Global News

Two cops and a pregnant woman are hurt after a man opened fire with a handgun outside the offices of Italy’s new Prime Minister as he was being sworn in a different building nearby.  Premier Enrino Letta was not hurt.

The Taliban’s drive to derail upcoming elections in Pakistan has killed nine more people.  Two bombs went off at political offices in the country’s northwest.

Japan for the first time over the weekend marked “Restoration of Sovereignty Day”, the anniversary of its regaining its independence in 1952 after losing it to the Allies in World War Two.

Police in Bangladesh have arrested the fugitive owner of the Rana Plaza building that collapsed last week, killing at least 377 people.

Deadlock gets the boot in Italy, two people are finally arrested in the Bangladesh building collapse although the building’s owner is still in hiding, and Feds in America say this time they really do have the man who mailed poisoned letters to the President.

A piece of debris from America’s worst terrorist attack is found in a strange place, world leaders take a cautious approach to news of chemical weapons being used in the Syrian Civil War, and Russia is stepping backwards away from the progress taking root in the rest of the world.

An errant bus driver in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai thought he had trapped the perfect sexual assault victim, a western woman whom he trapped on his bus in a back alley.  She turned out to be a well-trained US Navy Sailor on leave who beat the living crap out of him.

Venezuela says it has arrested an American intelligence agent who was trying to foment violence.  Friends say they have a “kid with a camera”.

The owner of the building that collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh is in hiding as questions mount about assurances he reportedly gave that the building was safe.  The death toll is now at least 275 people killed.

The Obama Administration has responded to hazy intelligence about the possible use of chemical weapons by Syria with a perfectly nebulous statement.

Israel says it shot down an unmanned drone aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea near Haifa.  The drone was most likely the work of Hezbollah militants operating in Lebanon.

The public failure of “austerity” was made worse as Spain revealed that unemployment has risen to a record high 27.2 percent during the first quarter of this year.

An environmental engineer says he knows why some endangered trees on Japan’s UNESCO World Heritage Yakushima Island are dying.  And he is pointing the finger at Japan’s rapidly industrializing neighbor.

Land-locked Bolivia lost its access to the Pacific Coast in a war in the 19th Century.  Now, La Paz is suing its western neighbor Chile in the International Court of Justice in The Hague to get it back.

The corruption trial of a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin has resumed far away from Moscow.  The defendant, Alexei Navalny, says the charged against him are politically motivated.

Police and ethnic Uighurs clashed in the western Chinese province of Kashgar, killing 21 people including 15 police.  It’s the deadliest confrontation in the area since 2009.  State media describes the civilian dead as “mobsters”.

Alleged Boston Marathon Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was on the radar of two US intelligence agencies, in addition to the Russian authorities, and was placed on a US terrorism “watch list”.  But miscommunications between the agencies and countries apparently added to Tamerlan not getting the law enforcement attention we now know he deserved.

International scientists studying the new H7N9 Bird Flu in China are alarmed:  They say, “This is definitely one of the most lethal influenza viruses we have seen so far.”

At least 80 people are dead and there are fears the toll will go higher from the collapse of an eight-story in Dhaka, Bangladesh.  More than 600 people are hurt, but more than 2 thousand people were thought to have been inside.

The investigation in poisoned letters mailed to American politicians turns into a sideshow;  A guilty verdict in the trial of an ex-cop accused of scamming millions over terror fears;  And sad Pandas need comforting.  Around the world, I search for News…