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| Body count from migrant boat disaster off Italy rises to 111 Friday, Oct 04, 2013 12:43 AM PDT  LAMPEDUSA, Italy (Reuters) - Italian rescue workers have pulled 111 bodies from the migrant boat that sank off the island of Lampedusa on Thursday and expect to recover more than a hundred more from the submerged wreck, a coastguard official said on Friday. Authorities have rescued 155 survivors after the 20-metre (66-foot) boat carrying around 500 migrants, mostly Eritreans and Somalis, sank no more than 1 kilometre (half a mile) from shore. ... Full Story | Top |
| Latest Myanmar violence blamed on religious and ethnic extremists Friday, Oct 04, 2013 12:32 AM PDT  By Jared Ferrie THANDWE, Myanmar (Reuters) - The Buddhist mob mutilated and burned Khin Naing so severely his son couldn't recognise the body, one of series of attacks that suggest a resurgence of a monk-led movement in Myanmar accused of stoking violence against Muslims. Flies were buzzing around the bloodied patch of earth outside a ransacked mosque in Tha Phyu Chai village where police removed Khin Naing's body after he was hacked to death by ethnic Rakhine Buddhists. ... Full Story | Top |
| China elevates Malaysia ties, aims to triple trade by 2017 Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 11:23 PM PDT  By Yantoultra Ngui KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - China and Malaysia agreed on Friday to elevate bilateral ties to a "comprehensive strategic partnership", aiming to boost military cooperation and nearly triple two-way trade to $160 billion by 2017. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak spoke soon after U.S. President Barack Obama canceled a week-long tour of four Asian nations, including Malaysia, due to the U.S. government shutdown. ... Full Story | Top |
| Germany's Merkel to start tricky coalition talks with Social Democrats Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 10:54 PM PDT  By Sarah Marsh BERLIN (Reuters) - Angela Merkel holds preliminary talks with the Social Democrats (SPD) on Friday to sound out the scope for compromises to form a "grand coalition", marking the start of complicated horse-trading that could drag on into next year. Germany's European partners are watching the coalition manoeuvring in Berlin closely, concerned that delays could push back EU-wide decisions on important financial crisis-fighting measures like the ambitious banking union project. ... Full Story | Top |
| Syria chemical attack reopens old wounds among Kurds Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 10:32 PM PDT By Isabel Coles HALABJA, Iraq (Reuters) - A sweet smell, like that of apples, wafted through the air. In a field, a cow's eyes began to stream. A bird fell from the sky, its feathers singed, and people's mouths began to fill with ulcers. At least 5,000 people were gassed to death that spring day in 1988 when the Iraqi air force dropped chemical bombs on the town of Halabja in the country's Kurdish north - a defining moment in a long history of oppression. ... Full Story | Top |
| Venezuela's Maduro stuck in shadow of 'El Comandante' Chavez Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 10:10 PM PDT  By Andrew Cawthorne CIUDAD CARIBIA, Venezuela (Reuters) - Hovering over a sun-baked mountain one day in his presidential helicopter, Hugo Chavez had a dream: to build a utopian city that would showcase socialism in Venezuela. Slowly and chaotically over the years that followed, the late president's pet project - conceived a decade into his rule and named "Ciudad Caribia" for the country's indigenous Carib people - began to take shape on the mountain 10 km (6 miles) northwest of the capital, Caracas. "This was his dream. ... Full Story | Top |
| Factbox: The political life of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 10:10 PM PDT By Andrew Cawthorne CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is struggling to emerge from the shadow of his flamboyant predecessor Hugo Chavez at the helm of the South American OPEC nation. Here are some facts about Maduro: The burly, mustachioed Maduro, 50, is a former union leader and Caracas bus driver. He does not have a university degree and proudly calls himself Venezuela's first "worker president." Maduro entered politics in 1998 when he won a seat in parliament. His combative defense of Chavez's policies made him one of the socialist leader's proteges. ... Full Story | Top |
| Driver shot dead in car chase near Capitol Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 09:04 PM PDT  By Richard Cowan and Margaret Chadbourn WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A dramatic car chase through the streets of Washington from near the White House to the U.S. Capitol ended in gunfire on Thursday when law enforcement officers shot and killed the driver as lawmakers and aides huddled in a lockdown. The incident rattled Washington less than three weeks after a government contractor opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard, about 1.5 miles from the Capitol, killing 12 people and wounding three others before he was shot to death by police. ... Full Story | Top |
