Cypriot presidentwins another term
NICOSIA, Cyprus -- Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades was re-elected by a wide margin Sunday after defeating left-leaning challenger Stavros Malas in a runoff election for the second time in a row.
State-run broadcaster RIK said Malas telephoned Anastasiades to concede defeat about an hour after polls closed, when half of the ballots had been counted and Malas trailed badly.
Anastasiades had 56 percent of the vote, compared with 44 percent for Malas, in the final returns.
It's the second consecutive time that Anastasiades, 71, a conservative veteran politician, won a head-to-head contest with Malas, 50, for the ethnically divided island's presidency.
Anastasiades said he would use his experience to keep the economy growing and to continue pursuing a reunification deal with the nation's breakaway Turkish Cypriots.
Yemen says strikeleft 8 people dead
SANAA, Yemen -- Yemeni rebels say an air raid by the Saudi-led coalition fighting them struck a police building in the rebel-controlled capital, Sanaa, killing eight people.
In a statement by their military media unit, the rebels, known as Houthis, said a child was killed in the Sunday attack that badly damaged a department of records building and wounded some 58 people.
Security officials and witnesses said many of the dead were civilians, speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution.
The Saudi-led coalition has been at war with the northern-based rebels, who are from the Zaidi sect of Shiite Islam, since March 2015 to reinstate the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The rebels control Sanaa as well as their northern stronghold, Saada, and are nominally backed by Iran.
Sanctions studiedon Venezuelan oil
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- President Donald Trump's administration is considering restrictions on Venezuela's oil exports and the sale of U.S.-refined petroleum products to the country, but it is wary of the damage that may cause to American companies, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday.
Tillerson said the U.S. raised the possibility of oil sanctions to punish the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with Argentina officials Sunday and when the secretary of state was in Mexico City on Friday.
Tillerson spoke Sunday at a news conference in Buenos Aires alongside Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie.
"One of the aspects of considering sanctioning oil is what effect would it have on the Venezuelan people, and is it a step that might bring this to an end," Tillerson said. "Because not doing anything to bring this to an end is also asking the Venezuelan people to suffer for a much longer time."
Further isolating Venezuela is a central focus of Tillerson's weeklong trip to the region, which will also include stops in Peru, Colombia and Jamaica.
Sanctioning the oil sector could damage U.S. companies and cost U.S. jobs.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
A Section on 02/05/2018