CNN: Osama bin Laden, the face of terror, killed in Pakistan
The most prominent face of terror in America and beyond, Osama Bin Laden, has been killed in Pakistan, U.S. officials said Sunday night.
Bin Laden was the leader of al Qaeda, the terrorist network behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. U.S. officials said that their forces have the body of bin Laden.
The enormity of the destruction -- the World Trade Center's towers devastated by two hijacked airplanes, the Pentagon partially destroyed by a third hijacked jetliner, a fourth flight crashed in rural Pennsylvania, and more than 3,000 people killed -- gave bin Laden a global presence.
The Saudi-born zealot commanded an organization run like a rogue multinational firm, experts said, with subsidiaries operating secretly in dozens of countries, plotting terror, raising money and recruiting young Muslim men -- even boys -- from many nations to its training camps in Afghanistan.
Yahoo: Pope beatifies John Paul II before 1.5M faithful
Pope Benedict XVI beatified Pope John Paul II before 1.5 million faithful in St. Peter's Square and surrounding streets Sunday, moving the beloved former pontiff one step closer to possible sainthood.
The crowd in Rome and in capitals around the world erupted in cheers, tears and applause as an enormous photo of a young, smiling John Paul was unveiled over the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica and a choir launched into hymn long associated with the Polish-born pope.
"He restored to Christianity its true face as a religion of hope," Benedict said in his homily, referring to John Paul's decisive role in helping bring down communism. Benedict dotted his remarks with personal recollections of a man he came to "revere" during their near-quarter century working together.
Beatification is the first major milestone on the path to possible sainthood, one of the Catholic Church's highest honors. A second miracle attributed to John Paul's intercession is needed for him to be canonized.
Yahoo: Libyans burn UK, Italy missions after NATO strike
Angry mobs attacked Western embassies and a U.N. office in Tripoli Sunday after NATO bombed Moammar Gadhafi's family compound in an attack officials said killed the leader's second youngest son and three grandchildren, ages six months to two years.
Russia said the Western alliance exceeded its U.N. mandate of protecting Libyan civilians with the strike.
The vandalized embassies were empty and nobody was reported injured, but the attacks heightened tensions between the Libyan regime and Western powers, prompting the United Nations to pull its international staff out of the capital.
The bombing did not slow the attacks by Gadhafi's forces on rebel strongholds in the western part of Libya that has remained largely under the control of the regime. The rebel port of Misrata, which has been besieged by Gadhafi's troops for two months, came under heavy shelling Sunday and at least 12 people were killed, a medic said.
BBC: Egypt urges US to back Palestinian state declaration
The Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Araby has urged the United States to support the declaration of an independent Palestinian state.
The call comes after the reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah brokered last week by Egypt.
Both Israel and the US have said they will not deal with Hamas, and have until now opposed a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood.
The statement marks yet another big shift in Egypt's foreign policy.
Guardian: Venezuela negotiates extradition of alleged drug kingpin wanted by US
An alleged drug lord who has implicated senior Venezuelan officials in cocaine-trafficking is bound for Caracas after President Hugo Chávez won a high-stakes extradition tussle with the United States.
Walid Makled, who is in a high-security jail in Colombia, is expected to be flown to Venezuela this week to be tried – and some say muzzled – for trafficking drugs through Venezuela's state-run ports.
Makled, known as "the Turk", told reporters from prison that for years he paid senior Venezuelan government figures and 40 military officers, including the head of the navy, to let him smuggle cocaine from the Venezuelan port of Puerto Cabello.
Colombia rebuffed US efforts to gain custody of Makled, 44, who promised to reveal all if tried there, and said he would instead be extradited to Venezuela, which asked first.
Reuters: Man dies in Connecticut after being shot with stun gun
A man died in police custody early on Sunday in Connecticut after he was shot with a stun gun in the back of a squad car, authorities said.
The incident began just after midnight in the lobby of St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury, when police received a report of a man creating a disturbance.
Waterbury police said they arrested the man and placed him in the back of a police cruiser. He continued to be combative and was shot with a Taser stun gun, police said.
He became unresponsive and was taken into the hospital, where he died after attempts to resuscitate him failed, police said.
CBC: Leaders sharpen messages on final day
For the first time in this election campaign, New Democrat Leader Jack Layton says his party can defeat Stephen Harper's Conservatives.
