BAGHDAD (AP) -- A suicide bomber detonated his car Sunday as a group of police recruits left their academy in Baghdad, killing 20 in the latest strike on security officials that angry residents blamed on political feuding that is roiling Iraq.Police said the suicide bomber was waiting on the street outside the fortified academy near the Interior Ministry in an eastern neighborhood in the Iraqi capital. As the crowd of recruits exited the compound‘s security barriers around 1 p.m. and walked into

A fight among inmates led to a prison riot in northern Mexico that killed 44 people Sunday, a security official said.Nuevo Leon state public security spokesman Jorge Domene Zambrano said the riot broke out at about 2 a.m. in a high-security section of a prison in the city of Apodaca outside the nort

TEHRAN (AFP) ― Iranian warships entered the Mediterranean after crossing the Suez Canal on Saturday to show Tehran’s “might” to regional states, the navy commander said, at a time of simmering tensions with Israel.In Jerusalem, the Foreign Ministry said Israel will be watching the ship’s movements closely to ensure they do not approach its coast.“The strategic navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran has passed through the Suez Canal for the second time since the (1979) Islamic Revolution,” Admiral

TAIPEI (AP) ― Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group said Saturday that it has raised wages by up to 25 percent in the second major salary hike in less than two years, as the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer comes under intensive scrutiny after a spate of suicides.Foxconn employs about 1 million workers at its massive plants in China that are run with military-like discipline. The workers assemble iPhones and iPads for Apple Inc., Xbox video game consoles for Microsoft Corp. and comp

RIGA (AP) ― Latvian voters resoundingly rejected a proposal to give official status to Russian, the mother tongue of their former Soviet occupiers, though the defeated referendum Saturday is expected to leave scars on an already divided society.Russian is the first language for about one-third of the Baltic country’s 2.1 million people, and many of them would like to accord official status to the language to reverse what they claim has been 20 years of discrimination.But for ethnic Latvians, the

TEGUCIGALPA (AFP) ― Hondurans are burying victims of one of the world’s worst jail fires as they search for answers about what caused the disaster.On Saturday, the death toll rose to 358 after two severely burned inmates died in a hospital.Several funerals took place in various towns around the country Friday after authorities released the bodies of the first 24 victims of a horrific inferno that has rattled this Central American nation.“This was a barbaric crime,” said Trinidad Varela, who bid

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) ― The Rio Carnival came alive Saturday with more than two million revelers in outlandish costumes staging a mammoth, frenzied samba-driven street festival in the city center.Drawing the huge crowds, a day after legendary King Momo declared the Carnival officially open, was the Cordao da Bola Preta ― one of Rio’s oldest and most popular blocos street parties.While the eagerly awaited highlight of the Carnival, the parades of elaborately decorated fantasy floats and scantily d

Gunmen assassinated a senior prosecutor and a judge in a restive province in northwest Syria on Sunday, the country's state news agency said, while activists reported that security forces shelled rebel-held areas in the besieged city of Homs.SANA news agency said gunmen opened fire in the morning on

A 40-year-old woman was burned alive by villagers after being accused of casting black magic in Nepal on Friday.Dengani Mahato, mother of two, was severely beaten and set on fire by a mob including her own family members after a shaman blamed her over death of a boy a year ago, BBC and AFP reported.