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Burkina Faso's opposition staged the country's biggest demonstration in decades on Saturday to protest against an attempt by President Blaise Compaore's party to abolish constitutional term limits. The peaceful march, which was joined by dissidents from the ruling Congress for Democracy and Progress, steps up pressure on Compaore, who took power in a coup in 1987 and won an election in 2010 to secure his second and final elected five-year term under a constitution that dates from 2000. Opposition leaders say those polls were rigged. A gradual deepening of democracy has contributed to increased stability and growth in some African countries, but Burkina Faso is one of a number of nations dominated by a leader of several decades' standing. It remains impoverished despite emerging as a significant gold producer, and has been an ally for Western governments concerned about the rise of militant Islamist groups in the region. Opposition leaders said between 300,000 and

A Taliban suicide bomber and gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with foreigners in the heart of the Afghan capital Kabul, killing 21 people including three United Nations staff and the International Monetary Fund's top representative in Afghanistan . Gunmen burst into the Lebanese restaurant spraying diners with bullets after the bomber blew himself up near the entrance around 7:30 p.m. local time on Friday, just as people had sat down for dinner. Thirteen foreigners were among those killed, according to police, and details about the victims began to trickle through on Saturday. The U.S. State Department said three U.S. private citizens were killed. Britain and Canada confirmed they each lost two nationals and Denmark said one of its citizens also died. The American University of Afghanistan said two of its U.S. employees died in the attack on La Taverna du Liban, a popular dining spot whose charismatic owner, Kamal Hamade, was also killed. "We are devastated by the n

More than 98 percent of voters backed a new Egyptian constitution in a referendum this week, authorities said on Saturday, though the turnout was lower than some officials had indicated, with under 40 percent of the electorate taking part. _0"> The vote advances a transition plan that army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi unveiled after deposing Islamist president Mohamed Mursi last July following mass protests against his rule. Sisi, whom many Egyptians see as the strong leader who can stabilize their country after nearly three years of turmoil, is expected to announce his candidacy for the presidency soon. "Now that God has supported us in legalizing our constitution, we ask for his aid in achieving the remaining two stages of the road map: the presidential and parliamentary elections," said Nabil Salib, head of the Supreme Election Committee. The "yes" vote was 98.1 percent, and 38.6 percent of eligible voters took part, Salib told reporters. The

Libyan war planes attacked targets in the restive south on Saturday after gunmen stormed an air force base and the government ordered in ground troops following days of skirmishes between rival tribesmen and militias. Western powers fear the OPEC producer could slide into further instability as the government struggles to contain heavily-armed militias, tribesmen and Islamists who helped to topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 but refuse to disarm. A lack of border controls and the ineffectiveness of a small army lacking equipment have turned Libya into a weapons smuggling route for al Qaeda in sub-Saharan countries and also a corridor for Islamist fighters heading to Syria and economic migrants heading to Europe. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan went on national television to announce he had ordered troops to be sent to the south after a group of gunmen entered the Tamahind air force base outside Sabha, 770 km (480 miles) south of the capital Tripoli. Defence Ministry spokesman Abdul-Raziq

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei agreed on Saturday to pardon or reduce the sentences of 878 people in honor of the Prophet Mohammad's birthday on Sunday, the state news agency IRNA reported. _0"> Last September, some 80 political prisoners were released, including prominent human rights activist and lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, just before a trip by President Hassan Rouhani to the U.N. General Assembly in New York. In October, another 1,241 prisoners were pardoned, according to the Nasim news agency. IRNA did not say whether any of those pardoned on Saturday had been convicted of political offences. There did not appear to be any change in the status of Iran's two most prominent political prisoners - former presidential candidates Mirhossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi - who have been under house arrest for nearly three years. Some Iranian officials have called for Moussavi and Karroubi to be freed, a move strongly opposed by hardliners, who have labeled t

