World News

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's state radio says authorities have executed two men convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad and the American CIA intelligence agency.

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian capsule carrying mice and lizards has returned to Earth after spending a month in space.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Just weeks after a tense border standoff, China's new premier visited India on Sunday on his first foreign trip as the neighboring giants look to speed up efforts to settle a decades-old boundary dispute and boost economic ties.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai will seek increased military aid from India during a three-day visit starting Monday and will discuss recent cross-border clashes with Pakistan, India's archrival, an aide said.

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Syrian troops backed by tanks and warplanes launched an assault Sunday on a strategic rebel-held town near the Lebanese border, pounding the area with airstrikes and artillery salvos that killed at least 30 people and forced residents to scramble for cover in basements and makeshift bunkers, activists said.

By Agnieszka Flak JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's justice minister on Sunday accused an Indian High Commission official and some South Africans of colluding to obtain permission for a plane chartered by a rich family close to President Jacob Zuma to use an air force base to land. The affair - dubbed "Guptagate" after the influential Indian-born Gupta family - has transfixed South Africa since the private flight landed at Pretoria's Waterkloof Air Force base last month with nearly 200 guests for a lavish family wedding. ...

KAIROUAN, Tunisia (AP) — Around 11,000 police officers and soldiers blocked an annual conference Sunday at Tunisia's main religious center by a radical Islamist movement that has been implicated in attacks across the country.

CANNES, France (AP) — Associated Press journalists open their notebooks at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival:

DHAKA (Reuters) - A Bangladesh court on Sunday banned the owner of a garment factory that was destroyed in a fire in November from leaving the country as anger builds up over a string of deadly incidents in which thousands have died. The high court in Dhaka also directed that Delwar Hossain, owner of Tazreen Fashion, appear before it on May 30 to explain the circumstances in which 112 workers, mostly women, died in the fire on the outskirts of the capital last year. ...

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — A rising star in Britain's Labour Party, described by some as the "British Barack Obama," Chuka Umunna urged the United Kingdom to more aggressively forge ties with West Africa's fast-growing economies.

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian troops supported by Hezbollah militants launched an offensive to retake a major town near Lebanon from rebels on Sunday, the heaviest fighting yet involving Lebanese armed group, opposition activists said. At least 32 people were killed when rebel fighters clashed with mechanized Syrian army units and Hezbollah guerillas in nine points in and around the town of Qusair, 10 km (six miles) from the border with Lebanon's Bekaa valley, they said. ...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germans lamented their unexpectedly poor showing at the Eurovision Song Contest, blaming Chancellor Angela Merkel's tough stance in the euro zone crisis for their failure to win any points from 34 of the 39 countries voting. Denmark's Emmelie de Forest won the event, watched by around 125 million people across Europe, with 281 points while German act Cascada was 21st out of 26 countries, getting just 18 points from Austria, Israel, Spain, Albania and Switzerland. ...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union criticized Russia's human rights record on Sunday, saying it was increasingly concerned at a wave of restrictive legislation and prosecutions against activists. The 27-nation bloc cited the cases of protesters arrested at a demonstration on the eve of President Vladimir Putin's inauguration last year who are still awaiting trial, and a new law requiring charities with funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents". ...

By David Lewis BAMAKO (Reuters) - After winning adulation across Mali for a five month military offensive that crushed al Qaeda fighters, France is now frustrating some of its allies by pushing for a political settlement with a separate group of Tuareg rebels. A standoff over how to restore Malian government authority to Kidal, the last town in the desert north yet to be brought under central control, is sowing resentment with Paris and could delay planned elections to restore democracy after a coup. ...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian police enraged by the kidnapping of seven of their colleagues by Islamist gunmen in the Sinai Peninsula blocked a commercial border crossing with Israel on Sunday, security sources said. Police have been blocking another border post, the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip, since Friday to press the government of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, to help free the seven. ...

By Hamid Shalizi KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai plans to discuss potential arms deals with Indian officials during a trip to New Delhi this week, officials said, at a time when tensions are running high on Afghanistan's disputed border with Pakistan. Kabul's overtures to New Delhi are likely to rile Islamabad where a new government led by two-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif is set to take office soon, promising improved ties with India. ...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Police shot dead a couple suspected to be terrorists after they threw four grenades, wounding five officers in an overnight stand-off, a police official said Sunday.

By Mohammed Abbas LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron is "losing control of his party", Conservative Party grandee Geoffrey Howe said on Sunday, as a row raged over whether a close aide to Cameron had labeled grassroots activists "mad, swivel-eyed loons". The furor threatens to further alienate Cameron and his inner circle from the core of his party, with whom ties are already almost at breaking point. ...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A Saudi newspaper says a vegetable seller who set himself on fire in Riyadh after police confiscated his goods for standing in an unauthorized area has died.

KAIROUAN, Tunisia (Reuters) - Tunisian police fired teargas on Sunday at supporters of radical Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia who were throwing stones at officers in the central city of Kairouan, in protest that a rally there by the group was barred by the government. (Writing by Tarek Amara; Editing by Alison Williams)