ABIDJAN (AFP) ― A French tanker with a mostly African crew has been hijacked off Ivory Coast, Ivorian and French officials said Monday, amid concern the area is becoming a new pirate hotspot.Ivory Coast officials said that 15 African and two Asian sailors were aboard the Gascogne tanker ship, which was sailing under a Luxembourg flag, though the French government said earlier that the crew consisted of 19 Togolese sailors.Sea Tankers, the French owners of the vessel, lost communication with the

DAMASCUS (AP) ― The leader of Syria’s main opposition group urged President Bashar Assad on Monday to respond to his offer for a dialogue, insisting he is ready to sit down with members of the regime despite sharp criticism from some of his colleagues. Mouaz al-Khatib, leader of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, said he is extending his hand to the regime to “facilitate its peaceful departure.” And some anti-regime activists are behind him, threatening even deeper fractures in the al

UNITED NATIONS (AP) ―The U.N. chief is asking the Security Council to consider lifting the 20-year-old international arms embargo on Somalia, so that country’s fragile army can import weapons to more effectively fight off al-Qaida-linked militants, al-Shabab. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said in a report to the U.N. Security Council that enhanced measures are “urgently needed to develop the Somali National Security Force.” “There remain elements, both inside and outside the country, that are op

MADRID (AFP) ― Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Monday dismissed calls for his resignation over a case of alleged corruption in which he is implicated, saying he has the same determination to tackle Spain’s economic crisis as when he took office.Leading center-left newspaper El Pais on Thursday published account ledgers allegedly kept by two former treasurers of the ruling Popular Party that purportedly show that at least a dozen senior party officials, including Rajoy, received payments from a s

MIDLAND CITY, Alabama (AP) ― After negotiations with his abductor fell apart, officers stormed an underground bunker in Alabama where a 5-year-old boy had been held hostage for nearly a week, rescuing the child and shooting the boy’s captor dead. Steve Richardson with the FBI’s office in Mobile, Alabama, said at a news conference Monday afternoon that negotiations had deteriorated with 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes. Dykes, who a week earlier had abducted the child from a school bus after fatally s

VIENNA (AP) ― Judging by its expanding nuclear program, harsh sanctions against Iran have done little but impose hardship on its people, while diplomacy has also failed to slow the Islamic Republic’s atomic progress. And while more talks are planned for later this month, there is a growing sense that the nuclear standoff between Iran and the international community is reaching a tipping point. Iran can theoretically back down. But because it insists that all of its nuclear work is peaceful and p

Los Angeles County is seeking to stamp out “maternity hotels” -- apartments divided into small rooms for foreign women who travel to the United States to give birth in order to obtain U.S. citizenship for their children. To eliminate these facilities, Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe sought to strengthen the regulations on the boarding houses, a hotbed for “birth tourism.” The motion expected to be approved next week. Knabe said the hotels offer places to pregnant women who want their chi

Chicago introduced a bill aimed at regulating energy drink sales, reported an American daily newspaper.According to USA Today, Chicago Alderman Ed Burke introduced a bill that would ban the sales of energy drinks with more than 180 milligrams of caffeine. Burke said Chicago would be the starting point of regulating energy drinks and that the campaign would spread across the U.S. Energy drinks contain just about the same amount of caffeine included in six cans of Coca-Cola, which is double the am

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education, said she was “getting better day by day” in her first public statement released Monday.The 15-year-old said she had been given a “second life” to campaign for girls to have the right to go to school, in a video statement recorded before she underwent surgery to repair her skull at a hospital in Britain on Saturday.“Today you can see that I am alive. I can speak, I can see you, I can s

Officers stormed an underground bunker in Alabama where a 5-year-old boy had been held hostage for nearly a week, rescuing the child and leaving the boy's abductor dead, officials said Monday.Steve Richardson with the FBI's office in Mobile, Alabama said at a news conference Monday afternoon that negotiations had deteriorated with 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes. Dykes, who a week earlier had abducted the child from a school bus after fatally shooting the driver, had been seen with a gun. Officers b