World Politics News

ROME - Police captured one of Sicily's top Mafia fugitives on Sunday, dealing a stiff blow to the island's Cosa Nostra crime syndicate, Italian officials said. Full Story »

PRISTINA, Kosovo - Kosovo's first elections since independence from Serbia ended peacefully Sunday, with some minority Serbs ignoring a call to boycott and casting ballots alongside ethnic Albanians. Full Story »

PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy's special envoy to North Korea said Sunday that he had long talks with officials there about sensitive issues including nuclear proliferation and human rights. Full Story »

BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Pavle, who called for peace and conciliation during the Balkan ethnic wars of the 1990s but failed to openly condemn extreme Serb nationalism, died Sunday. He was 95. Full Story »

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations is quietly preparing an exit strategy for its troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the biggest U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world, diplomats and officials said. Full Story »

JERUSALEM - A Palestinian drive to ask the U.N. Security Council to endorse a state unilaterally, put forward by a top negotiator Sunday, appeared more an expression of frustration with U.S. and Israeli policies and stalled peace talks than a real effort to go it alone. Full Story »

ROME - Iran's first lady made rare public appearance and even more rare, a speech, at a Rome forum on the eve of a U.N. summit to fight hunger beginning Monday. Full Story »

BERLIN - Authorities have identified a 27-year-old German convert to Islam as an al-Qaida associate suspected of traveling to Afghanistan and planning to attack German targets. Full Story »

LONDON - A British think tank said Sunday that prison policies are failing to stop Muslim inmates being radicalized, and urged the government to set up a special center to "deprogram" extremists. Full Story »

BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbian Orthodox Church says its head Patriarch Pavle has died. Full Story »

LONDON - British officials say Prime Minister Gordon Brown will apologize to thousands of British children who were shipped to new lives overseas, where many say they suffered neglect and abuse. Full Story »

SINGAPORE - President Barack Obama said Sunday the United States and Russia would have a replacement treaty on reducing nuclear arms ready for approval by year's end, an announcement designed as an upbeat ending to a summit with Asia-Pacific leaders. Full Story »

STOCKHOLM - With a solemn ceremony in Stockholm's antiquities museum, Sweden marked the return of 22 skulls looted from a native Hawaiian community more than a century ago. Full Story »

MINSK (AFP) - Hundreds of Belarussians from the opposition gathered Saturday in the capital Minsk for a "European forum" to encourage closer ties with the European Union, ahead of a meeting in Brussels next week. Full Story »

VENICE, Italy - A dozen gondolas snaked down the Grand Canal on Saturday in a mock funeral procession bemoaning Venice's approach to the dreaded status of living museum, with a population now below 60,000. Full Story »

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Former Czech President Vaclav Havel has opened the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Velvet Revolution featuring a political debate, live music and international celebrities. Full Story »

NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won Slovenia's approval on Saturday for the South Stream pipeline, undermining European Union efforts to reduce dependency on Russian gas supplies. Full Story »

AHERO, Kenya - Joram Abiero remembers it was not too long ago that his neighbors went to bed hungry. Full Story »