International News: Top Headlines From Around the Globe

Guardian: Global sales for the latest Batman flick, The Dark Knight have already reached $200m and it’s opening week sales of $155m have surpassed former record breaker Spiderman-3’s $151m set in May 2007.

According to reports, numerous screenings sold out weeks ago, with film fans waiting hours in long lines to enter cinemas. Some venues even added shows at 3am and 6am on Saturday morning to cope with demand.

Guardian: China has banned over 1.5 million cars from entering Beijing to combat the smog in the city as the Olympics begin in only three weeks.

The final stage of the programme, which began yesterday, saw half the city’s 3.3m cars banned from the roads each day, depending on whether their number plates end in an odd or even digit.

City authorities hope the measure, which is enforced by thousands of number plate recognition cameras and the threat of a 100 yuan (£7.30) fine, will reduce vehicle emissions by more than 60%.

CNN: US Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is in Iraq to meet with Iraqi leaders and “U.S. led coalition military commanders” about the US/Iraq war, now in year 6. Obama has disclosed his plan to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq “within 16 months of taking office.”

It is the second trip to Iraq for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and the latest leg of an overseas trip that began in Kuwait and Afghanistan and will go on to Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, Germany, France and Britain. The senator from Illinois first visited Iraq in 2006

CNN: A U.S. Air Force B-52 aircraft with six crashed near Guam today 21 July, 2008. Search crews have found no survivors out of the six crew members on board.

A B-52 from Andersen Air Force Base was scheduled to fly over crowds celebrating Liberation Day, which commemorates the U.S. capture of Guam from Japan in 1944, Stark said.

But it was unclear whether the plane that crashed was the one that had been scheduled to perform the flyover.

CNN: Tropical Storm Dolly moved over Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula today 21, July 2008 and has prompted warnings “from the Mexico-Belize border northward to the city of Campeche.”

The National Hurricane Center said the storm is moving northwest at about 15 mph (24 kph) and is expected to cross the Yucatan Peninsula and enter the Gulf of Mexico later Monday.

By Tuesday, Dolly could become a hurricane, the hurricane center reported.

BBC: Pope Benedict XVI expressed said sorry to Australians for some Catholic priests’ sexual abuse of children.

Speaking at a gathering of bishops in Sydney, the Pope spoke of the “shame we have all felt” and called for abusers to face justice.

A campaign group criticised the speech, saying the Pope should have met some victims to apologise in person.

Globe and Mail: Zimbabwe’s leaders Mugabe and Tsvangirai signed a deal for power-sharing talks today 21 July, 2008. The deal forces the two opposing political parties to engage in talks in hopes to end the “country’s deep conflict” that came to a head during the 2008 government elections.

The two men, flanking South African President Thabo Mbeki, signed the agreement at a hotel in Harare. A smaller faction of the Movement for Democratic Change also signed the agreement.

The spokesman, Ronnie Mamoepa, said the agreement is “a positive step forward in the ongoing dialogue,” to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe since elections in March, which escalated after June’s widely condemned presidential runoff.

Al Jazeera: Israel’s minister of defense condemned a video that shows an Israeli soldier shooting a Palestinian detainee.

Ehud Barak vowed on Monday that the incident would be investigates, but Sarit Michaela, from rights group B’Tselem, told Al Jazeera that such incidents are usually ignored by the military.

Al Jazeera: India’s politicians have come together to “debate a vote of confidence
over a civilian nuclear deal with the United States. India’s government could collapse over the deal.

Ahead of Monday’s debate, Singh expressed confidence that the government will survive.

He appealed to members of parliament and assured them that the nuclear agreement was done “in the best interests of our people”.

The government will need a simple majority of votes, but opposition parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Hindu nationalist party, are equally confident.

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