RIO DE JANEIRO – The fight over President Dilma Rousseff’s future has taken a strange twist in Congress, with the leader of the lower house saying senators can’t go ahead with an impeachment vote and the Senate leader insisting they will. The latest chapter in Brazil’s political drama began on Monday when the acting speaker…
NEW YORK – Scientists in the US have warned that the shortage of yellow fever vaccines could spark a health security crisis. An outbreak of the mosquito-borne viral disease has killed 277 people in Angola since December, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO says almost six million people have been vaccinated…
PYONGYANG – BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and his team have been expelled from North Korea after being detained over their reporting. Our correspondent, producer Maria Byrne and cameraman Matthew Goddard were stopped by officials on Friday as they were about to leave North Korea. Wingfield-Hayes was questioned for eight hours by North Korean officials and…
PYONGYANG – North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said his country will not use nuclear weapons unless its sovereignty is infringed on by others, state media reported. Speaking spoke in Pyongyang on Saturday to thousands of delegates gathered for the first Workers’ Party congress in more than 35 years. “As a responsible nuclear weapons state,…
RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil’s beleaguered President Dilma Rousseff has told the BBC she is an “innocent victim” and she will fight on as possible impeachment looms. She vowed to “keep fighting… to come back to government if the impeachment request is accepted”. Ms Rousseff is accused of manipulating government accounts, which she denies. The Senate…
LONDON – The mosquito-borne Zika virus may be even more dangerous than previously thought, scientists in Brazil say. They told the BBC that Zika could be behind more damaging neurological conditions, affecting the babies of up to a fifth of infected pregnant women. Rates of increase in Zika infection in some parts of Brazil have…
WASHINGTON – The United States says it is working on specific initiatives to reduce the bloodshed in Syria and revive a nationwide ceasefire. It says a priority is to halt conflict in Aleppo, where more than 200 people have died in a week of government air strikes and rebel shelling. The US wants Russia to…
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has ruled out deploying US ground troops in Syria and says military efforts alone cannot solve the country’s problems. “It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain… to send in ground troops and overthrow the [Bashar al-] Assad regime,” he told the BBC. He also said…
OHIO – At least eight people have been killed in “execution-style” killings in four separate homes in rural Ohio. It is believed the victims – seven adults and one teenager – are from the same family, the state’s attorney general said in a statement. They were all shot in the head and police are still…
BERLIN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top EU officials are set to visit the Turkish-Syrian border on Saturday in an attempt to soothe tensions over a refugee swap deal between the EU and Turkey. Last month, Turkey and the EU reached a deal aimed at stopping the flow of refugees and migrants into Europe….
