Syrian forces opened fire across two tense borders Monday, killing a TV journalist in Lebanon and at least two people in a refugee camp in Turkey on the eve of a deadline for a cease-fire plan that seems all but certain to fail.Across Syria, activists reported particularly heavy violence with more than 125 people killed in the past two days.The Obama administration expressed outrage at the violenc

A teacher in northern India who would not allow a student to cheat in an examination was crushed under a car, allegedly for his refusal, media reports said Monday.Rakesh Kumar, a Hindi teacher at a private school in Haryanastate’s Sonepat city, was walking home Friday when two men reportedly asked him to allow a student to cheat.When Kumar refused, the men ran their car over him twice, broadcaster

KILIS, Turkey (AP) _ Syrian forces fired across the border Monday into a refugee camp in Turkey, wounding at least five people as a U.N.-brokered plan to end more than a year of violence this week all but collapsed, authorities said.Syrian activists said two people were killed, but the reports could not be immediately confirmed.The Syrian soldiers were believed to be firing at rebels who tried to

TOKYO (AFP) -- The Japanese government on Monday gave a former prime minister a ticking off over a “personal” visit to Iran, where he met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and apparently criticized the IAEA.Yukio Hatoyama, whose short stint in the top job ended in June 2010 after just nine months, was publicly admonished by his own party for comments he reportedly made during the trip claiming the U.N.‘s nuclear watchdog was being unfair to Iran.“The (Japanese) government is taking a consistent posi

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) ― Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will send a letter to Israel’s premier on the state of stalled peace talks on April 17, a Palestinian official told AFP on Sunday.The letter is expected to lay out Palestinian conditions for returning to direct negotiations that have been on hold since late September 2010.The Palestinian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the letter would be handed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a deleg

DAMASCUS (AFP) ― A peace plan for Syria was in jeopardy Monday after a rebel commander rejected fresh conditions from the government for a pullout of regime troops from protest hubs amid a new spike in violence.Under a peace deal brokered by Kofi Annan, the former U.N. chief, the Syrian army was scheduled to withdraw from protest cities on Tuesday, with a complete end to fighting set for 48 hours later.But the Damascus regime has since said it would only carry out its side of the bargain if rebe

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, lagging far behind his rivals and his campaign mired in debt, acknowledged Sunday that Mitt Romney was his party’s “most likely” nominee.But the former House speaker insisted he was staying in the race despite being far outpaced by frontrunner Romney and fellow contender Rick Santorum, after polls once had him as the leading Republican to take on President Barack Obama in November’s presidential elections.“I think you have to be

BEIJING (AP) ― Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was to arrive in Beijing on Monday on an official visit to boost business and political ties between the rising powers with booming economies, despite differences over Syria and China’s ethnic Uighur region.The visit is the first to China in 27 years by a Turkish premier and follows a February trip by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping to Ankara and Istanbul, where the countries signed deals worth billions of dollars.The official Xinhua N

Pope Benedict XVI implored the Syrian regime Sunday to heed international demands to end the bloodshed and expressed hope that the joy of Easter will comfort Christian communities suffering because of their faith.Benedict, struggling with hoarseness and looking tired, celebrated Mass on Christianity’s most joyous holy day on the flower-adorned steps of St. Peter‘s Basilica, before a crowd of faithful that swelled to far more than 100,000 by the end of the 2-hour-long ceremony.Only hours earlier

News anchor Panagiotis Bourchas was bombarded with furious egging during an on-air newscast earlier this week. During an interview with a guest speaker on Greek TV, a crowd of enraged protestors stormed into the set and started tossing eggs and yogurt at the anchor, shouting “fascist!”The attack came after Bourchas hosted a show featuring spokesman from Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi political organizati

TULSA, Oklahoma (AP) ― Acting on a tip and shadowed by a helicopter, police arrested two men early Sunday in the recent shootings that terrorized Tulsa’s black community and left three people dead and two others critically wounded.Police spokesman Jason Willingham said the two men were arrested at a home just north of Tulsa about 2 a.m. Sunday and were expected to be charged with three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of shooting with intent to kill in the spate of shootings early Fr

A 10-year-old Colombian girl gave birth to a healthy baby girl, doctors said.The mother, only identified as a young girl from Manaure, delivered her daughter, who weighed 5 pounds, by Caesarean section, ABC News reported Friday.“The baby's head needs to come through a bony outlet. But in a young girl, the pelvis may not be ready or big enough to deliver a baby,” said Dr. Kimberly Gecsi, an OB/GYN