World News

• Arab League seeks joint U.N force for Syria
  The Arab League voted Sunday to seek a joint United Nations force for Syria as regional diplomats met in Cairo to discuss their dwindling options for stopping the bloodshed in a nearly year-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.

• Carnival goes to the dogs with Rio pet parade
  Most pre-Carnival street parties in Brazil are all about samba, but the moves on display at Sunday's Blocao parade were focused more on wagging and strategic sniffing than on fancy footwork.

• Arab League seeks joint U.N peacekeeping force for Syria
  CAIRO — The Arab League voted Sunday to seek a joint U.N. peacekeeping force for Syria as regional diplomats met in Cairo to discuss their dwindling options for stopping the bloodshed in a nearly year-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.

• Turkish premier discharged after second surgery
  Turkey's state-run news agency says Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been discharged from hospital a day after undergoing what officials said was a "second and final" intestinal surgery.

• Manufacturing rebounds, but is it a renaissance?
  HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. — Don't tell Michael W. McLanahan that manufacturing in the United States is dead. His family-owned, privately held company has made mineral processing and farm equipment since its founding way back in 1835 — and is enjoying a boom.

• Arab League wants UN peacekeepers in Syria
  The Arab League called Sunday for the U.N. Security Council to create a joint peacekeeping force for Syria and urged Arab states to sever all diplomatic contact with President Bashar Assad's regime, the League's latest effort to bring an end to the violence that has killed more than 5,000 people.

• After Hu what? Pivotal visit for Chinese heir apparent Xi
  WASHINGTON — Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping arrives in the United States on Monday for a high-profile visit where he'll be feted as if he were the president of China_ the post he's expected to take next year.

• Greek parliament approves crucial austerity bill
  Greece's parliament has approved an austerity and debt-relief bill, crucial for the country to avoid bankruptcy and remain in the eurozone.

• Bahrain security tight before uprising anniversary
  Bahrain on Sunday deployed thousands of security forces to confront anti-government protesters ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Shiite-led uprising that seeks to loosen the ruling Sunni dynasty's monopoly on power.

• Northern Ireland police charge man over explosives
  Northern Ireland police investigating activity by Irish Republican Army dissidents say a man has been charged over a bomb discovered last year.

• Pakistani PM's job on the line in court showdown
  Pakistan's prime minister is showing no indication of backing down ahead of a face-to-face showdown with the Supreme Court on Monday, even though his stance could cost him his job and land him in prison.

• US admiral says forces prepared to confront Iran
  The top U.S. Navy official in the Gulf said Sunday he takes Iran's military capabilities seriously but insists his forces are prepared to confront any Iranian aggression in the region.

• 9 die in Kosovo avalanche; child pulled out alive
  Rescuers have pulled a 5-year-old girl alive from the rubble of a house flattened by a massive avalanche that killed both her parents and at least seven of her relatives in a remote mountain village in southern Kosovo.

• Dominicans: Deadly voyage seemed doomed from start
  Looking back, survivors say, the voyage seemed doomed from the start: The weather was bad and the clearly overloaded boat seemed barely seaworthy as it set out in the inky pre-dawn darkness in what was supposed to be a 36-hour journey to Puerto Rico.

• Brazil jet makes forced stop after pilot attack
  A Brazilian airliner safely made a forced landing after a passenger had a "psychotic attack," entered the cockpit and assaulted a pilot, crew members and passengers who tried to subdue him, witnesses said.

• Peru: Leftist rebel leader found badly wounded
  Peruvian troops captured on Sunday the badly wounded leader of a remnant of the once-powerful Shining Path rebel group, effectively dismantling a well-armed faction that lived off the cocaine trade, President Ollanta Humala said.

• Iran summons Azeri envoy over Mossad allegations
  Iran's state-run news agency says the country's foreign ministry has summoned Azerbaijan's ambassador to protest alleged Israeli intelligence activity in the oil-rich Caucasian state.

• Congo president adviser among 2 dead in jet crash
  A senior presidential adviser was among two killed after a private jet crashed while landing in Congo's eastern city of Bukavu, a transport minister said Sunday.

• Thousands rally to support disbarred Spanish judge
  Thousands of people rallied Sunday in Spain's capital in support of the disbarred judge famous for taking on international human rights cases.

• UK gov't: Press must face tougher penalties
  Britain's press must face tougher penalties for breaches of standards in the wake of the tabloid phone-hacking scandal, the government minister responsible for the media said Sunday.

• Iran urges Hamas to continue fight against Israel
  Iran's leaders urged the Hamas prime minister of Gaza to continue the Islamic militant group's resistance against Israel and promised support, state TV reported on Sunday.

• Al-Qaida executes 2 Yemenis suspected of US links
  A security official says al-Qaida-linked militants have publicly executed two Yemenis suspected of collaborating with the United States.

• France's far-right leader attempts image change
  Marine Le Pen has purged the old guard from her father's extreme-right National Front party and is reaching out to Jews, maligned under his leadership, in her bid to be the next president of France.

• Palestinian unity deal faces big hurdle
  A mounting rebellion by Hamas leaders in Gaza against a breakthrough power-sharing agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas highlights a potentially fatal flaw - the deal never spelled out how the Western-backed leader can take charge again in Gaza, the territory he lost to a violent takeover by the Islamic militants.

• Turkish jets hit suspected rebel targets in Iraq
  Turkish warplanes have bombed suspected Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq, the military said Sunday - its second cross-border airstrike in just over a week.