TheRepublic.com - International News

Dotcom 'in tears' after Megaupload files deleted

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:34:05 -0400

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom said Thursday he was "in tears" after a European company deleted all the data it was hosting from his shuttered file-sharing site.

Social network gaffes plague Japanese politicians

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:28:43 -0400

TOKYO - On the Internet, no one can save you from yourself. That is a lesson many Japanese politicians have learned recently in painful, awkward and at times costly fashion.

Floods strand pilgrims in India, deaths could rise

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:11:39 -0400

LUCKNOW, India - Monsoon flooding that has stranded thousands of people and caused landslides in northern India has killed almost 120 people, and the prime minister said the toll could rise substantially.

China's Xi harks back to Mao in party 'cleanup'

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:39:06 -0400

BEIJING - China's new leader Xi Jinping is commanding wayward Communist Party cadres to purify themselves of corruption, and he's summed it up in a pithy slogan as Mao Zedong might have done: Look in the mirror, take a bath.

Tropical Storm Barry forms off Mexican coast

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:20:07 -0400

VERACRUZ, Mexico - Tropical Storm Barry formed off Mexico's Gulf Coast on Wednesday, prompting Mexican authorities to ready hundreds of shelters.

Attackers torch buses at Venezuela university

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:17:14 -0400

CARACAS, Venezuela - A group of masked assailants has attacked a leading university in the Venezuelan capital, torching two buses and seriously damaging its rectory building.

Venezuela: Plane that disappeared in '08 found

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:59:37 -0400

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan authorities say the undersea wreckage of a small plane that disappeared five years ago with 14 people aboard has been found.

Voices from within Brazil's protests

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:41:38 -0400

Some comments by Brazilians participating in protests across South America's biggest country:

Few options for Brazil leader in face of protests

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:38:55 -0400

SAO PAULO - With massive protests by middle-class Brazilians demanding wholesale government reforms, people all over this continent-sized country have reached a verdict on the streets and online: "The giant has awakened."

Brazil officials reverse subway, bus fare hike

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:53:27 -0400

SAO PAULO - Leaders in Brazil's two biggest cities said Wednesday that they reversed an increase in bus and subway fares that ignited anti-government protests that have spread across the nation in the past week.

John Paul II moves a step closer to sainthood

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:40:41 -0400

VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II has moved a step closer to sainthood.

US and Cuba agree to resume migration talks

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:32:37 -0400

HAVANA - The United States and Cuba have agreed to resume bilateral talks on migration issues next month, a State Department official said Wednesday, the latest evidence of a thaw in chilly relations between the Cold War enemies.

US tries saving Taliban talks after Karzai objects

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:20:19 -0400

KABUL, Afghanistan - Hopes dimmed for talks aimed at ending the Afghan war when an angry President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday suspended security negotiations with the U.S. and scuttled a peace delegation to the Taliban, sending American officials scrambling to preserve the possibility of dialogue with the militants.

Magnitude-5.7 quake shakes central Chile

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:17:02 -0400

SANTIAGO, Chile - A magnitude-5.7 earthquake shook central Chile on Wednesday, causing buildings to sway in the capital but apparently causing no major damage.

Bus falls into river in Peru, killing at least 30

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:02:21 -0400

LIMA, Peru - Police in central Peru say a bus veered off a highway and fell into a river, leaving at least 30 people dead and nine missing.

Top UK court overturns sanctions on Iranian bank

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:35:14 -0400

LONDON - Britain's Supreme Court quashed sanctions against an Iranian bank penalized over its alleged links to Iran's nuclear weapons program, saying Wednesday that Bank Mellat had been arbitrarily singled out.

New MERS virus spreads easily, deadlier than SARS

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:32:27 -0400

LONDON - A mysterious new respiratory virus that originated in the Middle East spreads easily between people and appears more deadly than SARS, doctors reported Wednesday after investigating the biggest outbreak in Saudi Arabia.

Militants storm UN compound in Somalia; 20 killed

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:32:05 -0400

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Seven al-Qaida-linked militants on a suicide mission attacked the U.N. compound Wednesday with a truck bomb and then poured inside, killing at least 13 people before dying in the assault.

WHITE HOUSE NOTEBOOK: Obama ditches jacket

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:24:47 -0400

BERLIN - President Barack Obama invoked President John F. Kennedy's famous Cold War speech in Berlin 50 years ago in his Brandenburg Gate speech Wednesday. But he was not trying to best him. Not when his crowd of 4,500 was one one-hundredth the size of Kennedy's.

Greek coalition talks drag on to end TV crisis

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:27:48 -0400

ATHENS, Greece - Greece's governing coalition failed to end a political crisis triggered by the closure of state broadcaster ERT, but said talks would continue Thursday to try to avoid a snap election that could delay vital economic reforms and disrupt the country's bailout program.