World

TOKYO – Japanese police said they arrested a man on Thursday accused of making bomb threats against the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and media reports said he is also a possible suspect in recent death threats against Ambassador Caroline Kennedy. Tokyo police arrested Mitsuyoshi Kamiya, a resident of the southern …

KAMPALA, Uganda – A Ugandan police official says five madrassas across Uganda have been shut down over allegations they are training students to become extremists. Patrick Onyango, a spokesman for police in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, said Monday that some Islamic schools were training children to become fighters in …

JUBA, South Sudan – The U.S. envoy to South Sudan is urging the country’s leaders to resume peace talks the day after lawmakers voted to extend President Salva Kiir’s term by three years. Donald Booth told reporters in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, on Wednesday that the way to peace “is …

LONDON – Britain’s national statistics agency says the economy grew faster than previously thought last year. Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that the country’s gross domestic product expanded 2.8 percent, compared with the previous estimate of 2.6 percent. Growth in the fourth quarter was 0.6 percent, up …

UNITED NATIONS – A new U.N. report says no one has been held accountable in a massacre in South Sudan last year that raised international alarm and memories of the Rwandan genocide. The report released Friday says more than 350 civilians were killed in two bursts of violence along ethnic …

MILAN – The Italian news agency ANSA and the state-run TV network RAI are reporting that prosecutors in Rome are investigating a dozen foreigners living in Italy on terrorism-related charges. ANSA, RAI and other Italian media reported Tuesday, citing no named sources, that the suspects were identified through Internet traffic …

MOSCOW – Russia’s foreign minister says he expects the prospective Syria peace talks in Moscow to be a success despite reports about some key opposition groups’ refusal to attend. Sergey Lavrov on Friday cast those reports as part of “tactical maneuvering” ahead of the negotiations, but he wouldn’t say whom …

PARIS – Four men appeared in a Paris court Tuesday, the first to face charges in the Paris terror attacks that left 20 people dead, including three gunmen. French authorities also arrested five ethnic Chechens from Russia in raids in southern France, including one whom a mayor said was found …

DAVOS, Switzerland – Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, has denied reports that the country has modelled a potential Greek exit — the so-called “Grexit” — from the 19-country eurozone. Speaking at a panel Friday at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, Schaeuble said “we don’t model …

BUCHANAN, Liberia – On paper, the pitch was simple: A green energy company backed by $217 million in U.S. government loans would convert one of Africa’s poorest countries into the world’s first biomass-driven economy. But the plan to help Liberia collapsed amid questionable business decisions and oversight. The company, Buchanan …