Today's Reuters World News Headlines - Yahoo! News: | | Insight: Delays dog U.S. government loans to green energy projects Tue,2 Oct 2012 11:24 PM PDT Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A year after the U.S. government raced to meet a deadline to finish loan agreements with dozens of clean energy companies, less than half the total money promised has been handed over. Technical questions and companies' own failures in hitting contractual milestones are behind some of the holdups. But government officials fearful of taking a risk on firms that could collapse may have also caused some of the delays. ...
Full Story | Top | Venezuelan vote a high-stakes affair for Chavez allies Tue,2 Oct 2012 11:12 PM PDT Reuters - HAVANA (Reuters) - Pedro Alvarez, who drives one of the thousands of ancient American cars that serve as taxis in Cuba, cannot bring himself to think about life without Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. His big, blue 1949 Buick burns gallons of gasoline every day, most of it produced from the imported Venezuelan oil that fuels Cuba and all of it costing almost $5 a gallon, a pretty penny in a country where the average monthly pay is $19. ...
Full Story | Top | Romney under pressure to score debate win against Obama Tue,2 Oct 2012 11:05 PM PDT Reuters - DENVER (Reuters) - Republican candidate Mitt Romney is under pressure to produce a strong performance on Wednesday at his first face-to-face debate with President Barack Obama to try to turn around a race for the White House that has been edging away from him. The 90-minute encounter offers the chance to reach more than 60 million people on television, a far greater audience than watched either candidate speak at the Democratic and Republican conventions. ...
Full Story | Top | Michelle Obama rallies supporters as early voting opens in Ohio Tue,2 Oct 2012 10:03 PM PDT Reuters - CINCINNATI, Ohio (Reuters) - First lady Michelle Obama rallied supporters to back her husband as early voting began on Tuesday in the key electoral swing state of Ohio where the Democrats hope to take advantage of a lead in opinion polls. "Are we going to just sit back and watch everything we worked for and fought for just slip away?" she asked a boisterous crowd of 6,800 in downtown Cincinnati. ...
Full Story | Top | U.S. had early indications Libya attack tied to organized militants Tue,2 Oct 2012 10:01 PM PDT Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Within hours of last month's attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, President Barack Obama's administration received about a dozen intelligence reports suggesting militants connected to al Qaeda were involved, three government sources said. Despite these reports, in public statements and private meetings, top U.S. officials spent nearly two weeks highlighting intelligence suggesting that the attacks were spontaneous protests against an anti-Muslim film, while playing down the involvement of organized militant groups. ...
Full Story | Top | Costa Rica poised to ban hunting as sport in Latin America first Tue,2 Oct 2012 09:57 PM PDT Reuters - SAN JOSE (Reuters) - Costa Rica is poised to become the first Latin American country to ban hunting as a sport, after Congress on Tuesday provisionally approved reforms to its Wildlife Conservation Law. Lawmakers voting on the ban voted 41 in favor and five against, and a second vote expected in the coming week is widely seen ratifying changes to the law, which aims to protect animals in one of the world's most biodiverse countries. Costa Rica's national parks attract some 300,000 visitors annually, and tourism is a mainstay of the economy. ... Full Story | Top | Libya yet to work out U.S. cooperation in Benghazi probe Tue,2 Oct 2012 06:38 PM PDT Reuters - TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya and the United States have yet to agree how a U.S. investigative team will cooperate in a probe into a deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, a senior Libyan official said on Tuesday. FBI agents were sent to Libya after the September 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission and another facility in which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans died. So far they have conducted interviews in Tripoli and have yet to go to Benghazi. ...
Full Story | Top | Trudeau scion hopes for Trudeaumania 2.0 in Canada Tue,2 Oct 2012 06:19 PM PDT Reuters - MONTREAL (Reuters) - The charismatic son of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau declared his candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal Party on Tuesday, hoping to recreate the sort of buzz that made his father prime minister in 1968. Justin Trudeau said he was entering the race to lead Canada's oldest political party to serve his country. "I love this country, I want to spend my life serving it. This is why tonight I am offering myself for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada," Trudeau told a packed hall in Montreal for the well-publicized announcement. ...
