International

(BBC) Aid lorries are heading to the besieged Syrian town of Madaya with enough food to last 40,000 people for a month, as well as medicine and blankets. Residents have been trapped there for six months by a government blockade and have…

President Barack Obama will not publicly back any presidential candidate before the Democratic Party has chosen who is to lead its battle to retain the White House in November. Mr. Obama would be "out there" campaigning after the primaries…

(Antigua Observer) Guyana – A fifty year old businessman is the country’s first victim of Swine Flu caused by the H1N1 virus. Vishnunarine Sugrim, also known as ‘Shook’, died on December 31, at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, where…

(BBC) Ethiopian security forces have killed at least 140 people taking part in mass anti-government demonstrations since November, activists say, according to US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). The protests have been sparked by fears that…

(BBC) A massive bushfire that devastated a small town is still burning out of control in Western Australia. About 95 houses in Yarloop, south of Perth, have been destroyed and three people are reported to be missing. Wind gusts of up to…

(BBC) State prosecutors in Paraguay have raided the headquarters of Conmebol, South America's football confederation, near the capital Asuncion. They said the move was part of US-led investigations into corruption at Fifa, world football's…

The Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (EOM/OAS) in Haiti has welcomed the establishment of a date for the presidential run-off as a "step in the right direction", and called upon all actors to work towards…

More than three billion dollars (US$467 million) were laundered in Trinidad and Tobago over the last four years, according to information reported to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), Susan Francois, director of the unit, disclosed on…

Three foreign tourists have been injured after attackers stormed into a hotel in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Hurghada. The two attackers were killed by security forces at the four-star Bella Vista hotel. The tourists - whose…

Mexico's authorities have recaptured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, six months after he escaped from a maximum-security jail. In a post on Twitter, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said: "Mission accomplished: We got him."…

(BBC) The leader of a Mexican drug cartel, Edgar Valdez Villareal, has pleaded guilty to drugs charges in a US court. Valdez, a US citizen better known as "Barbie" for his light eyes, was arrested in Mexico in 2010 and extradited to the US…

(BBC) Iran has accused Saudi-led coalition warplanes of damaging its embassy and injuring staff in an air strike on Yemen's capital, Sanaa. State media quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying planes had deliberately targeted the…

(BBC) The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court has urged judges in his state to deny marriage licences to same-sex couples. Roy Moore's administrative order defies a US Supreme Court ruling from June that legalised gay marriage…

(BBC) A new two-year visa system for Chinese nationals visiting the UK will begin next week, the foreign secretary has announced. It will enable visitors from China to make multiple trips to the UK for longer periods, the government said.…

(BBC) An Islamic court has sentenced a Nigerian cleric to death by hanging for insulting the Prophet Muhammad in the northern city of Kano. Abdulazeez Dauda, popularly known as Abdul Inyass, was convicted after a trial held in secret to…