U.S. President Barack Obama told Germans and their leader on Saturday he would not let intelligence work damage relations, and differences of opinion between the two countries was no reason to wiretap. _0"> In a rare interview on German TV, Obama set out to mend ties frayed last year by media reports citing leaked intelligence documents that Washington was spying on European Union citizens and had bugged Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone. "I must and cannot damage this relationship through surveillance measures that obstruct our trusting communication," Obama told ZDF public TV, according to a German translation of his comments. "As long as I am the President of the United States, the German Chancellor need not worry about that," he added. The interview came a day after Obama banned U.S. eavesdropping on the leaders of close allies, among a series of reforms triggered by the revelations of former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden. Obam

Syria's main political opposition group in exile agreed on Saturday to attend internationally sponsored peace talks, and said for the first time three rebel fighting forces also wanted to take part. The agreement by the Syrian National Coalition - and the chance of fighters backing the process - will be a boost for Western supporters of the "Geneva 2" talks seen as the most serious global effort yet to end the near three-year conflict. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government was not immediately available to comment on the prospect of rebel militia representatives playing a role at the negotiations to end fighting that killed more than 100,000 people. National Coalition spokesman Louay Safi told Reuters the Soldiers of the Levant, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front and the Mujahideen Army all wanted "to have some representation within the delegation" at the talks on Wednesday in Montreux. It was not immediately clear what role they might play. Rebe

A bomb threat left in a Brazilian airport caused a TAM Airlines flight to make an emergency landing and briefly closed the airport in the Amazonian city of Manaus on Saturday, five months before the country hosts the World Cup soccer tournament. _0"> A note that said a bomb was onboard TAM flight 3540 was found in a bathroom at Brasilia's Juscelino Kubitschek airport, airport officials said. That flight, which had already left Brasilia bound for Boa Vista, evacuated passengers via emergency slides when it landed on the runway at Eduardo Gomes airport in Manaus. The Manaus airport had reopened at 4 p.m. Brasilia time (1800 GMT) after no explosive device was found on the plane, a spokeswoman for the Infraero national airport authority said. She also said no other airports were affected. TAM is the local unit of LATAM Airlines Group. Manaus is a popular destination for tourists exploring the Amazon rainforest and one of 12 cities hosting World Cup soccer matches in June

A bomb threat left in a Brazilian airport caused a TAM Airlines flight to make an emergency landing and briefly closed the airport in the Amazonian city of Manaus on Saturday, five months before the country hosts the World Cup soccer tournament. _0"> A note that said a bomb was onboard TAM flight 3540 was found in a bathroom at Brasilia's Juscelino Kubitschek airport, airport officials said. That flight, which had already left Brasilia bound for Boa Vista, evacuated passengers via emergency slides when it landed on the runway at Eduardo Gomes airport in Manaus. The Manaus airport had reopened at 4 p.m. Brasilia time (1800 GMT) after no explosive device was found on the plane, a spokeswoman for the Infraero national airport authority said. She also said no other airports were affected. TAM spokeswoman Fernanda Feres said passengers on the affected plane had been rebooked on another flight leaving for Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima state, on Saturday. TAM is the loca

A Taliban suicide bomber and gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with foreigners in the heart of the Afghan capital Kabul, killing 21 people including three United Nations staff and the International Monetary Fund's top representative in Afghanistan . Gunmen burst into the Lebanese restaurant spraying diners with bullets after the bomber blew himself up near the entrance around 7:30 p.m. local time on Friday, just as people had sat down for dinner. Thirteen foreigners were among those killed, according to police, and details about the victims began to trickle through on Saturday. The U.S. State Department said three U.S. private citizens were killed. Britain and Canada confirmed they each lost two nationals and Denmark said one of its citizens also died. The American University of Afghanistan said two of its U.S. employees died in the attack on La Taverna du Liban, a popular dining spot whose charismatic owner, Kamal Hamade, was also killed. "We are devastated by the n