| Brazil electoral court rejects new opposition party Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 08:12 PM PDT  By Anthony Boadle BRASILIA (Reuters) - In a decision that could boost President Dilma Rousseff's chances of re-election next year, Brazil's electoral court ruled on Thursday that her main potential rival failed to gather enough signatures to register her new party in time. Environmentalist Marina Silva has until Saturday to decide whether to run on the ticket of an existing party to make her second bid for president next October. The court ruled 6-1 against the creation of her party, called the Sustainability Network, because it fell short of the required 492,000 signatures. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. shutdown seen dragging on as debt ceiling fight nears Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 07:46 PM PDT  By Mark Felsenthal and Richard Cowan (Reuters) - The shutdown of the U.S. government appeared likely to drag on for another week and possibly longer as lawmakers consumed day three of the shutdown with a stalling game and there was no end in sight until the next crisis hits Washington around October 17. Bowing to the reality that the impasse requires him to remain in Washington, President Barack Obama canceled plans to attend summits in Indonesia and Brunei next week. Earlier this week, he canceled visits to Malaysia and the Philippines because of the shutdown. ... Full Story | Top |
| Italian Senate committee likely to start Berlusconi expulsion process Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 05:12 PM PDT  By James Mackenzie ROME (Reuters) - An Italian Senate committee is likely to start a process on Friday to expel Silvio Berlusconi from parliament following his conviction for tax fraud, meaning the former prime minister's fate could be sealed within weeks. Berlusconi, who has dominated Italian politics for two decades, brushed off suggestions that his parliamentary career might soon be over after the conviction and an aborted attempt to topple the government. "I think this is the result of a well constructed plan to remove the leader of the center-right," said the 77-year-old billionaire. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. allows non-emergency personnel to return to Beirut embassy Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 04:47 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said Thursday that its non-emergency staff could return to work at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which was evacuated last month because of potential security threats. At the same time, the department warned that the environment in Lebanon remains volatile, and urged U.S. citizens to avoid traveling there. "The potential for a spontaneous upsurge in violence remains," the State Department said. "Lebanese government authorities are not able to guarantee protection for citizens or visitors to the country should violence erupt suddenly. ... Full Story | Top |
| Driver shot dead in dramatic car chase at U.S. Capitol Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 04:32 PM PDT By Richard Cowan and Margaret Chadbourn WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A dramatic car chase through the streets of Washington from near the White House to the U.S. Capitol ended in gunfire on Thursday when law enforcement officers shot and killed the driver as lawmakers and aides huddled in a lockdown. The identity of the driver - a woman - was not released. "The suspect in the vehicle was struck by gunfire and at this point has been pronounced (dead)," Washington's police chief, Cathy Lanier, told reporters. ... Full Story | Top |
| Migrant workers rounded up in pre-Olympic Sochi: rights group Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 03:31 PM PDT By Steve Gutterman MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian authorities have detained hundreds of migrant workers in Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, and have held many of them in "arbitrary and inhuman conditions", Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. Many of those detained in a wave of raids on work sites, homes and public places since early September helped build venues or infrastructure for the Games being held in the Black Sea resort city in February, the advocacy group said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Tunisian man extradited to U.S. in NATO base attack case Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 03:29 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Tunisian man who served 10 years in a Belgian prison for planning to attack a NATO air base on behalf of al Qaeda was extradited to the United States on Thursday to face similar U.S. charges, the Justice Department said. Nizar Trabelsi, 43, was arrested in Belgium two days after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and was convicted by a Belgian court in 2003 of plotting to blow himself up at the Kleine Brogel base, which housed U.S. soldiers. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. sanctions Rwanda, others over child soldiers Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 03:11 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States moved to block U.S. military aid to Rwanda because of its support for the M23 Congolese rebel group believed to use child soldiers, the State Department said on Thursday. The sanctions also apply to the Central African Republic, Myanmar, Sudan and Syria, according to the U.S. State Department. It was unclear whether those nations receive U.S. military assistance. "Our goal is to work with countries who have been listed to ensure that any involvement in child soldiers - any involvement in the recruitment of child soldiers - stop," U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
