World

MOSCOW – Russian and Egyptian warships have begun a week of exercises in the Mediterranean. Russian news agencies on Saturday cited the Defense Ministry as saying the exercises were aimed at practicing protection of coastal areas and would last through June 14. The Russian vessels in the exercise include the …

LONDON – Marguerite Patten, the home economist and chef who helped educate Britons on how to survive on rations during World War II, has died. She was 99. Her family said Wednesday that Patten died on June 4. She suffered a stroke in 2011, and had been living in a …

LONDON – Britain’s terror legislation watchdog says the country needs a new law on monitoring online communications, arguing a fresh approach is necessary to address the concerns of both law enforcement and privacy advocates. The independent reviewer of terror legislation, David Anderson, on Thursday proposed a new blueprint for surveillance …

SKOPJE, Macedonia – Macedonia’s ombudsman has criticized the government over its treatment of migrants, saying they are being held beyond a 30-day legal limit in “degrading and inhumane” conditions. Macedonia has become a major transit route for thousands of migrants, mostly from Syria and Iraq, heading to the European Union. …

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The global chemical weapons watchdog says that waste created on board a U.S. ship that destroyed toxic chemicals from Syria’s stockpile has been successfully disposed of. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced Wednesday that the disposal of thousands of tons of waste was …

JUBA, South Sudan – At least 129 children were killed, with boys castrated and girls raped, during a government offensive against rebels last month in South Sudan, according to the U.N. children’s agency. South Sudanese military spokesman, Col. Philip Aguer, on Thursday questioned the credibility of the report, saying it …

For the past decade, Cairo attorney Asharf Badawy has been a member of President Hosni Mubarak’s ruling political party. If it were up to him, Badawy said, Mubarak would have been allowed to remain in office until new elections. Sitting behind his desk in his law office cluttered with files, …

Three weeks before the U.N.-sponsored Rio + 20 summit conference on sustainable development, member countries that the United States hoped would produce a five-page summary of goals are instead haggling over a mammoth grab-bag of demands for new planetary regulation and assertions that industrialized countries, led by the U.S., should …

PYONGYANG, North Korea – North Korea’s Supreme Court has convicted two South Koreans on state subversion charges and sentenced them to life in prison with labor. The sentences for Kim Kuk-gi and Choe Chun-gil were handed down Tuesday after they were found guilty of spying for South Korea. Officials in …

NEW DELHI – Police say a head-on collision between a bus and a truck has killed at least 18 people and injured 13 others in western India. Police officer Nagar Goje says the accident occurred Thursday when the two vehicles swerved to avoid a motorcyclist, who was crushed to death. …