Full Story | Top | Chavez calls for pre-dawn turnout at Venezuela vote Tue,2 Oct 2012 05:54 PM PDT Reuters - (Note: Election law forbids publication of polls in Venezuela a week before October 7 vote.) YARITAGUA/CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged his supporters to vote early at Sunday's election, saying the key to him winning another six-year term as leader of South America's biggest oil exporter was organization and logistics. Chavez, 58, is in a close race with 40-year-old state governor Henrique Capriles, and both camps are now focused on their final rallies and getting their supporters to the polls. ...
Full Story | Top | Chinese firm sues Obama for blocking wind farm near drone site Tue,2 Oct 2012 05:42 PM PDT Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A small Chinese firm has sued President Barack Obama for squashing its bid to build wind farms close to a naval training site, but experts say the suit is long shot for a firm that greatly underestimated U.S. suspicions about Chinese intentions. Ralls Corp, which is owned by two Chinese nationals, was installing wind turbines close to the training site in Oregon, which, according to the facility's web site, is used to test unmanned drones - a highly sensitive and prized U.S. technology. The U.S. ...
Full Story | Top | Pablo Escobar T-shirts a hit in Mexico drug war states Tue,2 Oct 2012 04:54 PM PDT Reuters - MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Nearly two decades after Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar died in a hail of bullets, his eldest son is conquering new markets in Mexico - with a fashion line in his father's image. Sebastian Marroquin's designer T-shirts, plastered with photos of Escobar, are hot sellers in Mexican states that are on the front lines of the country's deadly drug war. The shirts are emblazoned with images of the Medellin cartel boss, who flooded the world with cocaine before he was shot dead in 1993. ...
Full Story | Top | Brazil Indians' protest halts Vale's Carajás railway Tue,2 Oct 2012 04:44 PM PDT Reuters - SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Protests by Brazilian Indians paralyzed operations at the railway serving mining giant Vale's Carajás mine on Tuesday, in the latest episode hampering the world's largest iron ore producer. According to a statement, a group of Indians seeking to assert land property rights seized control of a portion of the railway linking the municipalities of Mineirinho and Auzilândia in the northern state of Maranhão. The railway, known as EFC, is halted. It transports passengers as well as ore extracted from the giant Carajás mine in the neighboring state of Pará. ... Full Story | Top | U.S. officials sought more security before Libya attack: lawmakers Tue,2 Oct 2012 04:35 PM PDT Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials in Washington denied repeated requests from Americans in Libya for more security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi before last month's attack that killed four Americans there, two Republican lawmakers said on Tuesday. U.S. Representatives Darrell Issa and Jason Chaffetz wrote a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding details of the requests for more security - which they said were made amid numerous attacks on Westerners in Libya in recent months. ...
Full Story | Top | Colombia unveils tax reform to create jobs, close loopholes Tue,2 Oct 2012 03:14 PM PDT Reuters - BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia unveiled a tax reform bill on Tuesday aimed at creating jobs, closing loopholes and simplifying the tax system, but not increasing the tax take as the Andean country was on track for record collections this year. Colombia's battle against corruption and evasion helped boost tax revenue 25 percent last year, to about 86.3 trillion pesos ($48 billion), and Colombia's tax office will likely collect a record 103 trillion pesos this year. ... Full Story | Top | Tycoon's alliance wins election in Georgia Tue,2 Oct 2012 02:43 PM PDT Reuters - TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili on Tuesday conceded defeat in parliamentary elections to a coalition led by a tycoon promising to ease tensions with Moscow, four years after the staunch U.S. ally lost a war with Russia. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who has long been openly hostile to Saakashvili, welcomed the opposition victory as opening the way for "more constructive and responsible forces" to enter the Georgian parliament. ...
Full Story | Top | Assad rejected leaders' bid for peace in Syria: former PM Tue,2 Oct 2012 02:37 PM PDT Reuters - DUBAI (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad vetoed demands by senior leaders to pursue a peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria after some of his top security aides were killed in an attack in July, his former prime minister said in remarks broadcast on Tuesday. Riyad Hijab, who defected in early August, told Al Arabiya television that the death of Defence Minister Daoud Rajha and his deputy, Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, in a bomb attack on a security meeting in Damascus had persuaded him that there was no military solution to the crisis. ...
