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| Rockets fired from Lebanon strike northern Israel: officials Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 11:41 PM PST  Two rockets fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel on Sunday, causing no injuries or damage, and Israel's military responded with artillery fire across the border, officials said. The Lebanese rockets landed near the town of Kiryat Shmona, the military said in a statement, adding that it "responded with artillery fire towards the source of the launch". A Reuters witness in the Lebanon frontier area said more than 20 Israeli shells hit near two southern border towns. The Israeli-Lebanese border has been largely quiet since Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia fought a 34-day war in 2006. Full Story | Top |
| Insight: Small-town squabbles blamed for stalling Philippine storm aid Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 10:04 PM PST  By Nathan Layne and Manuel Mogato PALO, Philippines (Reuters) - Nena Obrero and her family survived without government aid for three weeks after Super Typhoon Haiyan churned across the central Philippines and reduced much of her hometown to rubble. Obrero lives in Guindapunan, a barangay, or district, of the city of Palo, on the east of Leyte island, where more than 1,000 people were killed on November 8. But they missed out on the initial shipments of rice from the municipal office, the main channel for redistributing aid in the disaster-prone Southeast Asian archipelago, due to political squabbling, Obrero said. Even in a tiny barangay, residents say the biggest loyalties are at play - in this case to the clan of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos's widow, whose supporters belong to a collection of opposition parties, and to rival assassinated politician Benigno Aquino, whose son is now president. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. intelligence estimate sees big rollbacks in Afghanistan: report Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 07:39 PM PST  A new U.S. intelligence estimate predicts that gains the United States and allies have made in the Afghanistan war in the past three years will be significantly rolled back by 2017, even if some U.S. troops remain, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing officials familiar with the report. The National Intelligence Estimate also predicts that Afghanistan will quickly fall into chaos if Washington and Kabul fail to sign a security pact to keep an international military contingent there beyond 2014, the newspaper said. The pact must be signed for the United States and its allies to provide billions more dollars in aid to the impoverished country. But the newspaper said some officials felt the report on the potential outcome of the longest war in U.S. history was overly pessimistic and did not take into account progress made by Afghanistan's security forces. Full Story | Top |
| Sony to give up on sale of its battery unit: media Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 07:31 PM PST  Japan's Sony Corp has decided not to sell its lithium-ion battery unit, media reported on Sunday, in a gamble that it can turn the business around with a weak yen and growing demand for smart phone batteries. In addition to a weak yen, which can boost overseas earnings, the battery unit is also seeing increased demand for some of its new products, the Nikkei business daily reported. For the past two years Sony had been planning to offload the unit, which was a pioneer in making lithium-ion batteries for computers and mobile devices but has struggled recently against cheaper South Korean rivals. A government turnaround fund tried to broker a sale of the battery business to a Nissan Motor Co Ltd and NEC Corp joint venture earlier this year. Full Story | Top |
| Five decapitated bodies dumped in Michoacan capital Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 02:39 PM PST Five severed heads and their bodies were dumped in two spots Saturday morning around the capital of the western state of Michoacan that has been plagued by worsening drug gang violence this year. Michoacan's murder rate rose in 2013 compared to declines in most states. Last month, dozens of mutilated corpses were found buried in mass graves in an area on the border between the states of Michoacan and Jalisco. Violence spiked in Michoacan in recent years and masked groups of vigilantes took power in some rural communities in 2013, claiming the government was failing to stop gang extortion and violence. Full Story | Top |
| Hundreds try to flee C. African Republic on emergency flights Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 01:40 PM PST  By Paul-Marin Ngoupana BANGUI (Reuters) - Hundreds of people tried to flee inter-religious violence in Central African Republic on Saturday aboard emergency flights to neighboring Chad, while nearby countries appealed for help to rescue their citizens from the mounting humanitarian crisis. Tit-for-tat violence between Muslim Seleka rebels, who seized power in March, and Christian self-defense militias have killed more than 1,000 people this month in the riverside capital Bangui and displaced hundreds of thousands more. Fighting in the former French colony has surged in recent weeks despite the presence of 1,600 French peacekeepers and nearly 4,000 African Union troops deployed under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians. Bangui was calm on Saturday. Full Story | Top |
