(MCT)

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

MCT International Budget for Friday, April 27, 2012

Updated at 0000 UTC (8 p.m. U.S. EDT Thursday).

Additional news stories, including full U.S. coverage, appear on the MCT-NEWS-BJT and MCT-NEWSFEATURES-BJT.

^TOP STORIES<

^Former Liberian President Charles Taylor guilty of war crimes<

^WARCRIMES-TAYLOR:LA_

An international war crimes tribunal announced Thursday that it had found Taylor guilty of "sustained and significant" support for the rebels who engaged in a long campaign of terror, murder, rape, sexual slavery and enlistment of child soldiers. However, he was found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of ordering those abuses himself.

Still, it was a milestone verdict in a case that has been seen as an important test of the international justice system. Taylor, 64, is the first former head of state to have a judgment brought against him by an international court since the Nuremberg trials after World War II.

500 by Henry Chu in London. MOVED

GRAPHIC.

^Final Egyptian candidates named, but election clouds remain<

^EGYPT:WA_

The list was whittled down from 23 registered candidates to 13 finalists. The other 10 were eliminated amid court rulings, conspiracy theories and criminal accusations that have left lingering doubts as to the credibility of the election.

1100 (with trims) by Hannah Allam and Mohannad Sabry in Cairo. MOVED

^Dance club encounter set the stage for Secret Service scandal in Colombia<

^SUMMIT-SECURITY-EXCLUSIVE:WA_

Dozens of couples gyrated to the pulsing sounds emanating from flat video screens throughout the club, which is in Cartagena's walled-in colonial section. When the party ended around 4 a.m., two couples headed for the Hotel Caribe, an imposing castle-like structure facing the Caribbean, two miles from the club.

The couples' encounter at one of Cartagena's hottest nightspots set the stage for the still-unfolding prostitution scandal that's snared 12 U.S. Secret Service agents and a dozen members of the U.S. armed forces.

1900 (with trims) by Alfonso Chardy in Cartagena, Colombia. MOVED

PHOTOS

^WORLD NEWS<

^Rupert Murdoch apologizes for phone hacking, but is also defiant<

^BRITAIN-HACKING-1ST-LEDE:LA_

Had he known the extent of hacking by the News of the World tabloid, he would have "torn the place apart, and we wouldn't be here today," Murdoch testified on his second day before a British judicial inquiry of media ethics.

750 (with trims) by Henry Chu in London. MOVED

^Pakistani prime minister's conviction could mean his ouster<

^PAKISTAN-1STLEDE:LA_

The court opted not to sentence Gilani to a maximum six months in prison. However, under Pakistani law, a conviction could entail disqualification from the office he has held since 2008.

Within hours of the ruling, handed down by a seven-judge panel, opposition leaders called for Gilani's resignation.

650 by Alex Rodriguez in Islamabad. MOVED

^<

Also moving as:

^PAKISTAN-1ST-LEDE:WA_<900 (with trims) by Saeed Shah in Islamabad. (CANADA OUT) MOVED

^Violence surges across Afghanistan, killing at least 18<

^AFGHAN:LA_

Also killed were four Afghan police officers who were slain in an attack on their outpost in northern Afghanistan and eight insurgents who were killed by Afghan police as they were trying to plant a roadside bomb in Kandahar province.

400 by Laura King and Aimal Yaqubi in Kabul, Afghanistan. MOVED

^Chavez returns to Venezuela, ailing but still leading the polls<

^VENEZUELA-CHAVEZ:MI_

Chavez returned after 11 days in Cuba where he has been receiving radiation therapy to treat an undisclosed form of cancer. His failure to make his usual rounds on television and radio sparked speculation that his health had taken a turn for the worse and that he might have even died.

But Chavez's health problems don't seem to be hurting his presidential aspirations. A series of recent polls show that the 57-year-old leader is still ahead of his rival Henrique Capriles, even as he's been running his campaign from a Cuban hospital ward.

800 (with trims) by Jim Wyss in Bogota, Colombia. MOVED

^Dutch political parties reach deal on budget cuts<

^NETHERLANDS-CORRECTION:DPA_

After two days of negotiations, the parliamentary parties VVD, Christian Democrats (CDA), Green Left, Christian Union and D66 struck the deal.

Labor leader Diederik Samsom did not vote in favor of the agreement, although he did speak with other party leaders earlier Thursday. "This is not the best way to tackle the crisis. We are against this plan," Samson said.

450 by Fernando Heller in Amsterdam. MOVED

^`Rose rally' seeks to shore up survivors at Norway gunman trial<

^NORWAY-GUNMAN:DPA_

While people sang "My Rainbow Race," by U.S. folk singer Pete Seeger, in a central square of the Norwegian capital, the court heard testimony from survivors of the bomb, which Breivik says he set off and which claimed eight lives and injured over 200 others.