Full Story | Top | Iraq tells Turkey to stop pursuing Kurdish rebels over border Tue,2 Oct 2012 02:25 PM PDT Reuters - BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq asked Turkey on Tuesday to stop attacking Kurdish rebel forces sheltering across the border in northern Iraq, as Turkey prepares to extend its internal mandate for the raids. The Baghdad government's power over Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region is limited, but the comments are an indication of tensions with Turkey, which has given refuge to Iraq's fugitive vice president. ... Full Story | Top | Unrest tarnishes drive to tap Indonesia's gold riches Tue,2 Oct 2012 02:22 PM PDT Reuters - JAKARTA/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - When Hong Kong-listed G-Resources Ltd opened its $1 billion Indonesian gold mine in July, six months behind schedule, it had high hopes it would be hitting its annual output target of 250,000 ounces by next year. Less than three months later the company halted operations after hundreds of protesters blocked the entrances to the Martabe mine, in the north of Sumatra island, in a dispute over the installation of a water discharge pipe. It began laying off the 2,000-strong workforce at the mine, the company's sole asset, this week. ...
Full Story | Top | Mali Islamists execute accused murderer in Timbuktu Tue,2 Oct 2012 02:20 PM PDT Reuters - BAMAKO (Reuters) - Islamist fighters in the northern Malian city of Timbuktu executed a man on Tuesday for murdering his neighbor in an application of sharia, Islamic law, the Islamist group and witnesses said. Armed Islamist groups, some with links to al Qaeda, have controlled the northern two-thirds of Mali since April, when they hijacked a rebellion launched by ethnic Tuareg separatists. They have since imposed sharia in many of the areas under their control. A spokesman for Ansar Dine, which controls Timbuktu, said the executed man was a member of the group. "He turned himself in... ... Full Story | Top | Factbox: Colombia's Santos latest leader treated for cancer Tue,2 Oct 2012 02:13 PM PDT Reuters - (Reuters) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will undergo surgery for a non-aggressive prostate cancer on Wednesday. Here is a look at some world leaders who have had cancer while in office: * COLOMBIA'S JUAN MANUEL SANTOS: - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said he would undergo surgery for a non-aggressive prostate cancer in a health scare that seemed unlikely to derail his government's imminent talks with Marxist rebels to end decades of war. ... Full Story | Top | Colombia's Santos to spend two-three days in hospital after cancer surgery Tue,2 Oct 2012 02:10 PM PDT Reuters - BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will spend two or three days in the hospital after surgery for non-aggressive prostate cancer, his doctor said on Tuesday, a day before the 61-year-old was scheduled for the operation. Midway through his four-year term, Santos surprised the Andean nation on Monday night when he announced doctors had discovered a cancerous growth, but the disease had been caught in time and there was minimal risk. ...
Full Story | Top | Italy minister denies ex-wife's Finmeccanica consultancy deal Tue,2 Oct 2012 01:56 PM PDT Reuters - ROME (Reuters) - Italian Economy Minister Vittorio Grilli on Tuesday dismissed media speculation that defense group Finmeccanica had ordered false consultancy services from his ex wife, after one newspaper said he should dispel doubts over the reported deal. "There were never any consultancy services contracted on the part of Finmeccanica," Grilli said in a letter to Il Sole 24 Ore after the financial daily called for a clarification in an editorial published on Tuesday. Finmeccanica's chief executive Giuseppe Orsi had denied similar reports last month. ...
Full Story | Top | Bahraini protesters and police clash after funeral Tue,2 Oct 2012 01:51 PM PDT Reuters - MANAMA (Reuters) - Bahraini protesters threw petrol bombs and stones on Tuesday at riot police who were trying to disperse them with water cannons after the funeral of a Shi'ite man jailed for his role in last year's pro-democracy uprising, witnesses said. Bahrain's Information Authority said Mohammed Ali Ahmed Mushaima had been in hospital since August, and died of complications from sickle cell disease. But opposition activists accused the authorities of causing the 23-year-old's death by denying him proper treatment. "Due to his medical condition, his lawyer had tried more than once ... ...
Full Story | Top | Somali militants hit Kismayu as African troops move in Tue,2 Oct 2012 01:34 PM PDT Reuters - MOGADISHU (Reuters) - African Union troops and tanks occupied al Shabaab's former stronghold of Kismayu on Tuesday, but the Somali Islamist militants gave notice of their intention to fight back, saying they detonated a bomb in the port city. The blast points to the al Qaeda-linked rebels' ability to hit back with covert strikes and continues a pattern of attacks in other urban strongholds from where they have retreated under military pressure, including the capital. ...
