Spartan Echo

  BEIRUT (AP) — Syria’s government has agreed to attend a U.S.-Russian-brokered peace conference, according to Moscow. While this development might seem at first glance to be a step toward ending the civil war, strong skepticism persists on both sides. Doubting that Damascus is serious and may be stalling while government forces make battlefield gains, [...]

  MOSCOW (AP) — Gay-rights campaigners and their opponents clashed at an unsanctioned rally in the Russian capital on Saturday, but a heavy police presence in Ukraine kept the two sides apart at that country’s first-ever gay pride march. Russian police said they arrested at least 30 gay rights campaigners and Christian Orthodox vigilantes in [...]

  HAVANA (AP) — A Canadian businessman caught up in a corruption probe in Cuba apparently went on trial Thursday, nearly two years after he was detained and his import company, Tri-Star Caribbean, was shuttered. Sarkis Yacoubian arrived at an Interior Ministry courthouse in Havana in a black sedan with tinted windows, and was seen [...]

      LA RUANA, Mexico (AP) — The farm state of Michoacan is burning. A drug cartel that takes its name from an ancient monastic order has set fire to lumber yards, packing plants and passenger buses in a medieval-like reign of terror. The Knights Templar cartel is extorting protection payments from cattlemen, lime [...]

    SOCHI, Russia (AP) — The cost of the 2014 Winter Games in the Russian city of Sochi now stands at $51 billion, making it the most expensive Olympics in history. More than half of the bill is being footed by Russian state-controlled companies and business tycoons. A look at what the major players [...]

  COALCOMAN, Mexico (AP) — Mexico’s top security officials promised Tuesday that a new federal offensive to rescue towns besieged by the Knights Templar drug cartel in western Michoacan state would stay “until there is security and peace for all state residents.” Interior Secretary Miguel Osorio Chong and his national security team met with local [...]

    MUMBAI, India (AP) — Low cost efficiency put India’s outsourcing companies at the heart of global business and created a multibillion dollar industry that for years has skated over criticism it was eliminating white collar jobs in rich nations. Now, the industry’s long-held fears of a backlash are being realized in its crucial [...]

  LIMA, Peru (AP) — Facing a shortage of recruits, Peru’s government has reinstated selective, obligatory military service. But it can be avoided by paying a $700 fine, prompting accusations that what is really being imposed is a draft for the poor. Military service had been voluntary since 1998, but meager wages, scant job training [...]

  PHOENIX (AP) — Paul Roselle is hoping to sell the U.S. Border Patrol on his company’s high-tech mobile surveillance system mounted inside a nondescript white truck to better monitor movement of criminals and illegal crossers who are constantly changing their routes to avoid detection. The manager at 4D Security Solutions is at a border [...]

  GOMA, Congo (AP) — A peace agreement between the Congolese government and the M23 rebel group remains uncertain just days before a negotiation deadline expires, Congo’s government spokesman said Monday, March 11, as fighting continued in the country’s troubled east. The rebel group believed to be backed by neighboring Rwanda, overran the major, eastern city [...]

  GOMA, Congo (AP) — The spokesman for Congo’s government says it will likely not sign a peace agreement with the M23 rebel group by a deadline agreed upon by the two sides. Lambert Mende said Monday, March 11, there is no telling whether an accord would be signed by Friday — the March 15 deadline [...]