Breivik is charged with detonating the bomb, which targeted government offices, and later shooting to death 69 people at a Labor Party summer camp on Utoya, an island near the capital.

600 by Lennart Simonsson in Oslo, Norway. MOVED

^Spain takes first step toward peace process with ETA<

^SPAIN-ETA:DPA_

Imprisoned ETA activists who broke with the group could participate in workshops educating inmates in democratic values and advising them on how to look for jobs once released, sources of the prison administration said.

300 by Sinikka Tarvainen in Madrid. MOVED

^UNITED STATES<

^Abortion restrictions gain steam in the states<

^ABORTION-RESTRICTIONS:USA_

The 2012 anti-abortion push is not as heavy as last year, when legislators in 24 states, many elected in the 2010 Republican tide, passed a record 92 laws restricting abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a group that conducts sexual and reproductive health research, policy analysis and public education.

The abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America is tracking 235 bills in legislatures that it says would restrict abortion. The group says a dozen have passed so far this year.

750 by Chuck Raasch. MOVED

^Online fundraising's new era: Alleged Manhattan madam seeks bail<

^MANHATTAN-MADAM:LA_

Anna Gristina's family has created a website, helpanna.org, to help the woman accused of being a top-drawer Manhattan madam raise money for bail. She is being held in lieu of $2 million bail, and her family wants her home.

650 by Michael Muskal. MOVED

^BUSINESS<

^Magazines' rosy outlooks precede market downturn, analyst says<

^ECONOMY-MAGAZINES:USA_

The next day, he e-mailed a report to clients warning that the respected financial weekly's upbeat story _ which laid out why the 3-year-old bull market had more room to run _ might be signaling just the opposite. Citing history, he argued that the bullish message splashed on the cover of Barron's was a textbook contrarian signal showing that investor optimism was getting too euphoric. Zimmermann concluded that all the ingredients were in place for a "major, world-class top" in the stock market.

Bullish cover stories, Zimmermann's extensive research shows, are more akin to a Wall Street curse. A sign of coming bad luck. A warning flag.

1500 (with trims) by Adam Shell in New York. MOVED

^Google blames FCC for delays in Street View investigation<

^CPT-GOOGLE-STREETVIEW-1ST-LEDE:LA_

The move came as the Federal Trade Commission announced it had hired an outside lawyer to run its antitrust investigation, escalating a separate probe into Google's search business. The FTC said Beth Wilkinson, a former Justice Department prosecutor who played a key role in the conviction of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, will take over the Google investigation.

1000 (with trims) by Jessica Guynn in San Francisco. MOVED

^FTC hires outside attorney in Google antitrust inquiry<

^CPT-FTC-GOOGLE:SJ_< Signaling the gravity of the government's antitrust investigation against Google, the Federal Trade Commission has hired a prominent Washington litigator to serve as its outside counsel in the case, the first time in at least five years the federal regulatory agency has taken such a step.

Beth Wilkinson, who successfully argued for the government that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh be given the death penalty, will start working on the Google antitrust investigation on Monday, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said Thursday in a meeting with reporters.

500 by Mike Swift in San Francisco. MOVED

^Self-driving feature interests 1 in 5 drivers, survey finds<

^AUTO-SELFDRIVINGCAR-SURVEY:LA_

Tech giant Google Inc., universities and other organizations have been working to develop such "autonomous" vehicles, which use radar, video cameras and lasers to navigate roads and stay safe in traffic without human assistance.

550 by Jerry Hirsch in Los Angeles. MOVED

^FEATURES<

^'The Pirates! Band of Misfits' helps stop-motion endure<

^MOVIE-PIRATES-STOPMOTION:LA_<"Pirates," co-directed by Peter Lord and Jeff Newitt, and adapted from a novel by Gideon Defoe, is the most logistically ambitious stop-motion film to come out of Aardman Animations, the studio in Bristol, England, behind the lovingly rendered clay characters in "Chicken Run" and "Wallace and Gromit," as well as last year's computer-animated holiday film, "Arthur Christmas." The first Aardman stop-motion movie shot in 3-D, "Pirates" follows a group of underachieving buccaneers from the high seas to fog-shrouded Victorian London, a process that required 250 puppets, dozens of CGI backgrounds and an ornate, 770-pound plywood pirate ship with a bumper sticker on the back that says, "Honk if you're seasick."

^Stop-motion is a notoriously arduous process that requires animators to manipulate a puppet's movement frame-by-frame_

1050 (with trim) by Rebecca Keegan. MOVED