flag is painted on the rooftops of barns.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Jenna Bush picked "You Are So Beautiful," the ballad made famous by Joe Cocker, for the father-daughter dance with President Bush at her wedding reception Saturday night in Texas, the band leader said.
Tyrone Smith of Nashville and his 10-piece party band, The Tyrone Smith Revue, were hired to play at the reception in Crawford.
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Dozens of suspected Islamic insurgents ambushed a military convoy transporting bodyguards for the interior and finance ministers, killing four soldiers.
Also on Saturday, a gunfight between Islamic militias and Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu left two civilians dead.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The Dominican Republic has expanded subsidies on basic food staples to maintain calm after deadly food riots recently struck neighbouring Haiti.
Trucks loaded with milk, chicken, eggs and other food staples have been rumbling across the Caribbean nation, where almost half of 9.5 million residents live in poverty.
QUITO, Ecuador - President Rafael Correa said Saturday he has no confidence in the World Bank arbitration branch that is hearing U.S. oil company Occidental's lawsuit against Ecuador.
Ecuador handed over its sovereignty when it signed international accords binding it to the bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, Correa said during his weekly radio address.
ST. PAUL, Minn. - The man picked by the John McCain campaign to run the 2008 Republican National Convention resigned Saturday after a report that his lobbying firm used to represent the military regime in Myanmar.
Doug Goodyear resigned as convention co-ordinator and issued a two sentence statement:
PANAMA CITY, Panama - Panamanian investigators asked health authorities Saturday to track down patients whose names appeared on 6,000 bottles of medication contaminated with a chemical commonly found in antifreeze and brake fluid.
The bottles were handed over to the government two years ago when at least 116 people died after taking poisonous cough syrup, antihistamine tablets, calamine lotion and rash ointment made at a government laboratory.
PHILADELPHIA - A former college student accused of stealing people's credit to travel the world with her Ivy League boyfriend is nearing a federal plea deal, her lawyer said.
Jocelyn Kirsch, 22, and Edward Anderton, 25, are due in state court in Philadelphia on Monday for a preliminary hearing. They won't appear as the case is moved to federal court, the lawyer said.
SYDNEY, Australia - A swimmer was mauled by one of three marauding sharks at a remote Australian beach, but was in a stable condition Sunday after having surgery on an injured leg.
Jason Cull, 37, was swimming on Saturday at Middleton Beach in southwestern Australia when the shark, believed to be a white pointer, seized his left leg, said Tom Marron, a spokesman for local surf lifesavers.
HOUSTON - The bodies of five people, including three young children, were found Saturday on a sprawling property with several structures in Houston, police said.
A neighbour made the grisly discovery after seeing a man's body on the porch next to a .22-calibre rifle, investigators said.
SANTIAGO, Chile - Help is on the way for hundreds of household pets left behind in the wake of a volcano eruption in southern Chile, an animal welfare group said Saturday.
The Coalition for Ethical Control of Urban Fauna, which has been critical of the government's attention to stranded animals, said the Emergency Bureau offered to carry food to pets in Chaiten, a town 10 kilometres from the volcano of the same name.
KHARTOUM, Sudan - Hundreds of rebels from the war-ravaged Darfur area clashed with Sudanese security forces on the doorstep of the capital Saturday in a dramatic widening of the five-year-old conflict.
It was the first foray by a rebel group once confined to Sudan's western Darfur region into the seat of the Sudanese government.
