Wednesday, Apr 24th
Last update06:52:36 AM GMT
International Glance
Family members and non-essential U.S. staff have been ordered to leave the U.S. embassies in Tunis and Khartoum because of security concerns following a wave of anti-American protests, the U.S. State Department said on Saturday.
Note: This is a breaking story. Updates will follow.
Canada has suspended diplomatic relations with Iran, closing its embassy in Tehran and giving all Iranian diplomats in Canada five days to leave the country, Foreign Minister John Baird said on Friday, calling Iran the biggest threat to global security.
Baird, in Russia for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, said Canada's actions were not linked to growing speculation that Israel might launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
The government of Honduras has signed a deal with private investors for the construction of three privately run cities with their own legal and tax systems.
The project is opposed by civil society groups including indigenous Garifuna people who say they don't want their land to be used for the project. The developers say the fears are unjustified.
The tightening of U.S. banking sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program has had an impact on all sectors of the economy but is increasingly hitting vulnerable medical patients as deliveries of medicine and raw materials for Iranian pharmaceutical companies are either stopped or delayed, according to medical experts.
The effect, the experts say, is being felt by cancer patients and those being treated for complex disorders such as hemophilia, multiple sclerosis and thalassemia, as well as transplant and kidney dialysis patients, none of whom can afford interruptions or delays in medical supplies.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has pulled out of an international summit because he doesn't want to share a platform with the "morally indefensible" Tony Blair, it emerged yesterday.
The retired archbishop, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his campaigning against apartheid, said that he had withdrawn from the event because he believed the former Prime Minister had supported the invasion of Iraq "on the basis of unproven allegations of the existence of weapons of mass destruction."
A huge explosion rocked Venezuela's biggest oil refinery and unleashed a ferocious fire Saturday, killing at least 24 people and injuring more than 80 others in the deadliest disaster in memory for the country's key oil industry.
Balls of fire rose over the Amuay refinery, one of the largest in the world, in video posted on the Internet by people who were nearby at the time. Government officials pledged to restart the refinery within two days and said the country has plenty of fuel supplies on hand to meet its domestic needs as well as its export commitments.
Moscow's top court has upheld a ban on gay pride marches in the Russian capital for the next 100 years. Earlier Russia's best-known gay rights campaigner, Nikolay Alexeyev, had gone to court hoping to overturn the city council's ban on gay parades.
He had asked for the right to stage such parades for the next 100 years. He also opposes St Petersburg's ban on spreading "homosexual propaganda". The European Court of Human Rights has told Russia to pay him damages.
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