CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s reform leader Mohamed ElBaradei withdrew from the presidential race Saturday, saying a fair election is impossible under the military’s grip nearly a year after Hosni Mubarak’s ouster. Many fear that the ruling generals will push through a candidate of their own to preserve their power. The Nobel Peace laureate’s pullout is a slap to the military and the credibility of its plans for Egypt’s transition. He was seen as the most pro-revolution of the candidates and... Read more

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s reform leader Mohamed ElBaradei said Saturday he is pulling out of the country’s presidential race to protest the military’s failure to put the country on the path to democracy. The 69-year-old Nobel laureate, who has been seen as a driving force behind the movement that forced former President Hosni Mubarak to step down, said in a statement that the conditions for a fair presidential election are not in place. ElBaradei said the military rulers who took... Read more

LUMBINI, Nepal (AP) — Nepal’s president has announced a campaign to lure hundreds of thousands of tourists and pilgrims this year to visit the area in southwest Nepal where Buddha was born. President Rambaran Yadav made the announcement Saturday in Lumbini, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Katmandu, where Buddha is believed to have been born 2,555 years ago. Yadav said Nepal was eager to welcome both devotees of Buddha and peace believers to visit Lumbini and spread the... Read more

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Premier Mario Monti has met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in their first formal talks since Monti took over as head of a government of experts in November to tackle Italy’s debt crisis. The Vatican said the two sides discussed Italian and European issues as well as the need to protect religious minorities in some areas of the world, and confirmed their interest in continuing “constructive cooperation.” Read more

BEIJING (AP) — Another Tibetan in southwest China self-immolated Saturday in the latest in a series of apparent protests against Chinese rule, activist groups said. The self-immolation in the town of Aba in Sichuan province was followed by clashes between security forces and local Tibetans, said the London-based group Free Tibet. At least 16 Buddhist monks, nuns and other Tibetans are now believed to have set themselves on fire in the past year — including four in the past week... Read more

“Have you seen ‘Titanic?’ That’s exactly what it was.” — Valerie Ananias, 31, a schoolteacher from Los Angeles, after a luxury cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, ran aground late Friday off the coast of Italy, killing at least three people. ___ “I’d have a brick wall across the border. They make all the rules down in London and haven’t got a clue what goes on up here.” — Janice Black, a resident of Stirling, Scotland, as the country is poised... Read more

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — With a week left to halt Mitt Romney from sweeping to a third straight victory, his GOP rivals are struggling in South Carolina for a theme, momentum and most crucially, one strong challenger to consolidate conservatives’ misgivings about the front-runner. The dynamics that lifted Romney to wins in Iowa and New Hampshire seem to be working for him here, even though South Carolina is often described as too evangelical and culturally southern for his background. In... Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rick Santorum is brash and blunt — and proudly so — but it’s a trait that will make it easy for Democrats to use his own words against him if he becomes the Republican presidential nominee. Far from apologetic, Santorum takes an “I-am-who-I-am” attitude. Lately, though, as he tries to emerge as the conservative alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney, the former Pennsylvania senator has been asking Republican voters to look beyond his verbal missteps. “I’m a consistent... Read more

NEW DELHI (AP) — For the first time, Indian prosecutors are taking Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other networking sites to court for refusing to remove material considered insulting to Indian leaders and major religious figures. Government officials are upset about material insulting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and major religious figures. Some illustrations have shown Singh and Gandhi in compromising positions and pigs running through Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. On Friday, the federal government... Read more

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s ultraconservative Islamist party has reached out to rival secular and liberal political factions in an unusual, behind-the-scenes attempt to unify their ranks and counter the Muslim Brotherhood’s power in the country’s new parliament. An alliance between the Salafis and nonreligious parties would be very difficult to reach and even harder to maintain, given the large differences in their ideologies. But the talks highlight the growing worries that the Brotherhood, fresh off its election victory, is starting... Read more