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| Chinese icebreaker stuck after helping in Antarctic rescue Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 11:05 PM PST  By Maggie Lu Yueyang SYDNEY (Reuters) - A Chinese icebreaker that helped rescue 52 passengers from a Russian ship stranded in Antarctic ice found itself stuck in heavy ice on Friday, further complicating the 9-day "roller-coaster" rescue operation. It now had concerns about its own ability to move through heavy ice, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said. The Australian icebreaker carrying the rescued passengers, the Aurora Australis, will remain on standby in open water in the area "as a precautionary measure", the rescue agency said. The Aurora Australis had meant to sail towards an Antarctic base to complete a resupply before carrying the rescued passengers back to Australia. Full Story | Top |
| Israel says upgraded Arrow missile shield passes second flight test Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 11:02 PM PST Israel carried out a second successful test on Friday of its upgraded Arrow interceptor, which is designed to destroy in space the kind of missiles held by Iran and Syria, a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said. Friday's launch of an Arrow III interceptor missile over the Mediterranean sea was the second flight of the system, but did not involve the interception of any target. Israel deployed the previous version, Arrow II, more than a decade ago and says it has scored around a 90 percent success rate in live trials. The Pentagon and U.S. firm Boeing are partners in the Arrow project, which is overseen by state-run Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Full Story | Top |
| Cambodian forces open fire as factory strikes turn violent Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 10:59 PM PST  By Prak Chan Thul PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian military police opened fire with assault rifles on Friday to quell a protest by stone-throwing garment factory workers demanding higher pay, killing at least three people, witnesses said. Chaos during nationwide strikes erupted for a second day as security forces were deployed to break up the demonstration by thousands of workers, who refused to move and threw bottles, stones and petrol bombs outside a factory in Phnom Penh. The clash represents an escalation of a political crisis in Cambodia, where striking workers and anti-government protesters have come together in a loose movement led by the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). Unions representing disgruntled garment workers have joined opposition supporters protesting against the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen to demand a re-run of an election in July that the opposition says was rigged. Full Story | Top |
| China says child deaths not linked to hepatitis vaccine Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 10:38 PM PST Chinese health authorities said they have found no link between a hepatitis B vaccine and the deaths of nine children who had received those shots, state media said on Friday. China has been investigating 17 deaths following inoculation with a hepatitis B vaccine, made by Shenzhen-based BioKangtai, from December 13 and 31. Nine of the cases have nothing to do with the vaccines, state news agency Xinhua cited the director of the disease control bureau of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, Yu Jingjin, as saying at a press conference. Li Guoqing of the China Food and Drug Administration said at a press conference that no problems had been found with BioKangtai vaccines in production practices or product quality, according to Xinhua. Full Story | Top |
| Drugs seized in raids on southern Chinese village Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 10:33 PM PST  Police in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have seized nearly three metric tons (3.3 tons) of the drug crystal methamphetamine and arrested 182 people in raids on a village notorious for producing narcotics. With the help of helicopters and speed boats, authorities targeted Boshe village, which has supplied over a third of crystal meth nationwide in the past three years, the provincial public security department said in a statement late on Thursday. More than 20 percent of households in Boshe, which is part of the southeastern city of Lufeng, are directly involved in or have a stake in drug production and trafficking rings, it added. Local media reported that village officials were among those arrested in the dawn raid last Sunday, although the security department statement gave no such details. Full Story | Top |
| India's prime minister to hand over after election Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 10:05 PM PST  India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, will hand over the top job to a new leader after general elections due by May, he said on Friday. Singh has been India's prime minister for the last decade and has headed a coalition government led by the Congress party. The Congress faces an uphill struggle for re-election in the upcoming polls due to an economic slowdown and a string of corruption scandals. Full Story | Top |
| China to centralize military command to improve operations Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 09:46 PM PST  China's increasingly sophisticated military will establish a joint operational command structure for its forces to improve coordination between different parts of the country's defense system, the official China Daily reported on Friday. China has been moving rapidly to upgrade its military hardware, but military analysts say operational integration of complex and disparate systems across a regionalized command structure is a major challenge for Beijing. In the past, regional level military commanders have enjoyed major latitude over their forces and branches of the military have remained highly independent of each other, making it difficult to exercise the centralized control necessary to use new weapons systems effectively in concert. The English-language newspaper, citing the Defense Ministry, said that China will implement a joint command system "in due course" and that it has already launched pilot programs to that effect. Full Story | Top |
| China to carry out spot checks on officials' asset declarations Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 09:23 PM PST China will begin conducting spot checks this year on assets and other personal information reported by officials to the ruling Communist Party and punish those with hidden wealth, state media reported. The internal declarations are not made public, and in the past a lack of oversight had largely reduced the system to a formality. However, the government has faced increased public pressure to improve transparency around officials' wealth, following a wave of scandals involving assets ranging from luxury watches to houses. The party's internal income declaration system for dates back to 1995, and officials have been required to submit a broader range of information including personal income, family assets and relatives' emigration records for the past three years. Full Story | Top |
