BEIRUT (AP) ― Syrian fighter jets on Sunday bombed Damascus suburbs in a government offensive to dislodge rebels from strategic areas around the capital, activists said, as clashes raged around army bases and airfields in the country’s north. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said warplanes were hitting towns and villages around the capital, while regime forces targeted other neighborhoods with artillery and mortars. At least nine people were killed when a shell hit eastern G

SYDNEY (AFP) ― Telescopes at a global space research facility appear to have survived a devastating Australian inferno that destroyed 12 nearby homes and damaged several buildings on the site, officials said Monday.The fire, which raged through the night fuelled by hot, strong winds, damaged parts of the Siding Spring Observatory, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service said. But the RFS said that that aerial surveillance had established that the main Anglo-Australian Telescope “has survived, alt

There are many ways to corrupt a person and in China, women are succumbing to cosmetic treatments to sell their souls out.Prosecutors and legal experts said women government officials are increasingly using beauty salons to cover their tracks.Since March last year, Beijing’s prosecuting authority has handled 13 cases of bribery or misuse of public funds involving spas.Twelve of these suspects were women, mostly high-level officials, according to Wu Min, a news officer at Beijing No. 1 People’s P

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has not been seen in public for more than a month, is "fighting for his life" after cancer surgery in Cuba, former vice president Elias Jaua said Sunday."The situation is complex and delicate, but it is true that Hugo Chavez has fought and is fighting for his life," Jaua said during a meeting in Caracas of the ruling United Socialist Party. (AFP)

French fighter jets bombed rebel targets in a major city in Mali's north Sunday, pounding the airport as well as training camps, warehouses and buildings used by the al-Qaida-linked Islamists controlling the area, officials and residents said.The three-day-old French-led effort to take back Mali's north from the extremists began with airstrikes by combat helicopters in the small town of Konna. It has grown to a coordinated attack by state-of-the-art fighter jets which have bombarded at least fiv

ANKARA (AP) ― Turkey’s prime minister on Saturday called on France to shed light on the slaying of three Kurdish activists in Paris and said French President Francois Hollande should explain why he met with militants wanted by Turkey. The three activists, including the founding member of the autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebel group, were found shot dead on Thursday, at a time when their jailed leader is holding peace talks with Turkey. The killings stunned the Kurdish community in Europe. Kurdish ac

PRAGUE (AP) ― A former leftist prime minister and the Czech Republic’s conservative foreign minister will face each other in a presidential runoff later this month after finishing Saturday as the top two candidates in the ballot’s first round. Ex-Premier Milos Zeman and Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg will compete in the second round of voting for the largely ceremonial post on Jan. 25-26. Czechs are electing the country’s president in a direct popular vote for the first time, to replace eu