GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt denied on Thursday that he ordered the extermination of Ixil Mayas as he testified for the first time at his genocide trial.
The 86-year-old ex-general, who ruled Guatemala from March 1982 to August 1983 during the height of its civil war, said prosecutors hadn't proved his participation in the killings.
"I declare myself innocent," Rios Montt told the three-judge tribunal as many in...
SANDNES, Norway (AP) — Chess world champion Viswanathan Anand of India halved a point with the Norwegian world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen to draw in Thursday's second round of the Norway Chess Tournament.
Playing white, the 22-year-old Carlsen showed aggressive intent, turning down an early opportunity to force a draw.
But the game slowed in mid-section after an exchange of queens before both players grinded out a draw with just a white pawn and the two...
SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil's most populous and wealthiest state expanded its attack on crack cocaine abuse on Thursday by unveiling a program that will provide about $650 a month in subsidies for the rehabilitation of addicts at private treatment centers.
In announcing the program, Sao Paulo State Governor Geraldo Alckmin said 1 ,350 reals will be earmarked monthly for each crack user aged 18 or more who voluntarily enrolls in a rehabilitation program that is expected to...
KUWAIT CITY (AP) — Muneera al-Shatti has loved playing basketball since she was a child but it wasn't until Thursday that she had chance to show off her skills at a public arena in Kuwait.
As part of a new initiative launching sports leagues for women, al-Shatti and her teammates from Salwa Al-Sabah club downed Qadsiya club 63-13 in a game that attracted several hundred men and female fans. The initiative to launch basketball, table tennis and athletic leagues for the...
BIRJAND, Iran (AP) — When many struggling families in this eastern Iranian city take stock of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's legacy, it's not about the oratory full of bluster and menace or his tussles with Iran's ruling clerics that are known to much of the world.
What matters more here are the dusty rows of government-subsidized, two-story apartment buildings on the outskirts of the once-neglected outpost — testament to an effective populist outreach that has...
HELSINKI (AP) — Finland says two Finnish and one Austrian hostage who were kidnapped in Yemen in December have been released.
Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja says the Finnish couple, Leila and Atte Kaleva, and Austrian Dominik Neubauer have not been harmed and had flown to Austria where they were being examined at a hospital.
Tuomioja said Thursday that Finland did not pay a ransom for the hostages' release. He thanked officials in Austria,...
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil is guaranteeing homosexual couples' right to access assisted fertilization.
The wording of the an earlier decree governing who has the right to use such techniques was vague, and some courts here had blocked gay couples from using in-vitro fertilization and other assisted fertilization methods in the past.
The new decree stipulates that such techniques must be permitted for both gay couples and single people. It appears...
DUBLIN (AP) — Northern Ireland hopes to tear down the so-called "peace lines" of Belfast — dozens of walls of brick, steel and barbed wire that divide Irish Catholic and British Protestant neighborhoods — within a decade, officials said Thursday. But in setting a deadline of 2023, it's a sign of how difficult the task will be.
The government unveiled the goal as part of wider plans to reduce divisions in what remains a profoundly polarized society 15 years after the Good...
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's defense minister says Iran has built a new, radar-evading drone that can do surveillance and fire on enemy targets.
The semi-official Fars news agency on Thursday quoted Gen. Ahmad Vahidi as saying that the new aircraft — dubbed Epic, or Hemaseh in Farsi — can fly at high altitudes.
He did not elaborate on its capabilities.
In recent years, Iran has been pursuing a drone program alongside its military...
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The death toll in a gas tanker-truck explosion on the outskirts of Mexico City has risen to 24 because another victim died of injuries suffered in the massive blast.
The governor of Mexico State told local media about the latest fatality Thursday. The toll had stood at 23.
Gov. Eruviel Avila says 12 people remain hospitalized.
Avila says the state government will help people pay for rebuilding their homes and...
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