JOHANNESBURG (AP) , Michaela DePrince was little more than a toddler when she saw her first ballerina , an image in a magazine page blown against the gate of the orphanage where she ended up during Sierra Leone's civil war. It showed an American ballet dancer posed on tip toe.
International Top Stories from Associated Press (AP)
MALMO, Sweden (AP) , Flashy skirts, fake tans, fur and feathers: It's the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest. The televised extravaganza, with an audience of 125 million worldwide, is now in its 58th year. Once again without fail, it has produced a mix of bubble-gum pop songs, somber ballads, bagpipes, accordions and bizarrely kitsch musical productions.
BERLIN (AP) , Engineering a financial bailout for Cyprus in March was such a chaotic process that top European officials say it is time to rethink how the region manages its crisis , and who should be involved. Officials say the International Monetary Fund, which has contributed financial expertise and billions in emergency loans, may no longer be needed as a key decision-making partner.
NECKER ISLAND, British Virgin Islands (AP) , Surrounded by a turquoise sea and a menagerie of exotic animals on a billionaire's private island, political and business leaders gathered Friday to back an initiative aimed at expanding protection for the Caribbean's imperiled coasts and waters.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) , Former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who took power over Argentina in a 1976 coup and led a military junta that killed thousands of his fellow citizens in a dirty war to eliminate so-called "subversives," died quietly in his sleep Friday while serving life in prison for crimes against humanity. He was 87.
PETARE, Venezuela (AP) , Stern-looking soldiers clutching assault rifles wave down the beat-up Chevy Caprice entering this sprawling slum on the outskirts of Caracas. Flashlights in his face, the driver steps out and places his hands on the roof while the soldiers frisk him for drugs and weapons.
LONDON (AP) , A clutch of Twitter accounts and a blog maintained by the Financial Times were hacked Friday, the latest in a series of cyberattacks claimed by the Syrian Electronic Army, a pro-government group which has regularly targeted media organizations it sees as sympathetic to the country's rebels.
PARIS (AP) , Thieves ripped a safe from the wall of a hotel room near the Cannes Film Festival and made off with around $1 million worth of jewelry, in a brazen late-night burglary just hours after the screening of a film about break-ins at the homes of Hollywood celebrities, French officials said Friday.
MILAN (AP) , Silvio Berlusconi's private disco featured not only aspiring show girls performing striptease acts as sexy nuns and nurses, but also dressed as President Barack Obama and a prominent Milan prosecutor whom the billionaire media mogul has accused of persecuting him, according to the first public sworn testimony by the Moroccan woman at the center of the scandal.
The pro-Syria regime group, Syrian Electronic Army, hacked into the news site and Twitter feed of the Financial Times on Friday. The group, which supports President Bashar Assad, uploaded a video purportedly showing members of the rebel group, Nusra Front , tied to al Qaeda , blindfolding and executing soldiers with the Syrian army, Newsmax reported.
The U.S. military could blind Syria's air defenses, as it would need to do to establish a 'no-fly' zone over rebel held areas, without firing a shot, using new and highly secret cyberattack capabilities, according to USA Today.
A man who claimed to be a Salafist-Wahhibist cleric put the word out on Twitter that women should not flip on air conditioners at home because it sends the signal they're home and that could lead to...
PARIS (AP) , Suspected thieves ripped out a small safe from the wall of a hotel room near the Cannes Film Festival and made off with about $1 million worth of jewelry inside, a French police official said Friday. Cmdr.
BAGHDAD , Twin explosions ripped through a crowd of Sunni worshippers outside Baghdad on Friday, an attack which, combined with a second deadly bombing at a Sunni funeral to the south of the capital, deepened fears Iraq may be headed toward a new round of sectarian conflict.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) , Across Europe, gay couples are scared of publicly engaging in even the most basic expression of their affection: Holding hands. Released Friday, the largest ever...