China has broken up a gang that offered illegal services to determine the sex of unborn children so that women could abort those they did not want, the country's health ministry said on Sunday. _0"> Three decades of strict family planning have bolstered a traditional bias for male offspring, seen as the main support of elderly parents and heirs to the family name, and have resulted in abortions, killings or abandonment of girls and trafficking of both male and female children. The health ministry said the crackdown netted 10 people who had since 2010 operated a service sending women from all over the country to a clinic in the central city of Zhengzhou to find out the sex of their unborn child. Last year alone, more than 1,000 women used the service, it said, although it did not say how many abortions resulted. One of the ringleaders has already received a jail term of 3-1/2 years and fined 100,000 yuan ($16,500), with the rest getting slightly shorter sentences. Th

China is building its second aircraft carrier, which is expected to take six years, and the country aims to have at least four such ships, Chinese and Hong Kong media reports said on Sunday. _0"> After two decades of double-digit increases in the military budget, China's admirals plan to develop a full blue-water navy capable of defending growing economic interests as well as disputed territory in the South and East China Seas. The country's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning - a Soviet-era ship bought from Ukraine in 1998 and re-fitted in a Chinese shipyard - has long been a symbol of China's naval build-up. Successfully operating the 60,000-tonne Liaoning is the first step in what state media and some military experts believe will be the deployment of locally built carriers by 2020. In comments carried on Chinese news websites, Wang Min, the Communist Party boss of the northeastern province of Liaoning, where the first carrier is based, said the second ca

Twenty-eight people were wounded, seven seriously, in explosions on Sunday at a camp of anti-government protesters in Bangkok, the latest violence in a prolonged political crisis dividing the country and threatening the Thai economy. The explosion comes a day after the military urged both sides to settle their differences in the more than two-month long dispute, in which protesters are trying to bring down the elected government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. "There were 28 people injured from the blast at the Victory Monument," Suphan Srithamma, director general of the Bangkok Emergency Medical Centre, told reporters. "Among these 7 people were seriously injured." Witnesses said they heard two explosions. "The first blast I heard was from behind the stage," said Teerawut Utakaprechanun, who told Reuters Television he had been turning out for the protests every day. "People were looking around. I saw the security guards running after a

A bomb planted by Taliban insurgents ripped through a vehicle carrying Pakistani troops on Sunday, killing 20 soldiers and prompting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to cancel his trip to the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos this week. At least 30 others were wounded as the convoy prepared to leave the volatile northwestern town of Bannu for nearby North Waziristan, a lawless, tribal region on the Afghan border where many al Qaeda-linked militant groups are holed up. The bold, daylight attack - the biggest on Pakistani security forces in months - dealt a major blow to the army at a time when Pakistan is already under strong U.S. pressure to do more to contain the insurgency on its western frontier. The army said the bomb had been planted in a civilian vehicle rented locally in order to transport troops to North Waziristan. The device exploded as soldiers got inside the car and prepared to leave. "With the help of God we claim responsibility for this," Pakist

The U.S. government will nominate the Alamo, the famed location of a battle for Texas independence, and other colonial missions nearby as U.N. World Heritage sites, the Interior Department said on Friday. The Alamo, located in San Antonio, and four other Spanish colonial missions that line the San Antonio River will try to join 21 other U.S. locations that include Yellowstone National Park and the Statue of Liberty in the listing of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the cultural arm of the U.N. "The San Antonio Missions represent a vital part of our nation's Latino heritage and the contributions of Latinos to the building of our country," Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said in a statement. The Alamo, the site of the battle between Republic of Mexico soldiers and Texan rebels in 1836, is one of five missions established in the region by the Spanish in the 1700s to spread Christianity. The other four missions -- San Juan, Sa