Full Story | Top | YouTube opens Turkish site, giving government more control Tue,2 Oct 2012 12:55 PM PDT Reuters - ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey said on Tuesday it had won a long-running battle to persuade the video-sharing website YouTube to operate under a Turkish web domain, giving Ankara a tighter rein over the site's content and requiring the firm to pay Turkish taxes. Turkey, which banned the popular website for more than two years in 2008, has long come under international criticism for its restrictive internet laws and over the EU-candidate's record on freedom of expression. "This is an important development. ...
Full Story | Top | Greece pushes for austerity deal as time runs short Tue,2 Oct 2012 12:46 PM PDT Reuters - ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece held a new round of talks with foreign lenders to bridge differences over 2 billion euros of disputed austerity cuts on Tuesday, with time running short to clinch a deal before a meeting of euro zone ministers next week. Athens has been haggling for weeks over 12 billion euros of cutbacks that its European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders have refused to sign off on over fears that some of the proposed savings are unlikely to materialize. ...
Full Story | Top | U.S. praises Georgia's Saakashvili for conceding Tue,2 Oct 2012 12:21 PM PDT Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States praised Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Tuesday for conceding his party lost parliamentary elections and asking the victorious coalition to form a government. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said she thought that Saakashvili's concession may bode well for cooperation between the new government and the president, who is due to step down next year. "There had been a lot of charges back and forth, a lot of hot rhetoric but ... ... Full Story | Top | France drops rape inquiry into ex-IMF head Strauss-Kahn Tue,2 Oct 2012 12:04 PM PDT Reuters - LILLE, France (Reuters) - French public prosecutors have shelved an investigation into allegations that disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a man once tipped to become president of France, had engaged in group rape. In a statement on Tuesday, the prosecution service said it acted after a young woman retracted an allegation against the 63-year-old, who is also fighting wider accusations of sexual misdemeanor in France and a civil case in the United States. ...
Full Story | Top | Ivory Coast holds first trial over post-election violence Tue,2 Oct 2012 12:01 PM PDT Reuters - ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The trial of a top military ally of Ivory Coast's former president Laurent Gbagbo, the first involving an accused instigator of last year's post-election violence, opened in the commercial capital Abidjan on Tuesday. General Bruno Dogbo Ble headed the elite Republican Guard during the brief conflict, which killed more than 3,000 people and erupted after Gbagbo refused to accept his defeat to rival Alassane Ouattara in an election in late 2010. ...
Full Story | Top | Amplats says security worsens at its South Africa mines Tue,2 Oct 2012 11:59 AM PDT Reuters - CARLTONVILLE, South Africa (Reuters) - Anglo American Platinum warned on Tuesday that security had worsened at its strike-hit South African mines as several thousand gold miners rallied over pay in the dispute-plagued industry. As many as 75,000 miners, or 15 percent of the South African mining sector's total workforce, are on wildcat strikes, threatening already shaky growth of Africa's biggest economy. ...
Full Story | Top | Iran's Ahmadinejad says Syria crisis may engulf region Tue,2 Oct 2012 11:46 AM PDT Reuters - ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday warned that hostilities in Syria could engulf the region and accused some Syrians of trying to use their country's conflict to settle scores with Tehran. In comments to Al Jazeera television, Ahmadinejad said that a national dialogue and new elections - rather than war - were the only way to solve the Syrian crisis, saying the Syrian people should choose their own path. "There is another way to find a solution, it is national, mutual understanding in order for there to be elections in the future," he said. ...
Full Story | Top | Analysis: Mexican labor reform signals battles ahead for Pena Nieto Tue,2 Oct 2012 11:44 AM PDT Reuters - MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - By the time Mexico's president-elect, Enrique Pena Nieto, takes office in December, he will almost certainly have a labor reform law on the books and one less battle to fight with skeptics inside his party. But plenty more skirmishes await as the youthful Pena Nieto, 46, faces a showdown with traditionalists in his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), commonly dubbed "dinosaurs. ...