Witches in Swaziland , where witchcraft is serious business , aren't cleared to fly their broomsticks higher than 150 meters and violators may be arrested and fined. The clarification comes from Civil Aviation Authority marketing and corporate affairs director Sabelo Dlamini, reports the Sun, a U.K. tabloid. Witches are still free to fly lower than 150 meters, or about 500 feet, he said.
Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel rallied against a new plan to force them to serve in the nation's military , a law they say violates their religious beliefs. Currently, ultra-Orthodox Jews are exempted from Israel's draft, even while most others ages 18 and older , including females , are required to serve. Men have to serve three years; women, two.
The U.S. military has a new set of orders in its pursuit of the terrorists who are guilty of killing four Americans in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi: Capture or kill. The plan includes a scenario that places U.S. troops on ground in Libya, CNN reported. The White House would have to first order the ground troops, however.
Russia has sent more than a dozen war ships to patrol the waters near Syria, U.S. military spokesmen said on Friday. The country also gave Syria supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, model P-800 Onika, United Press International reported. The message: Moscow is fully supportive of Syrian President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials believe.
MUMBAI, India (AP) , In the early morning heat and dust, daily practice at the Rambo Circus is in full swing. A trapeze creaks as two performers perfect their throws. A Colombian daredevil shouts to his colleagues scrambling atop a giant set of spinning wheels called the Ring of Death.
BEIRUT (AP) , A six-member U.N. team led by a former Syrian planning minister is drawing up a comprehensive postwar reconstruction plan even as the country's civil war rages on with no apparent end in sight.
The tragedy of Benghazi, where a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed, seemed a cut-and-dried story in the days after a mob attacked the State Department's mission in eastern Libya. From President Obama on down, the recap was simple: A crowd of demonstrators angry over an obscure YouTube video that denigrated Islam's Prophet Muhammad spontaneously stormed the complex.
ANALYSIS/OPINION The Arab Spring that prompted the ouster of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya also led to the rise of Islamists who are bent on creating Islamic states that adhere to Shariah law , and that fate could await Syria after dictator Bashar Assad falls. The democratically elected governments of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are either led or beset by Islamists.
ANALYSIS/OPINION Rising persecution of minority religious communities in Pakistan, Iran and Syria , and other nations , is a serious threat to stability in those countries and their neighbors, a panel of specialists said at a Hudson Institute forum this week, showing how religious tensions can have larger political ramifications in hot spots around the world.
"In together, out together," Hungarian Defense Minister Csaba Hende explained when asked how long his country's combat troops would stay in Afghanistan after U.S. forces leave next year. "But we are not going to abandon Afghanistan overnight," he added.
TEHRAN , Intelligent and confident, Parisa, 23, is from what could be loosely termed a middle-class family and has a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from Islamic Azad University. On weekends, she sells her body for profit on the streets of North Tehran.
China is challenging a key American policy toward Japan: the unambiguous U.S. support of Japan's sovereign rights to the Ryukyu island chain, including the key strategic island of Okinawa. The United...
LONDON (AP) , End it like Beckham. David Beckham, whose curling free kicks, rugged good looks and celebrity marriage made him one of the most famous athletes in the world, is retiring from soccer. Whether striding on the grass, the red carpet or the fashion catwalks, Beckham transcended his sport and became its highest-paid player, with a fortune estimated at $250 million.
BAGHDAD (AP) , The first exiles from an Iranian opposition group have moved to Albania from a camp near Baghdad as part of a relocation process, the United Nations said Thursday, a step toward defusing an explosive dispute left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and the U.S.-led ousting of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
KANDAHAR AIR BASE, Afghanistan , A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a NATO convoy in the Afghan capital of Kabul, killing 15 and wounding several dozen more. Among those killed were two U.S. soldiers and four American civilian contractors, according to an International Security Assistance Force statement. Nine Afghan civilians, including two children, also were killed.
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) , Cellphone service was cut off Thursday in areas of northeast Nigeria as jet fighters streaked through the sky and more soldiers were deployed to fight Islamic extremists waging a brutal insurgency.
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