Science News

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will press the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations to tighten United Nations sanctions on Iran when it hosts a meeting of foreign ministers from the grouping on Monday and Tuesday.

ARKHANGELSK, Russia (Reuters) - Thousands of angry people demonstrated in a northwestern Russian city on Sunday against the high cost of living and demanded that the government of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin quits.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - "Retou ala Vi. Ayiti Pap Peri" (Back to life, Haiti will not die) reads the banner in Creole stretched up beside a crowded camp of earthquake survivors in the heart of the wrecked capital Port-au-Prince.

KABUL (Reuters) - Russia accused the United States on Sunday of conniving with Afghanistan's drug producers by refusing to destroy opium crops, the second time in a week Moscow has taken a swipe at the West over drug policy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama did not give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the cold shoulder when they met in the White House last week, a top Obama aide said on Sunday.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - The United Nations must boost peacekeeping forces in areas of Africa where Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels operate to stop massacres such as one that killed more than 300 people in December, a rights group said.

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - A series of explosions in western Iraq killed six people on Sunday, including an official of a political faction in former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's electoral coalition, police said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned militants on Sunday that Israel would respond to any attacks from the Gaza Strip that harmed Israelis, making the pledge after clashes along the Hamas-run enclave's border.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Saturday announced he would make 15 recess appointments held up by Republicans, including two top Treasury Department positions and two on the National Labor Relations Board that have been vacant for more than a year.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, facing one of the gravest crises of his pontificate as a sexual abuse scandal sweeps the Church, indicated on Sunday that his faith would give him the courage not to be intimidated by critics.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops and tanks left the Gaza Strip on Saturday, witnesses said, after the bloodiest clash in the Hamas-ruled enclave in 14 months killed two soldiers and a Palestinian.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva held talks with protest leaders on Sunday in an effort to defuse growing tension and avert possible confrontation after protesters intensified their drive to topple the government.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq election winner Iyad Allawi said on Saturday he was open to alliances with any faction and wanted quickly to form a government that would build strong relationships with its regional neighbors.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Landmarks such as Sydney's Opera House, Beijing's Forbidden City and Taiwan's Taipei 101 office tower temporarily went dark on Saturday as nations dimmed the lights for Earth Hour 2010 to call for action on climate change.

SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Libya lifted a visa ban on citizens of 25 European countries on Saturday after EU president Spain said a Swiss-instigated visa blacklist against 188 Libyans in those countries had been scrapped.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A U.S. missile strike in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border killed four people in a suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban hideout on Saturday, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Catholic Church's response to cases of sexual abuse by priests is crucial to its credibility and it must "acknowledge and make amends for" even decades-old cases, a Vatican spokesman said on Saturday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The death toll from two bombs that struck a crowded market in Iraq's mainly Sunni Diyala province rose to 59, police said on Saturday, as politicians started coalition talks to form a new government.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Former Soviet world chess champion Vasily Smyslov died on Saturday of heart failure, Russian television reported.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian opposition politicians were barred from visiting their jailed leader, Birtukan Mideksa, Saturday after a U.S. State Department human rights report said her mental health has deteriorated.