| Bahraini authorities question opposition leader Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 01:21 PM PST  Sheikh Ali Salman's al-Wefaq Islamic Association said after his release that he would be subject to a travel ban preventing him from leaving Bahrain. Bahrain's interior ministry said earlier in a Twitter message that Sheikh Salman had "incited hatred" of the government and "promoted rioting and vandalism". The questioning came nearly two months after the tiny Gulf kingdom, which is ruled by the Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa dynasty, charged Sheikh Salman with insulting the interior ministry. In his Friday sermon, Sheikh Salman urged his followers to react peacefully to what he described as "state violence". Full Story | Top |
| Iraq troops arrest leading Sunni MP in violent raid Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 12:47 PM PST  By Kamal Namaa RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces arrested a prominent Sunni Muslim lawmaker and supporter of anti-government protests in a raid on his home in the western province of Anbar, sparking clashes in which at least five people were killed, police sources said. The violent arrest of Ahmed al-Alwani is likely to inflame tensions in Sunni-dominated Anbar, where protesters have been demonstrating against what they see as marginalization of their sect by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government. Alwani belongs to the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc and has been a strong critic of Maliki and an influential figure in the protest movement. Police sources said a two-hour firefight broke out on Saturday when bodyguards and members of Alwani's tribe resisted police and soldiers who went to arrest Alwani on charges of "terrorism" from his house in the centre of the city of Ramadi. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. military personnel freed after brief detention in Libya Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 11:01 AM PST By Ayman al-Sahli and Lesley Wroughton SABRATHA, Libya/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four American military personnel were briefly detained in western Libya on Friday after part of their convoy failed to stop at a checkpoint and was found to be carrying weapons, Libyan officials said. U.S. and other Western embassies have beefed up security at their missions in Libya, which is still in turmoil two and a half years after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Full Story | Top |
| One killed as Islamist students and police clash in Cairo Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 10:13 AM PST By Maggie Fick CAIRO (Reuters) - A student was killed on Saturday and scores were arrested when supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood clashed with Egyptian police at the Cairo campus of Al-Azhar University, state media reported. Shaimaa Mounir, a student activist, told Reuters the dead student was Khaled El-Haddad, a supporter of the Islamist movement which has continued daily protests after the government designated it a terrorist organisation this week. State-run newspaper Al-Ahram said security forces fired teargas to disperse pro-Brotherhood students who were preventing their classmates from entering university buildings to take exams. Police arrested 101 students for possession of makeshift weapons including petrol bombs, the state news agency reported. Full Story | Top |
| Tens of thousands protest against Niger government Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 10:02 AM PST  Tens of thousands of opposition supporters staged a protest rally on Saturday against what they said was the failure of President Mahamadou Issoufou to improve living standards in Niger, one of the world's poorest countries. The rally, in the capital Niamey, was the largest in Niger since pro-democracy protests against then-President Mamadou Tandja that helped to block his bid to serve a third term and ushered in a military coup that toppled him in February 2010. It was the first public show of strength by the Alliance for the Republic, Democracy and Reconciliation in Niger (ARDR), a coalition of 15 opposition parties formed in October. Last month, a court lifted a government ban on opposition marches. Full Story | Top |
| Removal of chemical weapons from Syria delayed: watchdog Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 09:37 AM PST  By Georgina Prodhan VIENNA (Reuters) - The removal of deadly toxins from Syria under an international effort to rid the nation of its chemical arsenal will likely miss a December 31 deadline, the global chemical arms watchdog said. Bad weather and shifting battlefronts in Syria's civil war have delayed the delivery of essential supplies to sites where the toxins are being prepared to be sent to Latakia port, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said. "A delay will probably occur," Franz Krawinkler, the OPCW's logistics head told Austrian ORF state television on Saturday. "Because of various external influences, including the weather... certain logistical supplies that are needed for this transport, could not be delivered in time." Syria has agreed to abandon its chemical weapons by next June under a deal proposed by Russia and hashed out with the United States, after an August 21 sarin gas attack that Western nations blamed on President Bashar al-Assad's government. Full Story | Top |
