World Politics News

PARIS - The Great Debate gets under way Wednesday, led off with a grand question: "For you, what does it mean to be French?"

BRUSSELS - Helped by a therapist, Rom Houben's outstretched finger tapped with surprising speed on a computer touchscreen, spelling out how he felt "alone, lonely, frustrated" in the 23 years he was trapped inside a paralyzed body.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Two suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents have been charged with attempting to kill an off-duty police officer near the province's border with the Republic of Ireland last week, police said Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a Network of Men Leaders on Tuesday to act as role models in the global campaign to end the "pandemic" of violence against women.

GENEVA - President Barack Obama's top military adviser attended the latest talks with Russia to replace an expiring Cold War-era arms control agreement, the U.S. said Tuesday.

NEW YORK - Khalid Sheik Mohammed has acknowledged doing what his nephew Ramzi Yousef couldn't: toppling the World Trade Center towers.

LONDON - An inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war kicked off Tuesday with top government advisers testifying that some Bush administration officials were calling for Saddam Hussein's ouster as early as 2001 — long before sanctions were exhausted and two years before the U.S.-led invasion.

LONDON - British authorities say they're searching for a leather-bound notebook Charles Darwin used in developing his theory of natural selection.

BRUSSELS - Man once thought in coma says he feels like newborn baby after regaining power to communciate.

LONDON - British defense secretary Bob Ainsworth says the United States' delay in deciding how many reinforcements to send to Afghanistan has harmed his country's ability to rally public support for the war.

ROME - A convicted Mafia boss who got out of jail by faking paralysis and anorexia has been arrested at a restaurant after more than two months on the run, police in Sicily said Tuesday.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - The Canadian province of Quebec said on Monday it aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, the same target as that set by the European Union.

ROME - The prostitute at the center of Premier Silvio Berlusconi's sex scandal claims in a new book that she slept with him on the understanding he would help her set up a countryside inn but she got "nothing" in return.

WARSAW, Poland - A Warsaw court on Tuesday began hearing a lawsuit filed by Lech Walesa in which the Solidarity founder is demanding damages from Polish President Lech Kaczynski for having called Walesa a communist-era agent.

LONDON - Britain's defense ministry says it will formally order a public inquiry this week into the alleged abuse and killing of Iraqi civilians by British soldiers.

PARIS - France's foreign minister has praised the courage of a journalist who has led a fight against a law in Sudan allowing for women to be flogged for wearing pants.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - An estimated 33.4 million people worldwide are infected with the AIDS virus, up from 33 million in 2007, but more people are living longer due to the availability of drugs, according to a United Nations report.

GENEVA - The world's largest atom smasher made another leap forward Monday by circulating beams of protons in opposite directions at the same time and causing the first particle collisions in the $10 billion machine after more than a year of repairs, organizers said.

UNITED NATIONS - Development officials say almost half the world's population lacks modern fuels to cook or heat or any electricity, and insist negotiators must address that "energy poverty" as part of any global climate pact next month in Denmark.

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. humanitarian chief says Sri Lanka's decision to release Tamil refugees confined to government camps is good news but the United Nations is concerned about how they are being returned home.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Khartoum's U.N. envoy, rejecting a bleak U.N. assessment of the situation in Sudan's conflict-torn western Darfur region, said on Monday it was time for international peacekeepers to prepare to leave.

UNITED NATIONS - The remains of British hostage Alec Collett, who disappeared in 1985 during Lebanon's civil war while working for the United Nations, have been positively identified, the U.N. announced Monday.

LONDON - Former British leader Margaret Thatcher returned to London's Downing Street Monday as she unveiled her own portrait, which has been installed in the official residence of Britain's prime minister.

LONDON - A convicted murdered who once served as the personal assistant to the duchess of York has escaped from a low-security prison in southern England, British officials said Monday.

LONDON - Four British lawmakers could face criminal charges over the expenses they claimed from taxpayers, prosecutors said Monday, marking the latest twist in a scandal over lavish spending by elected officials.

BUCHAREST, Romania - The third-place candidate in Romania's presidential election threw his support Monday behind the Western-backed socialist who faces the centrist president in a runoff seen as key to the country's emergence from political and economic crisis.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States will announce a target for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions before the UN climate conference in Copenhagen, removing a major obstacle to a deal, a senior official said Monday.

PARIS - Albert Camus' children are torn about whether to allow the Nobel Prize-winning author's remains to be moved from southern France to Paris' Pantheon, the final resting place of other French greats like Voltaire and Victor Hugo.

LONDON - British police have reached a compensation deal with the family of a Brazilian man who was shot dead by police after he was mistaken for a terrorist.