AP Top International News At 2:31 p...

Israel rejects US call to halt Jerusalem project

By AMY TEIBEL — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:29:30 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel on Sunday rejected a U.S. demand to suspend a planned housing project in east Jerusalem, threatening to further complicate an unusually tense standoff with its strongest ally over settlement construction....

Honduras crisis talks resume after stalemate

By DIEGO MENDEZ — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:08:26 GMT

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) -- Talks to resolve Honduras' political crisis resumed Sunday with the two sides at odds over reinstating the ousted president and creating a reconciliation government....

India stands firm against binding emissions limits

By ROBERT BURNS — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:20:56 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) -- India stood firm Sunday against Western demands to accept binding limits on carbon emissions even as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed optimism about an eventual climate change deal to India's benefit....

Iran's Ahmadinejad criticized over VP choice

By NASSER KARIMI — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:06:28 GMT

TEHRAN,Iran (AP) -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, already at the center of a post-election crisis, came under criticism from his own hard-line supporters Sunday for appointing a first vice president who once caused an outcry by saying Iranians were friends of Israelis....

Helicopter crash at Afghan base kills 16

By JASON STRAZIUSO — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:05:50 GMT

KABUL (AP) -- A Russian-owned civilian helicopter crashed and burst into flames shortly after takeoff at southern Afghanistan's largest NATO base Sunday, killing 16 civilians in the latest in a string of deadly aircraft crashes in the country....

China says recent Urumqi unrest was premeditated

By GILLIAN WONG — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:23:38 GMT

BEIJING (AP) -- The Chinese government acknowledged for the first time that police killed 12 people during July 5 unrest in western China but put the blame squarely on rioters, saying they stockpiled weapons and planned synchronized attacks on targets across the city of Urumqi....

Gays live _ and die _ in fear in Jamaica

By DAVID MCFADDEN — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:58:37 GMT

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) -- Even now, about three years after a near-fatal gay bashing, Sherman gets jittery at dusk. On bad days, his blood quickens, his eyes dart, and he seeks refuge indoors....

Biden to greet eager allies in Ukraine and Georgia

By MARIA DANILOVA — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:32:39 GMT

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Vice President Joe Biden is visiting Georgia and Ukraine starting Monday, meeting leaders eager for further reassurance that Washington still supports their joining NATO and that its effort to warm relations with Russia won't come at their expense....

South Korea deploys cloned drug-sniffing dogs

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:23:00 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea has put cloned dogs on patrol to sniff out drugs at customs. Six genetic duplicates of a single Labrador retriever have been working at the country's main Incheon international airport and three other customs checkpoints to deter drug smuggling after completing 16 months of training, the Korea Customs Service said in a statement Sunday....

Russia still blue over moon landing 40 years later

By JIM HEINTZ — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:01:48 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) -- When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon, it was a first for the Soviet Union - the first time the U.S. had beaten the U.S.S.R in the space race. Forty years later, the memory of that loss of primacy still seems to sting the Russian soul. When state TV channel Rossiya reported last week on the restoration of video footage of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the account gave a lot of attention to dubious conspiracy theories that the landing was faked....