International Glance
The secret Swiss bank account is no longer what is used to be.
For years the accounts were the basis of plots both real and imagined in which people hid cash to avoid the taxman or the police if the gains were from crime.
But prior to a midnight New Year's Eve deadline, many of the Swiss banks agreed to divulge to the U.S. government which Americans have accounts here to avoid prosecution on charges of helping them evade taxes.
As many as 40 of Switzerland's approximately 300 banks are reported to have said publicly that they would voluntarily hand over closely guarded client information to the Department of Justice in return for prosecutorial immunity.
Secret's out on the Swiss bank account
Snowden seeks extra Russian protection after U.S. threats
U.S. secrets leaker Edward Snowden will ask Moscow for extra protection after a report U.S. civilian and military spies want him dead, his Russian lawyer said.
Two officials -- one from the Pentagon and the other a National Security Agency analyst -- were quoted by BuzzFeed as saying they wanted to kill Snowden personally.
"We are concerned with the situation around Edward. We see statements made by some U.S. officials containing potential and implicit threats to his life," Anatoly Kucherena told reporters in Moscow.
Vatican monsignor arrested for money laundering
A Vatican monsignor already on trial for allegedly plotting to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) from Switzerland to Italy was arrested Tuesday in a separate case for allegedly using his Vatican bank accounts to launder money.
Financial police in the southern Italian city of Salerno said Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, dubbed "Monsignor 500" for his purported favored banknotes, had transferred millions of euros in fictitious donations from offshore companies through his accounts at the Vatican's Institute for Religious Works.
Evidence of 'industrial-scale killing' by Syria spurs call for war crimes charges
Syrian government officials could face war crimes charges in the light of a huge cache of evidence smuggled out of the country showing the "systematic killing" of about 11,000 detainees, according to three eminent international lawyers.
The three, former prosecutors at the criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone, examined thousands of Syrian government photographs and files recording deaths in the custody of regime security forces from March 2011 to last August.
Spain's new cardinal: Homosexuality is a curable 'defect'
Spain's newest cardinal has sparked outrage by saying homosexuality is a "defect" that can be cured with "proper treatment."
Fernando Sebastian, 84, who takes up office in the Vatican in February, also angered gay rights groups by comparing the sexual orientation to his own high blood pressure.
"Homosexuality is a defective manner of expressing sexuality, because this has a structure and a purpose, which is procreation," he said in an interview to Diario Sur.
Baghdad bomb blasts kill 26, Iraqi troops fight Sunni rebels
Seven bomb explosions killed 26 people and wounded 67 in the Iraqi capital on Monday, police and medics said, as security forces battled Sunni Muslim militants around the western cities of Falluja and Ramadi.
The bloodiest attack occurred in the mainly Shi'ite Muslim Abu Dsheer district in southern Baghdad, where a car bomb near a crowded market killed seven people and wounded 18.
US to begin easing economic sanctions on Iran
Iran's move was part of a landmark deal struck late last year with the U.S., five other world powers and the European Union to ease concerns over Tehran's nuclear program and provide for the partial removal of some of the economic sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy. Iran has insisted that its nuclear program was for peaceful purposes only.
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