| Syria's Assad sends message to Pope Francis, Vatican says Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 09:37 AM PST Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has sent Pope Francis a private message, the Vatican said on Saturday, without disclosing its contents. It was the first known time Assad has sent a direct message to the pontiff since the start of Syria's civil war in 2011. Pope Francis has made numerous appeals for an end to the conflict, the latest on Christmas Day. Vatican sources said the message likely included the Syrian government's position ahead of peace talks due to start on January 22 under U.N. auspices in Geneva. Full Story | Top |
| Libya says U.S. personnel were held for failing to stop at checkpoint Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 09:18 AM PST Libya on Saturday defended its brief detention of four U.S. military personnel, saying their convoy had failed to stop at a checkpoint and had been carrying weapons. U.S. officials said earlier the Libyan government had held the men for several hours before they were released. In the first Libyan comment, police and military officials told Reuters security forces had stopped three cars at a checkpoint near al-Ajailat in western Libya. Full Story | Top |
| Qatar signs aid deal worth $1.25 billion for Morocco Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 07:56 AM PST  Qatar and Morocco have signed an aid deal worth $1.25 billion, part of a five-year package of financial assistance extended by wealthy Gulf states to the North African kingdom to help it weather 'Arab Spring' protests. Four Gulf states - Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates - agreed in 2012 to provide aid worth a total $5 billion to Morocco in the period 2012-2017 to build up its infrastructure, strengthen its economy and foster tourism. Each of the four countries has committed $1.25 billion to Morocco for the whole five year period. The aid is very welcome to King Mohamed - who signed the accord late on Friday with the visiting emir of Qatar - as he seeks to quell the kind of social discontent that helped to oust rulers elsewhere in North Africa, including Tunisia and Egypt. Full Story | Top |
| South Sudan says will attack rebel stronghold if ceasefire rejected Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 07:46 AM PST  By Aaron Maasho JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan troops will attack the main stronghold of rebel forces loyal to former vice president Riek Machar if the government's offer of a ceasefire is rejected, a senior minister said on Saturday. Refugees sheltering in U.N. camps spoke of atrocities committed by both main ethnic groups. President Salva Kiir's government offered an olive branch to the rebels on Friday, proposing a ceasefire and saying it would release eight of 11 senior politicians, widely seen to be Machar allies, arrested over an alleged coup plot against Kiir. "Until mechanisms for monitoring are established, when one says there is a unilateral ceasefire, there is no way the other person would be confident this is a commitment," Machar said. Full Story | Top |
| Zimbabwe ambassador to Australia seeks asylum: media Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 07:11 AM PST By Morag MacKinnon PERTH, Australia (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's ambassador to Australia has asked for political asylum just days before her term ends saying she fears for her safety if she goes home, media reported on Saturday. Jacqueline Zwambila, who is a member of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was appointed to Australia to renew ties between the countries after a unity government was formed in Zimbabwe in 2009. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai shared power with veteran leader Robert Mugabe in the unity government until a July 31 election which Mugabe won. Full Story | Top |
| UK power firm boosts compensation for Christmas blackouts Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 06:09 AM PST  One of Britain's biggest power distributors pledged on Saturday to almost triple compensation to households left without power over Christmas after the first of two fierce winter storms battered the country. UK Power Networks, a distribution network owned by Hong Kong's Cheung Kong Group that covers London, the southeast and east of England, said it would almost triple its compensation to those affected by long-term power cuts. About 4,000 households across Britain remained without power on Saturday with many without electricity since Christmas Eve when a storm packing winds of more than 100 mph caused flooding and travel chaos for thousands of people. Full Story | Top |
| Syrian forces kill 25 in Aleppo barrel-bomb attack: activists Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 06:03 AM PST  A Syrian army air strike on a vegetable market in the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 25 people on Saturday, a monitoring group said, continuing a campaign of improvised "barrel bombs" that has drawn international condemnation. A video posted on the Internet by local activist group Insaan Rights Watch showed residents pulling mangled corpses out of scorched and twisted car frames. Hundreds of people have been killed by air raids around the city of Aleppo in recent weeks, scores of them women and children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group based in Britain. On Saturday, the Observatory said 25 people, at least four of them children, were killed by barrel bombing that also destroyed part of a hospital. Full Story | Top |
