World

PARIS – Total SA reported a net loss of $5.66 billion in the fourth quarter as world oil prices collapsed and the French energy giant wrote down the value of assets in Canada and the United States. Total said Thursday its oil and gas production slid 2 percent to 2.23 …

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s former first vice president has been taken to jail to serve his prison term for corruption, the official IRNA news agency reported Sunday. Mohammad Reza Rahimi, a top aide to former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was convicted by Iran’s supreme court last month and sentenced to five …

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Career networking website LinkedIn has launched an Arabic version targeting the Middle East’s majority youth population. Saudi Labor Minister Adel Fakeih, who took part in the launch of the website from neighboring United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, says the portal will help the government reach …

GENEVA – Iran and the U.S. are sending their top nuclear officials to Geneva, in a move that may help resolve disputes standing in the way of a deal focused on capping Tehran’s atomic activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Technical experts for both Iran and the six nations have …

MADRID – Spain’s Constitutional Court has unanimously declared a vote on secession by the powerful northeastern region of Catalonia last November as unconstitutional. The court ruled Tuesday that a law passed by the Catalan regional government allowing it to call such votes is also unconstitutional. The court had ordered the …

JOHANNESBURG – A newborn was kidnapped from a Cape Town hospital in 1997. Her parents never gave up hope and, 17 years later, they have found her. She was living just a couple miles (kilometers) from her parents but, as the Cape Argus newspaper reports, the amazing discovery happened only …

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea’s military says North Korea has fired four short-range projectiles into the sea. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the projectiles with a range of 87 miles were fired Friday into waters off North Korea’s west coast. North Korea regularly test-fires …

BOGOTA, Colombia – Navy officials in Colombia say they have seized 5.2 tons of cocaine on a ship off the country’s Pacific Coast. A navy statement issued Tuesday calls it the largest cocaine seizure in Colombia’s Pacific region in the past two years and says U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents …

PANAMA CITY – The White House says a nuclear deal with Iran would require lifting sanctions against Tehran through a phased in process. That assertion counters the stance taken by Iran’s supreme leader and its president that sanctions would have to be lifted immediately after the deal’s implementation. White House …

BRISBANE, Australia – A golfer who was bitten on the leg by a crocodile while playing at an Australian tourist resort said Tuesday he was partly at fault for hitting his ball in the water and disturbing the aggressive reptile while it sunbaked. John Lahiff, 75, had puncture wounds in …