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Russian FM: Putin ready for summit with N.K. leader Published : 2014-11-21 09:28 Updated : 2014-11-21 09:28 Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to hold a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Moscow's top diplomat said Thursday after holding talks with Kim's special envoy. Russia confirmed that it is ready for contact with North Korea at various levels, including the highest level, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency whether his discussions with the North's special envoy, Choe Ryong-hae, included the possibility of Kim's visit to Russia. Lavrov also said that the...

France has confirmed the selection of 12 Airbus A330 refueling tankers for the French Air Force, Airbus Group said on Thursday. First delivery is expected in 2018, followed by a second in 2019 and then at a rate of one or two per year, Airbus Defense & Space said in a statement. India and Qatar are in the "final stages of contractual negotiations" for six and two aircraft respectively, Airbus said. Airbus said France is the sixth country to order the tanker after Australia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Britain.

In the U.S. city of Baltimore on Thursday, an undocumented mother from Mexico named Jessica Mejía, 31, was praying that President Barack Obama’s executive action would protect her from deportation along with several million other illegal immigrants. Mejia said her greatest wish is to have a work permit — and to become legalized like her boyfriend, who was granted “deferred action” on deportation two years ago, and their 5-year-old son, who was born in the United States “This is my great hope,” said Mejía, who went to a branch office of the CASA de Maryland immigrant advocacy group in anticipation...

ABOARD HDMS NILS JUEL IN THE CHESAPEAKE BAY — It is striking how the now-familiar smooth, angled architecture of today’s warships, intended to reduce visual, heat and other signatures, is also somehow inherently Danish-modern. And the first thing one notices after boarding this ship is how clean and spotless everything is — almost relentlessly clean. “We clean the ship every day,” said Lt. Cmdr. Kenneth Jensen, the ship’s operations officer. “It’s easier to keep a clean ship clean than to clean a dirty ship.” The Nils Juel is the Danish Navy’s newest warship, handed over only in August. It’s the...

'Gracias Obama!' Immigrants React To Executive Action Speech BY SUZANNE GAMBOA WASHINGTON -- Bundled in winter coats, dozens of immigrants stood in front of the White House to watch and hear President Barack Obama via livestream on tablets and cell phones explain why he is taking executive action on immigration. Huddling tightly around their mobile devices, those gathered let out occasional cheers and whoops as the president's speech unfolded. Some held battery-operated tea lights while some held American flags and signs that said "Gracias, Presidente Obama" with outlines of hand-holding families along the bottom. Image: A demonstrator holds a sign...

'We're Not Going To Deport You': Obama Announces Amnesty For Millions Of 'Anchor Baby' Parents And Illegal Immigrant Children – as long as they've been in US for five years Obama addressed the nation to outline a new executive order that will allow millions of illegal immigrants to remain in the country President acknowledges that it's a temporary fix and demands help from Congress to make it permanent Anyone who takes advantage of the program will have to pass criminal and national security background checks, pay their taxes, pay a fee and prove their eligibility Two Republican aides complained about...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The first Christian governor of Indonesia's capital in 50 years was sworn in Wednesday despite loud protests from Islamic hard-liners who insisted Jakarta's top political job should go to a Muslim. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Protestant who is also the first ethnic Chinese to become an Indonesian governor, gained a reputation as deputy governor of being outspoken and combating corruption and cutting red tape. He is better known by Chinese nickname "Ahok." Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and 87 percent of its 250 million people are Muslim. Christians make up about 10 percent.

'It is the height of the Second World War. A group of codebreakers stands in a dimly lit warehouse 50 miles northwest of London, a giant machine composed of spinning drums and wires looms in front of them. It's taken years of work -- as well as a few shouting matches -- to get the device assembled and ready to start sorting through 159 quintillion combinations in search of the one that will let the British crack the Germans' infamous Enigma machine. The switch is flipped and nine rows of drums begin spinning as the assembled group waits... and waits....

When Ukraine resisted Soviet attempts at collectivization in the 1920s and '30s, the Soviet Union under Stalin used labor camps, executions, and starvation: Holodomor Released known picture of peasant uprisings before the Famine. Photos electronic archive Ukrainian liberation movement Removing vegetables from the villagers. The village of Novo-Red History of the Security Service of Ukraine in cooperation with the Center for Studies of the liberation movement laid out in free access to a unique picture of the peasant uprising that preceded the Great Famine and Genocide diaries of eyewitnesses. Now you can view and download the electronic archive of the...

