PARIS (AFP) -- Foreign ministers from Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France gathered Tuesday to try to revive a shaky ceasefire in eastern Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putin ruled out an "apocalyptic scenario" of all-out war.Top diplomats from the four countries, whose leaders hammered out the initial peace plan in the Belarussian capital Minsk 12 days ago, met in Paris, with Kiev accusing Moscow and pro-Russian rebels on the ground of torpedoing the truce."The Minsk agreements are not be

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Divided Republicans are searching for a way out of an impasse over immigration that is threatening to shut down the Homeland Security Department within days.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Monday he would separate language overturning President Barack Obama's contested immigration measures from the department's funding bill.The move seemed aimed at pressuring Senate Democrats who have opposed the legislation because of a dispute over Obama's executive actions

COPENHAGEN (AFP) -- Over 1,000 mourners turned out Tuesday for the funeral of the first victim of the Copenhagen shootings amid reports the filmmaker had died trying to stop his killer from spraying a cultural centre with bullets.At least 40 heavily armed police officers guarded the church in the northwest of the city as Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt joined the mourners to bid farewell to 55-year-old Finn Noergaard.Organiser Kirsten Weiss Mose told AFP 1,200 people attended the ceremony,

BRUSSELS (AP) -- Greece's creditors in the 19-country eurozone appeared Tuesday to be heading toward a positive assessment of a list of reform measures Athens has sent in order to get a 4-month extension to its bailout, which would keep the country afloat. An encouraging initial reaction from the so-called institutions -- the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund -- needs to be backed up by the eurozone for the bailout extension to be granted. Eurozone financ

After eight years of joint security operations and intelligence sharing with Israel that have kept tensions in the West Bank from erupting most of the time, Palestinian leaders are weighing an end to the arrangement.Ties with Israel are on the brink of a “comprehensive confrontation,” said Jibril Rajoub, a close adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and one of the architects of security coordination in its first phase after the 1993 Oslo peace accords. “We will not be an insurance compa

BEIRUT (AP) -- Islamic State militants have abducted at least 70 Christians, including women and children, after overrunning a string of villages in northeastern Syria, two activist groups said Tuesday.The Sunni extremists, who follow a radical interpretation of Islam, have repeatedly targeted religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq since seizing control of large swaths of both countries. The group's fighters have ransacked churches, demolished Shiite and Sunni Muslim shrines, and ensl

BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Iraqi officials have expressed irritation and analysts scepticism at the US prediction that an offensive to retake Iraq's key city of Mosul from jihadists could be launched in April-May.Mosul is a major hub for the Islamic State group and holds special significance as the place where jihadist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed his "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria.It has been under the jihadists' full control since the second day of their June offensive in Iraq but feder

MADRID (AFP) -- Spain said Tuesday it had broken up an online network accused of recruiting young women to join Islamic State militants fighting in Iraq and Syria and arrested four suspects.The arrests came as European nations scramble to halt a surge in young people wanting to travelling to Iraq and Syria to fight with the jihadists.Two of the suspects were arrested in Melilla, the Spanish enclave neighbouring Morocco, in the latest operation by Spain's authorities targeting such recruiting net

NAIROBI (AFP) -- The head of the UN's climate science panel, Rajendra Pachauri, has stepped down, the body announced Tuesday, amid claims that he sexually harassed a subordinate."The bureau of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change agreed on Tuesday... to designate vice-chair Ismail El Gizouli as acting IPCC chair," it said. "The designation of Gizouli follows the decision by Rajendra K Pachauri, PhD, to step down as chairman of the IPCC effective today."The Nobel Peace Prize-awarded pane

HONG KONG (AFP) -- Hong Kong's leader said Tuesday that the government is looking to restrict the number of Chinese tourists entering the city, following a public backlash over the influx of mainland visitors.The announcement came after a leading travel body said official figures showed the volume of mainland visitors over the Lunar New Year period fell for the first time in almost 20 years -- attributing the trend to the frosty reception they receive."We will continue to speak with Chinese auth

GENEVA (AFP) -- South Korea has pushed forward with its complaint against the United States over anti-dumping tariffs on steel pipes used by the oil industry, the World Trade Organization said Tuesday.Seoul requested consultations with Washington over the matter in December, but South Korea has now requested the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body set up a panel of experts to resolve the issue after being unsatisfied with the talks, a WTO statement said.The Geneva-based WTO polices global trade accord

BANGKOK (AFP) -- Embattled former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra decried the "death of democracy" in Thailand Friday after the junta-stacked parliament impeached her and prosecutors announced corruption charges that could see her jailed.The successful impeachment of Yingluck, the kingdom's first female premier and the sister of former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, carries an automatic five-year ban from politics, while the criminal charges could see her sentenced to a decade in prison.She swift

SCHILTIGHEIM, France (AFP) -- He had a promising graphic designer job, plans to be a wedding videographer and was a star sportsman in his French town. So how did Youssoup Nassoulkhanov end up in an Islamic State group video praising the Paris attacks?The streets of Schiltigheim in the Alsace region of eastern France are not a terrorist breeding ground.Although the town has never quite recovered from the shuttering of factories in the 1980s, and a fifth of the population remains unemployed, it st

TOKYO (AFP) -- Sony said Friday it was asking Japanese regulators for permission to delay its earnings release next month after a cyberattack at its Hollywood film unit compromised "a large amount of data".The Japanese firm said its US-based Sony Pictures Entertainment subsidiary will not have time to put together its financial statements after the attack, linked to its controversial North Korea satire "The Interview," which has been widely blamed on Pyongyang.The Tokyo-based firm, which was due

TOKYO (AP) -- The United Nations' official in charge of investigating human rights violations in North Korea said Friday he stands by U.N. findings of widespread abuses there despite recent backtracking by a prominent defector on the details of his life in the North's prison system.Marzuki Darusman said that although defector-turned-activist Shin Dong-hyuk has revised some of the details of his story, it remains for the most part valid and represents the experiences of just one of hundreds of de