RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil’s suspended President Dilma Rousseff has defended her record during her impeachment trial in the Senate. She is accused of illegally manipulating the budget to hide a growing deficit. Ms Rousseff said her conscience was “absolutely clean” and that she had not committed any crime. Senators are due to vote later…
ROME – The death toll in the Italian earthquake has risen to at least 247 as thousands of rescuers continue efforts to find survivors. Dozens are believed trapped in ruined Amatrice, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto, in mountainous central Italy. The search went on through the night, and there was a strong aftershock which rocked…
ROME – A magnitude 6.2 earthquake has struck central Italy, leaving at least 37 people dead and 150 missing, as rescuers search for survivors. Many of the dead were in the village of Pescara del Tronto which was levelled to the ground and there were fears the number of casualties could rise. Much of the…
ALLEPO – Syrian activists have released striking pictures of a young boy rescued from a destroyed building after an air strike in the divided second city of Aleppo. Video and photos of the boy sitting dazed and bloodied in an ambulance were shared widely on social media, with many expressing shock and outrage. A doctor…
CALIFORNIA – Firefighters are continuing to tackle a huge blaze in southern California, with several of them describing it as the most ferocious they have ever seen. An evacuation order has been issued for an area home to more than 82,000 people, just east of Los Angeles. The Blue Cut fire, as it has been…
MOSCOW – President Vladimir Putin has demoted one of his closest allies in a rare and dramatic shake-up of Russia’s top leadership. Sergei Ivanov, Mr Putin’s chief of staff, was relieved of his duties in a televised meeting in the Kremlin on Friday. He will retain his seat on the Security Council, a consultative body…
MOSCOW – Russia is ready to restore economic co-operation and other ties with Turkey, President Vladimir Putin has told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in St Petersburg. It is Mr Erdogan’s first foreign visit since an attempted coup last month. Mr Erdogan thanked Mr Putin, saying “your call straight after the coup attempt was…
RIO DE JANEIRO – Russian athletes are banned from competing at the Rio 2016 Paralympics following the country’s doping scandal. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) had opened suspension proceedings following the McLaren report, and has now confirmed the ban. The report, published last month, claimed Russia had operated a state-sponsored doping programme. The Russian Paralympic…
CARACAS – Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has announced its approval of the first step in an opposition campaign to recall President Nicolas Maduro. It said the opposition had succeeded in gathering 1% of voter signatures in all 24 of Venezuela’s states. The move is the first part of the opposition’s push for an early…
HILLARY Clinton on Thursday claimed her place in history as she became the first woman presidential nominee of a major US party, promising economic opportunity for all and rejecting Donald Trump’s dark picture of America. The former secretary of state, her hand on her heart, received ecstatic cheers from thousands of delegates as she strode…