Layton made the remarks while speaking to the overflow crowd gathered outside his Kingston, Ont., campaign office during a rally on Sunday.
"I want you to create lineups at the polls, my friends, because we can defeat Stephen Harper," Layton told the crowd.
The comment underscores the NDP leader's increasingly confident tone as Monday's vote approaches.
Guardian: EU executive considers reimposing border controls
The European Union executive is considering allowing member states to reinstate some border controls, its president has said, responding to demands for more national power to stem immigration.
The announcement on Sunday lent momentum to a campaign by France and Italy to reimpose some of the border checks, abolished in 1995 under the Schengen agreement, as they grapple with an influx of migrants fleeing political upheaval in north Africa.
In a letter to Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and French president Nicolas Sarkozy, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, said it would be possible to permit countries to reintroduce limited controls.
"The temporary restoration of borders is one of the possibilities, provided this is subject to specific and clearly defined criteria, that could be an element to strengthen the governance of the Schengen agreement," Barroso wrote.
BBC: Germany tries to allay labour influx fear
German government ministers have tried to reassure workers that their pay won't be undercut by workers from central and eastern Europe.
It comes as the German labour market is fully opened to workers from Poland and seven other countries which joined the EU in 2004.
Germany held out until the last moment against opening its economy to workers from the former communist countries.
Ministers have promised to protect German workers from cheaper labour.
Guardian: David Cameron using AV to trash us, say Lib Dems
The deepening loss of personal trust at the top of the coalition government engendered by the bitter AV referendum campaign was exposed when David Cameron was accused of a systematic and shortsighted attempt to trash Nick Clegg's leadership.
The attack by the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, in the final week of the campaign further exposes the deep anger among Liberal Democrats that Cameron is using the referendum to shore up his position within the Conservative party at Clegg's expense.
Huhne expressed anger over widely circulated no campaign leaflets that focus on Clegg's alleged broken pledges. He told the Guardian: "David Cameron has had the power to stop these no campaign leaflets saying Nick Clegg has broken promises and told lies. He has done nothing about it.
"To attack your political colleagues in a coalition and Nick Clegg in particular for accepting the compromises necessary to allow the Conservatives to implement some of its policies is absurdly short-sighted and outrageous.
Guardian: Medvedev wants to stay on as Russian president, says leading MP
President Dmitry Medvedev is pushing to extend his tenure in the Kremlin against the wishes of Russia's powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin, a senior politician from the country's ruling party has told the Guardian.
Konstantin Zatulin, a prominent MP with United Russia, which dominates parliament and is headed by Putin, said Medvedev's allies were waging a campaign to undermine the prime minister behind a public facade of unity between the two men.
Until recently it was widely assumed that Medvedev would not run in presidential elections next March, so that Putin could return to his old job and serve two more terms to 2024. Most analysts had presumed that Putin would put himself forward while Medvedev would bow out meekly after a single term.
However, Zatulin said in an interview that the president's aides were jockeying to keep him in the Kremlin by eroding Putin's support in parliament. "Medvedev wants to stay, he has broken the agreement and now Putin will have to persuade him to back off," he said.
Yahoo: Child suicide bomber kills four in Afghanistan
A 12-year-old suicide bomber killed four people and wounded a dozen in east Afghanistan on Sunday, while rebel clashes with police and NATO-led troops left five civilians and two police dead, officials said.
The death toll from the day's fighting included at least three children besides the bomber, and dozens of civilians were wounded in firefights as violence appeared to escalate after the Taliban announced a spring offensive.
The boy -- thought to be one of the country's youngest-ever suicide attackers -- detonated an explosive vest in a marketplace in Paktika province near the Pakistan border, provincial spokesman Mukhlis Afghan said.
"The head of Shkin district council, Shair Nawaz, a woman and two other men were killed and 12 others were wounded," he said in a statement. The Afghan interior ministry had earlier put the death toll at three, with 11 wounded.
BBC: Boxing legend Sir Henry Cooper dies aged 76
Heavyweight boxing legend Sir Henry Cooper has died at the age of 76 at his son's house in Oxted, Surrey.
The former British, Commonwealth and European champion fought 55 times and is revered for his 1963 knockdown of Muhammad Ali - then Cassius Clay.
In a statement, Ali said he would miss his "old friend", calling him "a great fighter and a gentleman".
London-born Cooper, who won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award twice, was knighted in 2000.