MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Philippine army special forces and police killed 13 suspected criminals in a fierce gunbattle Sunday on the main northern island of Luzon in the latest violence to erupt in the country in the last week.A police officer was wounded in the shootout, which raged for 20 minutes in the coastal town of Atimonan in Quezon province, about 140 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Manila, the capital.The gunmen, who were riding in two black SUVs, opened fire on more than 50 army

CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt's government swore in 10 new ministers on Sunday in a Cabinet shake-up aimed at improving the government's handling of the country's struggling economy.The top posts that changed hands were the ministers of interior, which handles the police, and finance. Also included in the shuffle are the ministries of civil aviation, communication and information technology, environment and electricity. A new minister for legal and parliamentary affairs was named after the former had resi

LONDON (AFP) -- David Cameron said Sunday he wanted to serve as British prime minister until at least 2020 to oversee a range of reforms including a renegotiation of Britain's relationship with Europe.In a raft of interviews ahead of a midterm review of the progress of his coalition government on Monday, Cameron also defended a largely unpopular decision to remove child benefit payments from higher earners.Cameron told the Sunday Telegraph he intended to lead his Conservative Party to victory in

Southern China will be hit by a new cold front this week, extending the country's chilliest winter in 28 years, the country's weather agency said.Temperatures in the south will hover about 3 degrees Celsius lower than average and provinces including Guizhou and Hunan may experience snowstorms, the China Meteorological Administration said in a statement today.The cold weather will prove challenging as the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday approaches, with icy rain and snow disrupting transportation,

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- The presidents of Sudan and South Sudan agreed Saturday to the unconditional and speedy implementation of deals reached in September to demilitarize their shared borders and allow oil exports to flow from South Sudan's oil fields north through Sudan's pipelines, an African Union official said.Sudan President Omar al-Bashir and South Sudan President Salva Kiir met on Friday and Saturday in Ethiopia's capital to revive a stalled oil exportation deal that has lagged fo

NEW YORK (AP) -- Every day, throngs of riders stand on the edge of danger in the busiest U.S. subway system, waiting on platforms with nothing between them and the tracks.Dozens of subway and light rail systems around the world have safety barriers with sliding doors on their platforms, but the idea hasn't gotten traction in New York. Yet transit officials are giving it a new look after two people were pushed and a third fell to their deaths on the tracks since early December.Safety doors would

HONOLULU (AP) -- President Barack Obama is hailing a last-minute deal that pulled the country back from the "fiscal cliff," but warned that he "will not compromise" over his insistence that Congress lift the federal debt ceiling.Obama said in his radio and Internet address Saturday that the fiscal cliff deal, approved by Congress on New Year's Day and signed Thursday, raises taxes on the wealthiest Americans while preventing a middle-class tax increase that could have thrown the economy back int

LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister David Cameron said Sunday Britain was prepared to fight militarily to keep the Falkland Islands if necessary, in the face of renewed Argentinian rhetoric over their future.Cameron said Britain had "strong defences" in place on the islands and fast jets and troops were stationed there.Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner said this week Britain was forcibly stripped of the Falklands in "a blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism" and demanded they be handed ove

DAMASCUS (AFP) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a rare speech Sunday denounced the opposition as "slaves" of the West and called for a national dialogue conference to be followed by a referendum on a national charter and parliamentary elections.Outlining a reconciliation plan aimed at resolving Syria's 21-month conflict which according to the UN has claimed more than 60,000 lives, Assad called on foreign powers to end their support for rebels seeking to topple his regime."Regional and inte

TOKYO (AFP) ― Japan scrambled fighter jets Saturday to head off a Chinese state-owned plane that flew near islands at the centre of a dispute between Tokyo and Beijing, a Japanese Defense Ministry spokesman said.Japanese jets were mobilized after a Chinese maritime aircraft ventured some 120 kilometers north of the Senkaku islands, which China calls the Diaoyus, at around 12:00 p.m., the spokesman said.The Chinese Y-12 twin-turboprop later left the zone without entering Japanese airspace over th

IZMIR, Turkey (AFP) ― The U.S. deployment of Patriot missiles in Turkey began on Saturday to help the country defend itself against any threat from neighboring Syria which is in the throes of a deadly 21-month civil war.“The deployment started early this morning into Incirlik” Air Base in southeastern Turkey, Peter Woodmansee, missile defense chief of the U.S. European Command, told AFP.“Several aircraft landed very early this morning with the advance party personnel from 3-2 Air Defense Artille

AURORA, Colorado (AP) ― A gunman barricaded inside his Colorado home fired shots at police from a second-story window before he was killed as SWAT officers stormed the home Saturday. Once inside, they found the bodies of three other adults, authorities said.The suspect, whose name was withheld by police, held officers at bay for nearly six hours after neighbors reported gunfire at 3 a.m. inside the modest townhome in the Denver suburb of Aurora, said police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson.It wasn’t known

The Taliban on Saturday warned of a prolonged war in Afghanistan if any foreign troops stay after the end of 2014, as Kabul and Washington prepare to discuss the “residual” U.S. security presence.President Barack Obama and President Hamid Karzai will hold talks in the U.S. next week on a long-term security pact between the two countries, with U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan at the top of the agenda.“If America wants to leave a small or large number of its troops for whatever length of time