News: World

TOYAKO, Japan, Jul 5 (IPS) - When the leaders of seven western industrial democracies and Russia gather for their meetings Jul. 7-9 in Toyako on the northern island of Hokkaido, a mountain of wishes tabled by a multitude of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from around the world would have piled up before them.

Parliament in Argentina approves controversial taxes on agricultural exports, which farmers have vowed to resist.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian detective has gone missing after retracting allegations he made linking Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak to the brutal murder of a Mongolian woman, police said on Saturday.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A man tore the head from a controversial waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler on the opening day of Berlin's Madame Tussauds museum on Saturday, police said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces blockaded a Palestinian village on Saturday in what the army called an open-ended effort to curb protests against the construction nearby of the West Bank barrier.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia found explosives set to be used in bombs across the capital in reprisal for this week's rescue of leftist rebels' highest-profile hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, military officials said on Saturday.

PATTANI, Thailand, Jul 5 (IPS) - Rohana Samu is among the fortunate. She is glad to have steady work for the past four years no matter how monotonous her job is -- working an eight-hour shift daily in a frigid room, cleaning fish.

SANTIAGO, Chile, Jul 5 (Tierramérica) - Eighteen Latin American countries are currently involved in whale and dolphin watching tourism, which brings in about 278 million dollars a year. But experts say there is a lack of standards, research and education to ensure that it is a sustainable activity.

TEGUCIGALPA, Jul 5 (IPS) - In a highly controversial decision, the Honduran Institute for Access to Public Information (IAIP) has decided to keep from public scrutiny for 10 years key documents from the Finance Ministry and the tax collection authority.

BOGOTA, Jul 5 (IPS) - At the same time that Colombian President Álvaro Uribe was welcoming U.S. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain in the north of the country, the Supreme Court issued a communiqué calling on the government to "respect and obey the decisions" of the courts.

LAGOS (Reuters) - At least 18 people, 12 of them school children, were killed when the bus they were traveling in crashed on a busy highway in the southern Nigerian state of Delta, media reports said on Saturday.

TOYAKO, Japan (Reuters) - Leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations meet this week in northern Japan to grapple with a raft of problems from soaring food and fuel prices to African poverty and global warming amid doubts about how much the annual diplomatic pageant can achieve.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Orangutan numbers have declined sharply on the only two islands where they still live in the wild and they could become the first great ape species to go extinct if urgent action isn't taken, a new study says....

LONDON (Reuters) - A film secretly taken by a Zimbabwe prison guard and smuggled out of the country shows the extent of the rigging that took place for the June 27 presidential run-off vote, the Guardian said on Saturday.

Spain's Alejandro Valverde wins the first stage of the Tour de France to claim the coveted yellow jersey.

South Africa's Thabo Mbeki is in Zimbabwe, reportedly to meet President Mugabe and dissident opposition members.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Taliban militants released two Pakistani journalists on Saturday more than 36-hours after they were abducted in a tribal region near the Afghan border.

A group of Turkish women protest after a woman is convicted of exhibitionism for wearing "improper clothing".

Factories in Tianjin near Beijing are ordered to close in an attempt to improve air quality a month before the Olympic Games.

Iran said today that its nuclear programme remained unchanged, indicating that it would reject European Union incentives to stop enriching uranium