World News

An Iraqi parliamentary report on a military raid that led to the deaths of at least 44 Sunni protesters was leaked to Human Rights Watch, which released its own report, alleging a crackdown was ordered.

The death toll from the April 24 collapse of a building housing garment factories rose to 622, after bulldozers reached the ground floors, uncovering many badly decomposed bodies 11 days after the tragedy.

Secretary of State John Kerry sets off for what he calls "a long overdue" trip to Russia on Monday, and Syria is likely to top the agenda. But U.S.-Russian relations are frosty these days. The U.S. is imposing targeted sanctions on Russian human rights violators, while Moscow is preventing American families from adopting Russian children.

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Germany's biggest terrorism trial in decades began Monday. The case centers on a 38-year-old woman who is the surviving member of a right-wing extremist group called the National Socialist Underground. The group is accused of killing 10 people, most of them of Turkish descent.

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A club of wealthy families led by brewing scion John K. Coors is setting up a new private-equity fund that plans to invest $300 million in Africa.

Syria condemns Israel for air strike; low-cost Web service threatens the competition in France; the downfall of a Slovenian entrepreneur; Japan encourages study abroad; Hull City and Cardiff City join soccer’s Premier League.    

Reactions in the official Chinese media to Australia’s new defense White Paper on China, which is more conciliatory than a previous one, were low-key, if apparently approving. Reactions from ordinary Chinese, expressed online, were mixed but still often critical.    

Journalist Paul Salopek set off from Ethiopia this January on a seven-year hike. He has now left Africa and reached Saudi Arabia, and he sends this update.

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Over the weekend in Philadelphia, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and niece of Fidel Castro received an award for her gay rights advocacy. To understand the significance of Mariela Castro's honor, you have to go back to the 1960's when gay people were sent to forced labor camps.

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In today's pictures, people protest in Bangladesh, cows lock horns in Switzerland, Obama attends Ohio State University's commencement ceremony, and more.

In this week's photos, a boy comes face-to-face with a baseball in New York, soccer fans set of smoke bombs in Russia, a tourist makes a tricky river crossing in China, and more.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela brushed off criticism from U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday and maintained its accusation that an American detainee in Caracas is a spy pretending to be a filmmaker.

The sole surviving member of an alleged German neo-Nazi trio accused of a series of immigrant killings goes on trial Monday in one of the country's biggest far-right terror cases in postwar history.

Nigel Evans, a lawmaker from the ruling Conservative Party, said allegations of rape and sexual assault made against him are "completely false."