| Israel to run for U.N. Security Council seat for 2019-20 Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 02:59 PM PDT  By Dan Williams NEW YORK (Reuters) - Israel said on Thursday it plans to run for a rotating seat on the U.N. Security Council for the time ever for 2019-2020, although U.N. diplomats said it will not be easy for the Jewish state to win. "We're going all out to win," Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor told Reuters. "It's about time." Winning a Security Council seat requires a two-thirds majority in the 193-nation General Assembly. Candidates are proposed by the five regional groups but election to the council is done by the full assembly. ... Full Story | Top |
| Thousands who protested peacefully languish in Syrian jails: HRW Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 02:13 PM PDT  AMMAN (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people who peacefully demonstrated against President Bashar al-Assad are languishing in Syrian jails and are subjected to an apparent policy of torture, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch. Citing testimony from former prisoners, HRW said in a report that detainees have been raped and abused, including with electric shocks to the genitals, and beaten with batons, cables, metal rods, and wires. ... Full Story | Top |
| Tunisian government and opponents to start talks Saturday Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 02:03 PM PDT By Tarek Amara TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's ruling Islamists and their secular opponents will start three weeks of negotiations on Saturday to allow the government to step down and make way for a caretaker cabinet until elections, a labor union mediating the talks said. The moderate Islamist Ennahda party agreed at the weekend to a deal under which the government would resign after the talks as a way to end months of political deadlock in the country where the Arab Spring uprisings began. ... Full Story | Top |
| In Malaysia, Mahathir's rising son signals conservative shift Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 02:02 PM PDT  By Siva Sithraputhran KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The chief minister of the rural Malaysian state of Kedah has a familiar face, even if he lacks the charisma, provocative rhetoric and razor-sharp political skills of his famous father. Mukhriz Mahathir is the youngest son of Malaysia's longest-serving leader, Mahathir Mohamad, whose often authoritarian rule transformed the economy into a developing powerhouse while winning a reputation for cronyism and dubious "mega-projects". ... Full Story | Top |
| Leader of Greece's far-right Golden Dawn held in custody before trial Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 12:57 PM PDT  By Angeliki Koutantou and Karolina Tagaris ATHENS (Reuters) - The leader of Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party was remanded in custody on Thursday pending trial on criminal charges, the first time an elected party chief has been put behind bars since a military coup nearly five decades ago. The detention of Nikolaos Mihaloliakos, who has watched support for his party wane after a supporter was accused of murdering a popular rapper, is a reprieve for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's government that has vowed to wipe out the party, calling it a "gang of neo-Nazis". ... Full Story | Top |
| Hundreds dead, missing as migrant boat sinks off Italy Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 12:50 PM PDT By Wladimir Pantaleone PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - More than 300 people drowned or were feared dead after a boat packed with African migrants caught fire and sank off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa on Thursday, one of the worst disasters of Europe's chronic immigration crisis. The 20-metre (66-foot) boat, believed to be carrying around 500 people, mostly Eritreans and Somalis, sank no more than 1 km (half a mile) from shore after a fire broke out, triggering a general panic that capsized the vessel. ... Full Story | Top |
| Madagascar crowd burn two Europeans to death over "organ trafficking" Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 12:06 PM PDT PARIS/ANTANANARIVO (Reuters) - A crowd burnt two Europeans to death on a tourist island in Madagascar and lynched a local man because they suspected them of trafficking human organs after a dead child was found on a beach, police said. The European men were hunted down and killed by residents on the island of Nosy Be, one of the Indian Ocean island's leading tourism hubs. "They (the crowd) suspected them of organ trafficking," Madagascar police chief Desire Johnson Rakotondratsima said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Tropical Storm Karen headed for U.S. Gulf Coast Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 11:41 AM PDT By Jane Sutton MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Karen formed in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on Thursday and was forecast to sweep through U.S. oil installations before hitting the Gulf Coast between Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle, the National Hurricane Center said. Energy companies in the Gulf started shutting in production on Thursday and were evacuating some workers from offshore platforms as Karen approached a region that produces nearly a fifth of daily U.S. oil output. Three days after much of the U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