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop has slammed the US President Barack Obama over his speech made on the controversial issue of climate change at last week's G20 Summit. Leaders at the summit turned up the heat on Australia's climate change in Brisbane over the weekend, which resulted in some of the world's largest economies declaring their support for strong action. But Ms Bishop, speaking to ABC’s 7.30 program from New York, said there was an 'issue' regarding the president’s statement about the Great Barrier Reef. 'I can understand the Queensland Government’s concern because the Queensland government and Australia have committed...

Pope Francis warned Thursday that planet earth would not forgive the abuse of its resources for profit, urging the world's leaders to rein in their greed and help the hungry -- or risk a doomsday scenario in which nature would exact revenge. "God always forgives, but the earth does not," the Argentine pope told the Second International Conference on Nutrition (CIN2) in Rome, a three-day meeting aimed at tackling malnutrition, a global scourge which afflicts poor and rich alike. "Take care of the earth so it does not respond with destruction," he warned representatives from 190 countries gathered for...

Germany’s Vice Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, has indicated that the country will abandon its commitment to reducing CO2 emissions by 40 percent by 2020, from a 1990 base level. In doing so he has won the ongoing clash with his own environmental minister Barbara Hendricks over energy policy, telling her that he will tolerate no further resistance to the change of direction, according to Der Speigel.

To make a point about the Obama administration’s stance on a fence across the southern border, one Republican lawmaker jokingly suggested in a congressional hearing Wednesday that the president should remove the fence protecting the White House. Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert made the comments during a House Judiciary Hearing Wednesday with Joseph Clancy, the acting director of the U.S. Secret Service. As lawmakers questioned the acting director about the recent fence jumpers at the White House, Gohmert connected the problem to border issues. Gohmert told Clancy that if Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano thinks building a fence on the border...

Ofsted was accused of “political correctness” after downgrading a top rural primary school for effectively being too English. The education watchdog faced a backlash from MPs and parents following the decision to penalise Middle Rasen primary in Lincolnshire for not having enough black or Asian pupils. In a report, inspectors said the school was “not yet outstanding” because pupils’ cultural development was limited by a “lack of first-hand experience of the diverse make up of modern British society”. The move followed a shake-up of Ofsted inspections introduced in the wake of the “Trojan Horse” plot in Birmingham to impose hard-line...

Two Russian strategic bombers circled the U.S. island of Guam last week in what U.S. defense officials say is the latest in a series of nuclear provocations by Moscow. The bombers were identified by air defenses as Tu-95 Bear H nuclear-capable aircraft that circumnavigated the strategic U.S. military outpost on Friday—amid heightened tensions with Moscow regarding a new buildup of Russian forces in and along the border of eastern Ukraine. “U.S. Pacific Command can confirm that two aircraft circumnavigated Guam on November 13th,” said spokesman Maj. Christian Devine. “The aircraft were flying safely in international airspace and in accordance with...

François Hollande would be forgiven for not sleeping well in his bed tonight after French MPs were, for the first time, handed the power to sack the president in the case of "a breach of duties".Heads of state in France have until now enjoyed some of the strongest legal protections in the West - only removable in cases of high treason - a procedure that's never been used in modern France. But all that changed on Wednesday when MPs were finally handed powers that would enable them to depose a president. Given François Hollande's disastrous approval ratings, there may be...

(Reuters) - The Department of Homeland Security will grant temporary protected status to people from the three West African countries most affected by Ebola who are currently residing in the United States, department officials said on Thursday. People from Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone in the United States as of Thursday may apply for protection from deportation, as well as for work permits, for 18 months, said a Department of Homeland Security official. After 18 months, the Secretary of Homeland Security will assess whether the protection should be extended, based on the level of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

Venezuela will increase taxes on luxury goods, alcohol and tobacco to help shore up the government's finances, the top tax official said, as falling oil prices threaten the OPEC member's coffers. Buyers of luxury goods, including cars worth more than $30,000, will pay an excise tax of 15 percent, up from 10 percent, tax chief Jose David Cabello said late Tuesday during a televised ceremony with President Nicolas Maduro. The measures, part of a package of 28 laws Maduro decreed to bolster the country's economy, increase tax rates on products such as wine and cigarettes while eliminating some tax benefits...

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, arrived at nuclear talks with Iran in Vienna on Thursday, insisting negotiators were focused on reaching agreement by the Monday deadline. Kerry was responding to remarks on Wednesday by his British counterpart, Philip Hammond, who suggested that the deadline would have to be extended. “We are not discussing an extension. We are negotiating to have an agreement. It’s that simple,” Kerry said in Paris before boarding the flight to Vienna. “I know that secretary Hammond is concerned about the gaps. We all are. Both sides are taking this process seriously and both sides...

The head of the NSA issued a blunt warning Thursday to lawmakers: China can shut down the United States. The grim forecast came from Admiral Michael Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency and commander of the U.S .Cyber Command