President Hu Jintao has stepped aside as Communist Party leader to clear the way for Vice President Xi Jinping to take the helm in China, delegates to the party's national congress said Wednesday.Hu was not re-elected a member of the party's Central Committee on the final day of the gathering, showing that he's no longer in the leadership, said two delegates, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official list of members had not yet been released. Xi was re-elected along with other lead

The African Union has endorsed a plan for military intervention in Mali, where Islamists have seized control of its desert north, the AU's Commissioner for Peace and Security said Tuesday.The AU Peace and Security Council "has decided ... to endorse a harmonized concept of operations for the planned deployment of AFISMA, which is the African-led mission in support of Mali," Ramtane Lamamra told reporters, speaking after an AU peace and security meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.Lamamr

NETIVOT, Israel (AFP) ― Gaza militants Monday fired six rockets at southern Israel but later offered to cease fire if the Jewish state did the same, as the Israeli top brass weighed a stronger response to a flare-up in violence.The number of rockets fired represented a significant drop from Sunday, when dozens of missiles crashed into southern Israel, prompting a series of overnight raids in retaliation.The main Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, me

NAIROBI (AFP) ― The death toll from a weekend ambush on Kenyan police officers in the north of the country ― the deadliest ever ― has risen to 42 after more bodies were found, police said.“We have never lost such a big number of officers,” a police source said on condition of anonymity.Officers hunting cattle thieves were ambushed by gunmen on Saturday in Baragoi, a remote district in Kenya’s arid north.“The number of police officers killed is now 42. More bodies were recovered this afternoon,”

TAMPA, Florida (AP) -- CIA Director David Petraeus was shocked to learn last summer that his mistress was suspected of sending threatening emails warning another woman to stay away from him, former staff members and friends told the Associated Press.Petraeus, who led U.S. military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, resigned his CIA post Friday, acknowledging his extramarital affair with his biographer-turned-lover and expressing deep regret. The scandal has rocked Washington, where members of Cong

BRASILIA (AFP) ― Brazil’s supreme court Monday capped the country’s biggest trial for political corruption, sentencing an ex-chief of staff under then president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to nearly 11 years in prison for his role in a vote-buying scheme.Jose Dirceu, who was the chief of staff from 2003-2005 and a top leader of the ruling Workers’ Party, was found guilty in October of running the operation to bribe lawmakers during Lula’s first term.On Monday, the court sentenced the 66-year-old l

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has decided to dissolve Japan's parliament as early as Friday, with an election possibly next month, media said Tuesday, a move likely to unseat him from power.Noda will call an election for as early as December 16 or as late as January 20, according to major Japanese news media, including the Nikkei business daily and the liberal-leaning Asahi Shimbun.After months of speculation over the date of the next national ballot, the issue surged to the fore on Monday after

A New Zealand middle school has banned hugging because of students repeatedly arriving late to classes.Teachers at Takapuna Normal Intermediate School suggested last week to students that they keep the hugs outside of the school, deputy principal Sue Cattell said.“It’s just a little thing that they’re doing. It got out of hand toward the end of morning tea time especially. There would be groups that got back to class 10 to 15 minutes late because they were going around making sure they’d hugged

A New York dog separated from his family during Hurricane Sandy -- a storm that shares the canine‘s name -- was reunited with his owners.Sandy the golden retriever was reunited Friday with the Baron family in Queens after he went missing nearly two weeks ago when the storm blew open the doors of the family home, the New York Daily News reported Monday.Harvey Baron, a New York City Transit electronics specialist, and his family said they searched for the dog, but were unable to find any trace of

The United States was re-elected Monday to another three-year term on the U.N. Human Rights Council in the only contested election for the organization's top human rights body.The U.S. was competing with four countries for three open seats belonging to the Western Group on the council. Germany and Ireland were also elected by the 193-member General Assembly. Greece and Sweden lost out.U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said her country was “pleased and proud to have been re-elected to a seco

BEIJING (AFP) -- China's Communist Party will on Thursday unveil the new set of top leaders who will take over the reins of the country for the next decade, one day after their week-long congress ends, the party said Monday.The widely expected timing was confirmed to AFP by staff organising press coverage of the Communist Party congress under way in Beijing, which is held every five years to shuffle the top leadership of the party.Chinese President Hu Jintao, who has been in power ten years, is