BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's president marked Easter with a tour Sunday of an ancient Christian village recently recaptured by his forces, state media said, as the country's Greek Orthodox Patriarch vowed that country's Christians "will not submit and yield" to extremists.Syrian state TV and the country's official SANA news agency said President Bashar Assad visited the hilltop hamlet of Maaloula, in...
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Marking Christianity's most hopeful day, Pope Francis made an Easter Sunday plea for peace and dialogue in Ukraine and Syria, for an end to terrorist attacks against Christians in Nigeria and for more attention to the hungry and neediest close to home.Well over 150,000 tourists — Romans and pilgrims, young and old — turned out for the Mass that Francis celebrated at an ...
PERTH, Australia (AP) — A Malaysian official met Sunday with relatives of passengers who were aboard the missing jetliner and discussed ways of providing them with financial assistance, as an unmanned submarine continued to search for any signs of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Hamzah Zainuddin met with the passengers' relatives in Kuala Lumpur to talk about where...
MOKPO, South Korea (AP) The confirmed death toll from South Korea's ferry disaster rose past 50 on Sunday as divers finally found a way inside the sunken vessel, quickly discovering more than a dozen bodies in what almost certainly is just the beginning of a massive and grim recovery effort.About 250 people are still missing from the ship, the vast majority of them high school students who had...
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) Nepal's authorities temporarily halted climbing on Mount Everest while search teams dug through snow and ice Sunday for three Sherpa guides missing in the deadliest avalanche on the world's highest peak that killed 13 others.A section of the route over the dreaded Khumbu Icefall, a climbing pass where the avalanche swept a group of guides early Friday, has totally collapse...
TRES RIOS, Costa Rica (AP) On a warm spring day, Floribeth Mora was in her bed waiting to die from a seemingly inoperable brain aneurysm when her gaze fell upon a photograph of Pope John Paul II in a newspaper."Stand up," Mora recalls the image of the pope saying to her. "Don't be afraid."Mora, her doctors and the Catholic Church say her aneurysm disappeared that day
...
OTTAWA — Jaws were literally dropping Saturday morning as runners, walkers and cyclists were forced to pass by a display of racist and anti-Semitic graffiti.The concrete underpass along the pathway at the foot of the Champlain Bridge in Ottawa featured two hate-fuelled, nonsensical statements. One, using a racial slur, read: "Deport N-----s." The other read: "Hail Hitler."Both were brushed on ...
BELLEVILLE, Ont. — Flood waters in this region northeast of Toronto are receding — slowly — but local mayors are calling for swift help from provincial officials.“There’s going to be hundreds, if not millions, of dollars’ worth of damages,” Belleville Mayor Neil Ellis told QMI Agency after a Friday morning tour of the city’s flooded areas.“When this clears, there’s probably g...
Air Canada says it has launched an investigation after one of its passengers posted a video online that shows a baggage handler dropping bags from the top of a staircase to a baggage bin below.Global News reports Dwayne Stewart of Abbotsford, B.C., shot the video in a plane on the tarmac at Pearson Airport. He told the network the passengers on his Vancouver-bound flight
...
MOKPO, South Korea (AP) The captain of the ferry that sank off South Korea, leaving more than 300 missing or dead, was arrested early Saturday on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need - three of whom were seen lifeless in the drowned vessel by a diver who was unable to get them out.Rescuers planned 40 dives Saturday in an attempt to enter the ferry and
...
Travelers at Asian airports have asked questions about the March 8 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Here are some of them, followed by answers.Samuel Rogers, a 20-year-old German on a backpacking trip, in Bangkok and on his way to Malaysia.He asked: "Why did the Malaysian military see the plane on
...
DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) Pro-Russian insurgents defiantly refused Friday to surrender their weapons or give up government buildings in eastern Ukraine, despite a diplomatic accord reached in Geneva and overtures from the government in Kiev.Denis Pushilin of the self-appointed Donetsk People's Republic told reporters the insurgents in more than 10 cities do not recognize Ukraine's interim governme...
MOSCOW (AP) An agreement struck by the U.S., the European Union, Russia and Ukraine has raised hopes for defusing the Ukrainian crisis, which has strained East-West ties to a degree unseen since the Cold War. The deal Thursday in Geneva came after the four parties held talks together for the first time since Ukraine's turmoil began nearly five months ago. A look at
...
WASHINGTON (AP) When President Barack Obama travels abroad, sometimes it's not enough for just the leader of the free world to show up. People in other countries want the first lady, too.But Michelle Obama won't join her husband when he heads to Asia next week, and her absence is likely to sting, especially in image-conscious Japan. It's the first of four
...
EDMONTON The provincial government is forging ahead with public sector pension plan reforms despite objections from union groups who say the changes will "set off a rush to the exit."Bill 9, the Public Sector Pension Plans Amendment Act, passed second reading in the legislature on Thursday and will move to a full debate in the house on
...
LONDON, Ont. - Ontario announced this week it has expanded its list of vaccines children must get to attend school, but it hasn't closed a loophole that allows parents to exempt their kids by simply filling out a form.Health Minister Deb Matthews speaks of mandatory vaccines, but parents have always been able to exempt their children by signing an affidavit affirming their position based on
...
MONTREAL - Former Hells Angels leader Maurice "Mom" Boucher is no longer associated with the notorious biker gang.Sources have told QMI Agency the 60-year-old, who was known as one of Canada's most infamous criminals, was officially expelled from the gang.Boucher, who is currently serving a 25-year sentence in a maximum security prison for
...
ISLAMABAD (AP) Most didn't notice the new library at this Islamic seminary for girls near Pakistan's capital, until locals saw the paper sign in Urdu posted on its wooden door: "Library of Osama bin Laden, the Martyr."Cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, a radical preacher who runs the Jamia Hafsa madrassa, wanted to honor the memory of the al-Qaida leader, killed in a May 2011 raid by U.S. Navy SEALs o...
MOKPO, South Korea (AP) Rescuers scrambled to find hundreds of ferry passengers still missing Friday and feared dead, as fresh questions emerged about whether quicker action by the captain of the doomed ship could have saved lives.Officials also offered a rare glimpse at their investigations, saying they were looking into whether a crewman's order to abruptly turn the ship contributed to
...
ANSAN, South Korea (AP) The most poignant reminders of what's been lost here are the most ordinary.Desks in the classrooms of Danwon High School in Ansan, where dozens of students were missing and feared dead Thursday after a ferry disaster, are cluttered with textbooks, gym clothes, empty water bottles - small bits of ordinary school life now infused with heartbreak.
...