Full Story | Top | Britain's Labor leader Miliband plays the class card Tue,2 Oct 2012 10:56 AM PDT Reuters - MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Britain's opposition leader Ed Miliband cast himself as a humble man of the people on Tuesday in a confident speech, seeking to win over doubters and portray Prime Minister David Cameron as the product of a snobby education who has hurt the economy. Hoping voters will punish the coalition government for a recession and hand Labor power in an election in 2015, Miliband is grappling with polls which show he is far less popular than his own party and is seen as a worse leader than Cameron. ...
Full Story | Top | Rajoy says Spain won't request aid this weekend Tue,2 Oct 2012 10:48 AM PDT Reuters - MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Tuesday a request for European aid was not imminent following a report the country could apply for help as soon as this weekend. Rajoy made the comments after meeting in Madrid with the 17 leaders of Spain's regions. European officials told Reuters late on Monday that Spain was ready as early as next weekend to ask the euro zone and the European Central Bank to start buying its bonds, but Germany had signaled it should hold off. ...
Full Story | Top | Vatican butler alleges harsh conditions after arrest Tue,2 Oct 2012 10:18 AM PDT Reuters - VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict's former butler, on trial for stealing papal documents, told a Vatican court on Tuesday that during the first weeks of his detention he was held in an isolation room so small he couldn't stretch out his arms and with light on constantly. Paolo Gabriele said that during those weeks he had suffered damage to his eyesight and had felt under psychological pressure. On the first night in the room in the Vatican's police station, "even a pillow was denied me", he said. ...
Full Story | Top | Syria's Assad tours Aleppo, orders more troops into battle: paper Tue,2 Oct 2012 09:55 AM PDT Reuters - BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is visiting the city of Aleppo to take a first-hand look at the fighting between government forces and rebels and has ordered 30,000 more troops into the battle, a Lebanese paper said on Tuesday. Al-Diyar newspaper, which is known for its pro-Assad stance, said the president had flown by helicopter at dawn from the presidential palace in Damascus to Aleppo. It did not specify what day the trip started but said that Assad was still in Aleppo. ...
Full Story | Top | Syria slams Hamas leader as rifts with former ally widen Tue,2 Oct 2012 09:55 AM PDT Reuters - BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian state-run television has bitterly criticized the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas for turning his back on President Bashar al-Assad, his one-time protector. Syria welcomed Hamas in 1999 after Jordanian authorities expelled its leader in exile, Khaled Meshaal, accusing him of using the country for illicit activities. Meshaal and Assad's relationship, built on enmity to Israel, fractured as Assad cracked down on opposition protests that grew into an armed uprising. Meshaal shut down Hamas's offices in Damascus in February and left the country. ... Full Story | Top | Islamist governor shakes up Egypt province Tue,2 Oct 2012 09:46 AM PDT Reuters - KAFR EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - Battling corruption is a top priority for the Muslim Brotherhood man just named as a provincial governor in Egypt but he faces another problem before he even begins: while everyone knows graft is there, it has scarcely ever been investigated. Saad al-Hoseiny's first weeks in a job once kept for retired generals offer a glimpse of the knot of problems inherited by the new Islamist-led administration from decades of autocratic rule that failed to address the problems of a bloated state. It also points to the Islamists' early efforts to shake up the status quo. ...
Full Story | Top | What could Venezuela vote mean for its oil industry? Tue,2 Oct 2012 09:33 AM PDT Reuters - CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's bitterly-fought election will not bring major short-term changes to the oil industry but if the opposition won, it would try to depoliticize the business and end supply deals with President Hugo Chavez's leftist allies. Chavez, 58, is seeking a new six-year term and accuses opposition challenger Henrique Capriles, a 40-year-old state governor, of seeking to reverse his self-styled socialist revolution. ...
Full Story | Top | Al Qaeda in North Africa making millions kidnapping: U.S. Tue,2 Oct 2012 09:15 AM PDT Reuters - BERLIN (Reuters) - Islamist militants are increasingly funding themselves through kidnapping, with al Qaeda's north African wing likely to have brought in tens of millions of dollars in ransoms in the past few years, a senior U.S. Treasury official said. The United States estimates militant organizations received $120 million over the past decade, including the ransoms paid to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), said David Cohen, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. ... Full Story | Top |
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