BRUSSELS (AP) ― NATO announced Tuesday that it will deploy Patriot anti-missile systems near Turkey’s southern border, shoring up defenses against the threat of cross-border attacks from Syria and bringing the United States and its allies closer to Syria’s civil war.The alliance’s 28 members decided to limit use of Patriots solely for the defensive purpose of warding off the mortar rounds and shells from Syria that have already killed five Turks. But the announcement also appeared to be a messag

A prison superintendent in North Carolina was suspended for allegedly forcing inmates to drink hot sauce and rub it on their genitals, officials said.Lafayette Hall, superintendent of a Sampson County prison, has been suspended pending an investigation into the allegations, The (Charlotte, N.C.) News & Observer reported.In July, six inmates wrote a letter to the U.S. District Court, alleging they were forced to drink hot sauce and pour it on themselves in return for favors such as food, cigarett

Iran claimed Tuesday it had taken another prize in a growing showdown with Washington over drone surveillance, displaying a purported U.S. unmanned aircraft it said was captured intact. The U.S. Navy, however, said none of its drones in the region was missing.The conflicting accounts could put pressure on both sides for more details on U.S. reconnaissance and Iranian counter-measures.They also point to other questions, including how Iran could manage to snatch the Boeing-designed ScanEagle drone

More than 100,000 Egyptians protested outside the presidential palace in Cairo on Tuesday, fueling tensions over Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi's seizure of nearly unrestricted powers and the adoption by his allies of a controversial draft constitution.The outpouring of anger across the Egyptian capital, the Mediterranean port of Alexandria and a string of other cities pointed to a prolonged standoff between the president and a newly united opposition.Morsi's opponents, long fractured by bickeri

SANAA (AP) ― Al-Qaida committed “horrific” rights abuses during its 16 months in power in southern Yemen, Amnesty International charged in a report released Tuesday, documenting the beheading of an alleged sorcerer, crucifixion of a man accused spying and amputation of a man’s hand for stealing.The rights abuses between February 2011 and June 2012, when al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) affiliate Ansar al-Shariah took over parts of southern Yemen, resulted in “a human rights catastrophe

JERUSALEM (AP) ― Israel rejected a wave of American and European condemnations Monday over plans to build thousands of new homes in West Bank settlements, vowing to press forward with the construction in the face of widespread international opposition.The announcement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office was likely to deepen a rift that has emerged between Israel and some of its closest allies following the U.N.’s recognition of a Palestinian state last week. The U.N. decision appears

TOKYO (AP) ― Leaders for Japan’s biggest political parties are kicking off the campaign for parliamentary elections to be held in less than two weeks with visits to nuclear crisis-hit Fukushima prefecture.Nuclear energy and the economy are key issues in the Dec. 16 election, which is widely expected to send Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s unpopular Democratic Party of Japan to defeat after three years in power.The opposition Liberal Democratic Party is leading in the polls, but is unlikely to wi

CAIRO (AP) ― Egypt’s political crisis is widening, with plans for a huge march and a general strike Tuesday to protest the hurried drafting of a new constitution and decrees by President Mohammed Morsi that gave him nearly unrestricted powers.Morsi also faces the prospect of wider civil disobedience as media, the tourism industry and law professors pondered moves that would build on a strike by the nation’s judges.The planned strikes and march raise new fears of unrest, threatening to derail the

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― The United States warned Monday that Syria had begun mixing deadly sarin gas, and said it was more and more concerned a desperate President Bashar al-Assad could use chemical arms on his own people.But the Damascus government, hitting back at increasingly explicit and alarming warnings from Washington, pledged never to take such a step, which the Obama administration warns would cross a “red line” and result in U.S. action.Prompted by deteriorating security in Syria, the Unite

BEIJING (AFP) ― China on Monday branded a U.S.-Japan security treaty “a product of the Cold War” after Washington reaffirmed its commitment to Japan in its territorial dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands, known in Chinese as the Diaoyu.The amendment, attached to the National Defense Authorization Bill, noted that while the United States “takes no position” on the ultimate sovereignty of the territory, it “acknowledges the administration of Japan over the Senkaku Islands.”It added that “u

TEHRAN (AFP) ― Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed on Tuesday it had “captured” a small U.S. drone over Gulf waters after it entered Iranian airspace on an intelligence-gathering mission.“The unmanned U.S. drone patrolling Persian Gulf waters, performing reconnaissance and gathering intel, was captured as soon as it entered Iranian airspace,” the elite unit’s naval forces said in a statement cited by state broadcaster IRIB.The statement did not say exactly when, where or how the aircraft was cap

MANILA (AFP) ― Typhoon Bopha smashed into the Philippines on Tuesday uprooting trees and power lines and forcing more than 40,000 people to cram into shelters to escape the strongest storm to hit the country this year.Three people were hit by falling trees and another person had a heart attack as the typhoon lashed Mindanao island in the south of the country, said civil defense chief Benito Ramos, adding that their condition was not known.One other person was reported missing on the central isla