| Guinea opposition quits electoral commission, rejecting early vote count Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 11:16 AM PDT CONAKRY (Reuters) - Guinea's opposition parties pulled their delegates out of the national electoral commission on Thursday after rejecting some provisional results from Sunday's parliamentary election, meant to cap a transition to democracy. The National Electoral Commission (CENI) began announcing election results on Wednesday, with President Alpha Conde's ruling RPG party taking an early lead in several districts. But the opposition said it had won the Dubreka district, about 50 km (30 miles) from the capital Conakry. ... Full Story | Top |
| Syria rebels try to end infighting near Turkish border Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 11:14 AM PDT  BEIRUT (Reuters) - Several powerful Syrian rebel groups on Thursday demanded al Qaeda-linked militants and a rival rebel faction stop fighting and called on the hardline Islamists to withdraw their forces within 48 hours, a statement said. The al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized Azaz, about 5 km (3 miles) from the frontier with Turkey, last month and has repeatedly clashed with the local Northern Storm brigade since then. A previous attempt by rebel groups to broker a truce between the two sides did not hold. ... Full Story | Top |
| 'Encouraging' progress in dismantling Syrian chemical arsenal: U.N. Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 11:11 AM PDT UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A team of chemical weapons experts has made "encouraging initial progress" as it works towards the elimination of Syria's poison gas arsenal, the United Nations said on Thursday. "Documents handed over yesterday by the Syrian government look promising, according to team members, but further analysis, particularly of technical diagrams, will be necessary and some more questions remain to be answered," a U.N. statement said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Tunisian government and opposition to start talks Saturday: mediator Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 11:07 AM PDT TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's ruling Islamists and their secular opponents will start three weeks of negotiations on Saturday to allow the government to step down and make way for a caretaker cabinet until elections, a labor union mediating the talks said. Tunisia's moderate Islamist Ennahda party has agreed that its government will resign after the talks as a way to end weeks of political deadlock in the country that began the 2011 Arab Spring revolts across the region. (Reporting by Tarek Amara; writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Kevin Liffey) Full Story | Top |
| New Russian pension reform fuels nationalization fears Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 11:07 AM PDT By Darya Korsunskaya and Maya Dyakina MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's government approved a pension system overhaul on Thursday that will give it tighter control over savings accumulated by private funds while reducing the burden of an ageing population on the state's budget. Changes to the law will prevent private funds from collecting payroll contributions until they have changed their legal status and been vetted by the central bank, a process that is expected to take at least a year. ... Full Story | Top |
| French military prepares 2014 cuts, far-right seeks to benefit Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 10:13 AM PDT  By John Irish and Emmanuel Jarry PARIS (Reuters) - France's military will cut almost 8,000 jobs next year, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday, detailing government belt-tightening plans that the far-right hopes will deliver it votes at municipal elections in 2014. The cuts come as tensions rise within the 17-month-old coalition of Socialist President Francois Hollande, whose satisfaction ratings have fallen to 23 percent due to concerns about a stalled economy and high unemployment. ... Full Story | Top |
| Sudan charges 35 with vandalism after anti-government riots Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 10:09 AM PDT KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Thirty-five people appeared in court on Thursday accused of vandalism during a week of deadly anti-government riots in Sudan, a lawyer said, the first legal proceedings reported in the capital linked to the violence. Sudanese authorities have said they arrested 700 people during the worst unrest in central Sudan in years, triggered by cuts to subsidies on cooking oil and fuel that doubled pump prices overnight. Rights groups and some diplomats said up to 150 people died when security services opened fire on crowds last week. ... Full Story | Top |
| Slovene ruling party postpones congress to avert political crisis Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 09:50 AM PDT  By Marja Novak LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - The party of Slovenian Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek said on Thursday it would postpone its congress to prevent a political crisis in a country struggling to avoid a financial bailout. The postponement of the center-left Positive Slovenia's congress, due to take place on October 19, followed an announcement by Ljubljana mayor Zoran Jankovic, who founded the party in 2011, that he planned to challenge Bratusek for the party leadership. ... Full Story | Top |