"Octomom" Nadya Suleman, the California single mother of 14 children including octuplets, pleaded not guilty in Los Angeles on Friday to charges that she lied about her income when filing for public assistance. _0"> Suleman, who became a media sensation five years ago after giving birth to octuplets conceived through in-vitro fertilization, is accused of failing to report nearly $30,000 in earnings after applying for welfare in January 2013. Wearing a dark blazer and with her black hair in a bun, the 38-year-old Suleman stood beside her attorney in Los Angeles County Superior Court as she entered her plea. She has been charged with a single count of aid by misrepresentation and two counts of perjury by false application for aid. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office has said Suleman did not report earnings from personal appearances and residuals from videos for the first six months of 2013. She faces up to five years and eight months in prison

Specialty chemicals maker Freedom Industries Inc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday, eight days after a leak from one of its storage tanks contaminated drinking water for hundreds of thousands of West Virginia residents. A chemical used to process coal spilled into the Elk River in Charleston, prompting the state's governor to declare a state of emergency in nine counties and ban the use of drinking water for more than 300,000 people in the region. More than 200 people have visited hospital emergency rooms, complaining of nausea. As a result of the January 9 leak, vendors have demanded that Freedom pay in cash, draining the company of finances and prompting it to seek bankruptcy protection, according to documents filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Charleston, West Virginia. "Likewise, the defense of the numerous suits filed against the debtor will exhaust the debtor's liquidity," Freedom said in a filing. The bankruptcy filing will put a st

A former Wisconsin medical examiner who took a piece of spinal column that had been removed from a corpse to train her cadaver dog, pleaded guilty to felony charges on Friday, according to court documents. Traci England, 46, will be sentenced February 10 on two felony counts of misconduct in public office. Theft and obstruction charges against England were dismissed as part of a plea bargain, the Forest County Circuit Court records showed. The criminal complaint said England took a piece of bone from a corpse's spinal column after another medical examiner removed it during an autopsy on September 5, 2011. She told fellow employees she planned to use the bone to train her cadaver dog, the complaint said. Investigators wrote in the complaint that England "made a comment on how lucky she was to have gotten this section of the spine because it was hard to come by." During a search of her Town of Newbold home on January 4, 2012, investigators found what appeared to be b

Lawmakers for at least two U.S. states say they should conduct executions by firing squad if opposition to capital punishment by pharmaceutical companies makes it hard to obtain drugs for lethal injections. States have turned to pharmacies that customize drugs and adopted untested new mixes after supplies of traditional execution drugs were cut off by manufacturers opposed to their use for the procedure. The debate over lethal injections was reignited on Thursday when an inmate gasped and convulsed violently during his execution in Ohio as the state used a two-drug method for the first time in the United States. Missouri state Representative Rick Brattin, said Friday the controversy over lethal injections forces families of murder victims to wait too long for justice so he introduced his bill Thursday to add "firing squad" as an execution option. "A lot of folks may picture the 1850s and everyone lining up to shoot, but the reality is that people suffer with every

A federal jury on Friday convicted two alleged members of a Georgia militia group with conspiring to produce a toxic agent to poison government officials. _0"> The jury in Gainesville, Georgia, convicted Samuel Crump, 71, and Ray Adams, 57, of conspiring to produce ricin for use as a weapon, according to federal court records. The two men face a maximum punishment of life in prison, although under federal sentencing guidelines will likely serve less time, prosecutors said. According to the indictment, Adams met in April 2011 with co-conspirators and suggested forming a militia group to attack government buildings with toxins. In September of that year, Crump allegedly discussed a plan to produce 10 lbs (4.5 kg) of ricin and distribute it to several cities across the United States, the indictment said. Ricin, a highly toxic substance, is found naturally in castor beans, but it takes a deliberate act to manufacture it and use it to poison people, according to the U.S. Cent