| Taking power in New Delhi, 'common man' leader talks of revolution Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 04:23 AM PST  By Devidutta Tripathy and John Chalmers NEW DELHI (Reuters) - There was no motorcade, and none of the traditional trappings of power: the leader of India's upstart "common man party" arrived on a crowded metro train on Saturday to be sworn in as chief minister of Delhi, India's capital. Tens of thousands of jubilant supporters watched as Arvind Kejriwal, a mild-mannered former tax official, was anointed after a stunning electoral debut that has jolted the country's two main parties just months before a general election. The emergence of Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party, or AAP, as a force to be reckoned with barely a year since it was created on the back of an anti-corruption movement could give it a springboard to challenge the mainstream parties in other urban areas in the election due by next May. That could be a threat to the front-runner for prime minister, Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who is counting on strong support from urban, middle-class voters. Full Story | Top |
| Yemeni tribesmen blow up pipeline in south: local official Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 03:47 AM PST Yemeni tribesmen blew up a pipeline in the eastern Hadramout province on Saturday, disrupting oil flow two days after they seized an Oil Ministry building in the region, a local government official said. The authorities face regular challenges from tribesmen who attack oil pipelines and power lines for reasons including demands for more employment and the release of jailed relatives. Tribal sources said on Thursday that the Oil Ministry attack was in response to the killing of a tribal leader this month at an army checkpoint after his bodyguards refused to hand over their weapons to soldiers. Yemen, one of the Arab world's poorest countries, is struggling to restore state authority after long-serving President Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to step down in 2011. Full Story | Top |
| Lawmakers in Chinese city resign in mass bribery case Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 03:40 AM PST More than 500 lawmakers in a Chinese city have resigned after being implicated in a bribery scandal, while another 56 provincial legislators have been sacked, state media said on Saturday, as the government steps up its war on graft. The official Xinhua news agency said the 512 lawmakers in Hengyang city in the poor, landlocked southern province of Hunan resigned after they took bribes from 56 members of the provincial assembly. China does not have fully democratic one-man, one-vote elections but has experimented with a selection process at the grassroots for local legislatures, even if most candidates are Communist Party members and there is rarely more than a single candidate for each position available. "It must be seriously dealt with in accordance with the law." The National People's Congress is China's parliament. Full Story | Top |
| Australia's iron ore ports prepare as Cyclone Christine nears Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 03:18 AM PST  By Morag MacKinnon PERTH, Australia (Reuters) - Ports in Australia's Pilbara region, through which almost half of the world's seaborne iron ore is shipped, were sending ships out to sea on Saturday ahead of a tropical cyclone that is forecast to reach the coast by Tuesday. The last of more than 40 vessels in the anchorages and harbor at Port Hedland are expected to leave by the early hours of Sunday, port spokesman Steed Farrell told Reuters. Ships were also moving out to sea from Dampier port, through which both iron ore and gas from the north-west shelf is shipped. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said the storm, a Category 1 cyclone named Christine, was estimated to be 570 km (355 miles) north, northeast of Port Hedland and moving southwest, parallel to the coast, at 12 km (7 miles) per hour on Saturday evening. Full Story | Top |
| Thai protester killed as election tensions rise Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 02:53 AM PST  By Sinthana Kosolpradit BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai protester was killed and four wounded on Saturday, an emergency official said, when an unidentified gunman opened fire on demonstrators whose efforts to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra have flared into violence in recent days. The shooting came 48 hours after clashes between police and the protesters, who are determined to disrupt a snap February 2 election called by Yingluck, outside a voting registration center in which two people were killed and scores wounded. The violence is the latest in years of rivalry between Bangkok's middle class and royalist establishment and the mostly poor, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist former premier who was ousted in a military coup in 2006 and lives in self-imposed exile. Petphong Kamjonkitkarn, director of the Erawan Emergency Centre in the capital, Bangkok, told Reuters one man in his 30s had been shot dead. Full Story | Top |
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