| Turkey 'highly likely' to sign Chinese missile deal Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 09:48 AM PDT  By Tulay Karadeniz and Jonathon Burch ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is likely to sign a $3.4 billion missile defense deal with a Chinese firm under U.S. sanctions, a senior official said on Thursday, a proposal that is already straining relations with Washington. Turkey sees a growing threat of spillover from the war in neighboring Syria, as well as wider turbulence in the Middle East, and has been scrambling to bolster its air defenses. ... Full Story | Top |
| EU's Ashton says crucial for all to join Egyptian political process Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 09:32 AM PDT  By Michael Georgy CAIRO (Reuters) - European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged Egypt's army-backed government and Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday to take part in an inclusive political process - but neither side seemed prepared to heed the call. Egyptian authorities have mounted a crackdown against the Islamist movement since the army ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July and announced a political "roadmap" it promised would lead to new elections. ... Full Story | Top |
| Egypt to issue smart cards to fuel stations in subsidy-cutting move Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 09:32 AM PDT CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt is preparing to print 5 million smart cards as part of a program to reduce costly energy subsidies and will distribute them over the next three months, Finance Minister Ahmed Galal said on Thursday. Motorists will eventually use the cards to buy gasoline and diesel at fuel stations in a program begun by the administration of President Mohamed Mursi before he was ousted by the army in July. ... Full Story | Top |
| Four Bahrainis jailed for bomb attack in village Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 09:27 AM PDT MANAMA (Reuters) - Four Bahrainis were sentenced to life in jail on Thursday for planting a bomb targeting police and civilians in March, the state news agency reported, as sectarian and political tensions continue to trouble the tiny Gulf state. The BNA news agency did not name the convicted men or state their motive, but a similar bomb attack in the same northern village in August that wounded five security officers was blamed on a "terrorist group". ... Full Story | Top |
| Plane crash near Nigeria's Lagos airport kills 16 Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 09:23 AM PDT By Chijioke Ohuocha and Tim Cocks LAGOS (Reuters) - Sixteen people were killed when a small passenger plane crashed shortly after takeoff outside Lagos airport's domestic terminal on Thursday, Nigerian authorities said. The aircraft, operated by Nigeria's Associated Airlines, came down in open ground, close to an aviation fuel depot in the commercial capital. Local media reported it was carrying the body of a former regional governor, and members of his family, to his funeral. A Reuters reporter saw emergency workers take a coffin out of the wreckage. ... Full Story | Top |
| Netanyahu says Iranian missiles could eventually reach U.S. Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 09:07 AM PDT  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In his latest warning about Iran's nuclear ambitions, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Iran was working on intercontinental ballistic missiles that could one day hit the United States. "They're not developing those ICBMs for us. They can reach us with what they have. It's for you," he told CBS News. "The American intelligence knows as well as we do that Iran is developing ICBMs not to reach Israel. They want to reach well beyond," he said on the network's "This Morning" program. ... Full Story | Top |
| Turkey renews mandate to send troops to Syria if needed Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 09:05 AM PDT ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's parliament voted on Thursday to extend by a year a mandate authorizing the deployment of troops to Syria if needed after the government said the alleged use of chemical weapons by President Bashar al-Assad posed a threat to Turkey. Turkey, one of Assad's fiercest critics, has advocated military intervention in Syria and has grown frustrated over what it sees as Western indecisiveness. "The present risk and threats have not decreased; on the contrary, they have increased," Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz told parliament before the vote. ... Full Story | Top |
| Slovenian PM's party postpones congress to avert political crisis Thursday, Oct 03, 2013 08:38 AM PDT LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - The party of Slovenian Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek said on Thursday it would postpone its congress to prevent a political crisis. The postponement of the center-left Positive Slovenia's congress, due to take place on October 19, followed an announcement by Ljubljana mayor Zoran Jankovic that he planned to challenge Bratusek for the party leadership. "The executive board of the party supports Alenka Bratusek as the prime minister and the president of the party. ... Full Story | Top |
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