President Barack Obama banned U.S. eavesdropping on the leaders of close friends and allies on Friday and began reining in the vast collection of Americans' phone data in a series of limited reforms triggered by Edward Snowden's revelations. In a major speech, Obama took steps to reassure Americans and foreigners alike that the United States will take into account privacy concerns highlighted by former spy contractor Snowden's damaging disclosures about the sweep of monitoring activities of the National Security Agency (NSA). "The reforms I'm proposing today should give the American people greater confidence that their rights are being protected, even as our intelligence and law enforcement agencies maintain the tools they need to keep us safe," he said. While the address was designed to fend off concerns that U.S. surveillance has gone too far, Obama's measures fell short of dismantling U.S. electronic spying programs. Even as the White House put th

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency on Friday, a move that will allow the parched state to seek federal aid as it grapples with what could turn out to be the driest year in recorded state history for many areas. The dry year California experienced in 2013 has left fresh water reservoirs with a fraction of their normal reserves and slowed the normally full American River so dramatically that brush and dry riverbed are showing through in areas normally teeming with fish. "We can't make it rain, but we can be much better prepared for the terrible consequences that California's drought now threatens, including dramatically less water for our farms and communities and increased fires in both urban and rural areas," Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement. "I've declared this emergency and I'm calling all Californians to conserve water in every way possible," he said, in a move that will allow him to call for conservation measu

A Mississippi man accused of sending poisoned letters to President Barack Obama and two other public officials, and then pinning them on an Elvis impersonator, pleaded guilty in U.S. court and agreed to a 25-year jail sentence, the Justice Department announced on Friday. James Everett Dutschke, 41, has been jailed since his arrest last April, when authorities accused him of sending ricin-tainted letters to Obama, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi and a local Lee County judge, Sadie Holland. Ricin is a highly toxic protein found in castor oil plants that can kill an adult human in tiny doses. Dutschke, a former martial arts instructor and one-time political candidate, originally had denied the charges but on Friday changed his plea in U.S. District Court in Oxford, Mississippi, according to a Justice Department press release. "It's closure, and any time you can get that it's a good thing," said Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson, whose department had assisted

Michelle Obama on Friday celebrated a rite of passage for Americans turning 50: getting a membership card to AARP, a national organization that promotes the interests of older people. The first lady tweeted a photograph of herself, smiling while holding up a card from the group, which with its approximately 38 million members cuts an influential swath in the nation's capital. "Excited to join Barack in the 50+ club today ... check out my @AARP card," she said in a post signed with her initials. Her husband, President Barack Obama, is 52. AARP, previously the American Association of Retired Persons, now goes simply by its acronym. One of the most powerful lobbying groups in the country, it was a strong backer of the president's signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act. People are eligible for AARP membership on their 50th birthday, even though most Americans do not retire until their mid-60s. But you do not need to be a retiree to join, and getting the

The pilots of a Southwest Airlines plane that landed at the wrong airport in Missouri this week told investigators they mistook the bright runway lights of a smaller airport for their intended destination at Branson Airport, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Friday. _0"> The pilots told NTSB investigators they did not realize they were at the wrong airport until they had landed late Sunday, which required heavy braking to get the Boeing 737-700 with 124 passengers aboard stopped on the shorter-than-expected runway, the NTSB said in a statement. Southwest has suspended the two pilots from flying. The jet landed at M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport instead of at Branson Airport, the main commercial air strip near Branson, which has a much longer runway. The airports are about 7 miles apart. The captain, who has worked for Southwest for 15 years and has about 16,000 flight hours, told investigators it was his first flight into Branson. The first officer, who has

A federal judge on Friday struck down a 2011 North Carolina law requiring abortion providers to perform an ultrasound and explain it to a woman before having an abortion, arguing it violated the constitutional right to free speech of doctors. U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles found that a state does not have "the power to compel a health care provider to speak, in his or her own voice, the state's ideological message in favor of carrying a pregnancy to term." The law "compels a health care provider to act as the state's courier and to disseminate the state's message discouraging abortion, in the provider's own voice, in the middle of a medical procedure, and under circumstances where it would seem the message is the provider's and not the state's," she added in her 42-page ruling. "This is not allowed under the First Amendment," Eagles ruled. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, but lawmakers in mor

