World/Nation

Russian spy ring case nets three charges in U.S.

NEW YORK - Three Russian citizens were charged Monday in connection with a Cold War-style Russian spy ring that spoke in code, passed messages concealed in bags and magazines, and tried to recruit people with ties to an unnamed New York City university, authorities said.

The defendants were directed by Russian authorities to gather sensitive economic intelligence on potential U.S. sanctions against Russian banks and efforts here to develop alternative energy resources, according to a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan.

Prosecutors say one defendant, Yevgeny Buryakov, posed as an employee in the Manhattan branch of a Russian bank. He was arrested on Monday in the Bronx, where he lived with his Russian wife and two children.

At an initial court appearance, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Fee portrayed Buryakov as a professional spy skilled at duplicity.

"His life here, your honor, really is a deception," the prosecutor said.

Kurdish fighters celebrate victory in border town

BEIRUT - Jubilant Kurdish fighters ousted Islamic State militants from the key Syrian border town of Kobani on Monday after a four-month battle - a significant victory for both the Kurds and the U.S.-led coalition.

The Kurds raised their flag on a hill that once flew the Islamic State group's black banner. On Kobani's war-ravaged streets, gunmen fired in the air in celebration, male and female fighters embraced, and troops danced in their baggy uniforms.

The failure to capture Kobani was a major blow to the extremists whose hopes for an easy victory dissolved into a costly siege under withering airstrikes by coalition forces and an assault by the Kurdish militia.

For the U.S. and its partners, Kobani became a strategic prize, especially after they increased the number of airstrikes against IS fighters there in October.

UN: Attack on Ukraine city could be war crime

UNITED NATIONS - Deadly rocket attacks on the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol this weekend that "knowingly targeted civilians" violated international humanitarian law and could amount to war crimes, the U.N. political chief said Monday.

Jeffrey Feltman told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe who examined the craters reported that the rockets originated from territory controlled by pro-Russian rebel separatists.

He said Saturday's attack on Mariupol - a strategic city that could provide a land corridor into Ukraine's Crimean peninsula which Russia annexed last March - destroyed buildings and hit a market killing "dozens of people, including women and children," and injuring more than 100. Other reports put the death toll at 30.

"We must all send an unequivocal message: The perpetrators must be held accountable and brought to justice," Feltman said.

The rocket attack came a day after the rebels rejected a September cease-fire agreement and announced they were going on a multi-pronged offensive against the Ukrainian government in a bid to seize more territory. The rebel stance has upended European attempts to mediate an end to the fighting in eastern Ukraine that has cost at least 5,100 lives since April, according to U.N. estimates.

Greek leftist Tsipras sworn in as prime minister

ATHENS, Greece - Tieless and eschewing the traditional religious swearing-in ceremony, but with a surprise coalition deal in the bag and a sanguine international reception, radical left leader Alexis Tsipras took over Monday as austerity-wracked Greece's new prime minister.

Hours earlier, the 40-year-old's Syriza party trounced the outgoing, conservative government in Sunday's national elections, on a platform of easing social pain and securing massive debt forgiveness.

Although Syriza fell tantalizingly short of a governing majority in the 300-seat parliament, Tsipras moved quickly Monday to secure the support of 13 lawmakers from the small, right-wing populist Independent Greeks party, raising his total to 162.

Twin drugdealers to be sentenced

CHICAGO - In the underworld of illegal drug trafficking, identical twins Pedro and Margarito Flores rose from middling Chicago dealers to partners of Mexico's most notorious cartel lord, eventually building a nearly $2 billion franchise that spanned much of North America.

Anyone convicted of trafficking a fraction as much cocaine and heroin could normally expect a life sentence. But the twins can enter their sentencing hearing Tuesday confident of receiving far less. Because they spilled secrets that led to the indictments of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, a half-dozen of his lieutenants and about 40 lower-level traffickers, prosecutors are asking for a remarkably lenient term - around 10 years.

If credited for six years in protective custody, the pair could go free within a few years.

- The Associated Press