Firefighters sought to prevent a wildfire in the foothills near Los Angeles from flaring up on Saturday, as they put out embers from a blaze that has destroyed five homes, officials said. The so-called Colby Fire, which officials said started from a campfire early on Thursday, has blackened nearly 1,900 acres of drought-parched chaparral and is 30 percent contained, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Robert Brady. That was the same level of containment firefighters reported on Friday, but officials were optimistic they were gaining the upper hand on the blaze centered in the San Gabriel Mountains, on territory that is part of the Angeles National Forest. "It's not spreading anymore," Brady said. More than 1,100 firefighters, backed by four water-dropping airplanes and three helicopters, are battling the blaze, officials said. Hot, dry Santa Ana winds from interior deserts fanned the flames when it broke out on Thursday, but the next day, the winds subsided and the

People worldwide should honor the memory of Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. by making Monday a "no shots fired" day and ringing church bells in support of non-violence, urged the daughter of the slain U.S. civil rights leader. Church services and tributes will be held across the United States to commemorate King's 85th birthday on Monday, a federal holiday. At the same time, there is a push for a new monument and possibly a major movie production from director Oliver Stone. "Dr. King's philosophy of non-violence is more relevant, I believe, than it was 10 years ago," King's daughter, Bernice, told Reuters. In a time of school shootings and increasingly violent movies, television shows and video games, his message of non-violence should continue to resonate, said his daughter, chief executive officer of the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King Center which promotes his philosophy of non-violence. "America has an enormous appetite for violence. I don

A 17-year-old boy wanted in connection with a Philadelphia school shooting that wounded two students turned himself in to police on Saturday, a detective said. The two injured students, a boy and a girl both aged 15, were shot in their arms on Friday at the Delaware Valley Charter High School when a teenage boy pulled a handgun in a gymnasium with about seven students in it, police said. The teen sought in connection with the shooting surrendered and was charged with aggravated assault and related offenses, Philadelphia Police Detective Steve Grace said. The boy, whose name has not been released, was being questioned by investigators, Grace said. Soon after the incident, which was captured on surveillance video, police said another teenager thought to be the shooter was taken into custody but released when he was cleared of wrongdoing. A third teenager was questioned and released on Friday although he could still face charges, police said. The girl wounded in the shooting was t

Two Colorado farmers whose listeria-contaminated cantaloupes killed 33 people in 2011 should be sentenced to five years of probation, a prosecutor told a court on Friday. Eric and Ryan Jensen, former owners of Colorado-based Jensen Farms, pleaded guilty in October to charges stemming from one of the deadliest U.S. outbreaks of food-borne illness. They are scheduled to be sentenced on January 28 in U.S. District Court in Denver. The men, who are brothers, pleaded guilty to six counts of adulteration of a food and aiding and abetting. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jaime Pena said in a court filing that five years of probation would provide just punishment. "These defendants were at worse negligent or reckless in their acts and omissions," Pena wrote in a recommendation to U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Hegarty. Hegarty could impose a sentence of up to six years in prison and a fine of $1.5 million on each brother. Their cantaloupes were washed and packed at a plant in Granada,

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's administration threatened to withhold Superstorm Sandy relief funds from a flooded town unless a redevelopment plan Christie favored was quickly approved, the mayor of Hoboken said on Saturday. _0"> The claim by Mayor Dawn Zimmer comes as Christie, a Republican seen as a likely presidential candidate in 2016, faces investigations into a traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge that was apparently politically motivated. Christie has denied any involvement in the so-called "Bridgegate" scandal, and a spokesman dismissed Zimmer's claims, calling them "partisan politics." Zimmer, a Democrat, told MSNBC television Hoboken received only a small part of the $127 million requested after Sandy, which flooded the town on the Hudson River in October 2012. Zimmer said Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno and Richard Constable, Christie's community affairs commissioner, delivered messages in May 2013 on behalf of Chri