| China tells police to be loyal to party amid graft crackdown Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 09:03 PM PST  China's police chief wrote on Friday that his officers must uphold the leadership of the Communist Party and be loyal to it, as the government targets the domestic security apparatus in a crackdown on corruption. Sources have told Reuters that China's former security tsar, Zhou Yongkang, one of the most powerful politicians of the decade, has been put under effective house arrest while the party investigates corruption allegations against him. Last month, the government began a graft investigation into a one-time deputy public security minister, Li Dongsheng, an ally of Zhou's. Li held a rank equivalent to cabinet minister, and state media says he is the first member of the ruling party's Political and Legal Affairs Committee, the influential domestic security body which Zhou used to head, to be investigated for graft. Writing in the party's official People's Daily, Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun said his more than two million officers had to be "absolutely loyal and absolutely clean" and stand steadfastly in line with the orders and politics of President Xi Jinping. Full Story | Top |
| Australia swelters after record hot 2013; farmers slaughter cattle, bushfire warning Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 08:42 PM PST By Matt Siegel and Colin Packham SYDNEY (Reuters) - A searing heatwave is baking central and northern Australia, piling more misery on drought-hit cattle farmers who have been slaughtering livestock as Australia sweltered through the hottest year on record in 2013. Temperatures have topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit)in large parts of Australia's key agricultural regions for most of the past week, with the mercury topping 48 degrees Celsius in the central west Queensland town of Birdsville. The heatwave is moving east across Australia, prompting health warnings on Friday in some of the country's biggest cities and firefighters were already battling bushfires. But it is in the outback that soaring temperatures have had the most devastating impact, especially on cattle farmers in Queensland, which accounts for about 50 percent on the national herd. Full Story | Top |
| Heavy snow, dangerous cold snarl travel in northeastern U.S Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 07:23 PM PST  By Elizabeth Dilts and Scott Malone NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) - The governors of New York and New Jersey declared a state of emergency and pleaded with residents to stay indoors on Thursday as a major snowstorm bore down on the northeastern United States, delaying or canceling thousands of flights. The first major winter storm of 2014 brought bone-chilling temperatures and high winds from the lower Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic coast, with parts of New England, including Boston, bracing for up to 14 inches of snow by Friday morning. "As this winter storm unfolds, bringing heavy snow and high winds to many parts of the state, I strongly urge all New Yorkers to exercise caution, avoid travel and stay indoors," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said. Amid flight cancellations that hit just as many travelers were returning from holiday breaks, officials at Boston's Logan International Airport said that up to a quarter of its scheduled flights had been canceled on Thursday afternoon and evening. Full Story | Top |
| Panama presses Spain and Italy to resolve canal cost row Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 07:10 PM PST  By Elida Moreno and Elisabeth O'Leary PANAMA CITY/MADRID (Reuters) - The president of Panama said on Thursday he would go to Spain and Italy to pressure companies to honor contracts to expand his country's canal after a building consortium behind the project threatened to suspend work because of a row over costs. The consortium - Spain's Sacyr, Italy's Salini Impregilo, Belgium's Jan De Nul and Panama's Constructora Urbana - said on Wednesday that $1.6 billion in cost overruns on the $3.2 billion plan to build a third set of locks for the canal should be met by Panama. The consortium, known as Grupo Unidos por el Canal, said the Panama Canal Authority (PCA) had 21 days to respond to its demands during which work would continue, but the project would be suspended if that requirement was not met. Full Story | Top |
| Scientists, tourists rescued from Antarctic ship begin long journey home Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 03:56 PM PST By Maggie Lu Yueyang SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian icebreaker with 52 passengers rescued from a Russian ship trapped in Antarctic ice since Christmas Eve began the long journey home on Friday. "The passengers seem very glad to now be with us and they are settling in to their new accommodation," Jason Mundy, Australian Antarctic Division Acting Director who is on board the ice breaker Aurora Australis, said on Friday morning. A helicopter from the Chinese icebreaker Snow Dragon ferried the 52 scientists and tourists in small groups from the ice-bound Akademik Shokalskiy and transferred them to the Antarctic supply ship Aurora Australis late on Thursday. The Aurora Australis is now sailing towards open water and will then head towards an Antarctic base to complete a resupply before returning to Australia. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. ship to depart soon on chemical weapons mission to Mediterranean Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 03:11 PM PST  By David Alexander PORTSMOUTH, Virginia (Reuters) - The U.S.-owned cargo ship with the capability to destroy the nastiest of Syria's chemical weapons will depart for the Mediterranean in about two weeks, officials said on Thursday as shipyard workers readied the vessel for new sea trials. Forklifts moved equipment and sparks flew as workers welded containers and other gear on the deck of the MV Cape Ray, which is being outfitted with modular housing to accommodate three times its normal complement of personnel, plus two hydrolysis units for destroying Syrian chemicals used in mustard and nerve gas weapons. "Without this ship, this mission is not possible," top Pentagon arms buyer Frank Kendall, who has oversight of chemical, biological and nuclear arms, told reporters who were invited to tour the vessel at dock in Portsmouth, Virginia. Damascus agreed to eliminate its chemical weapons last year in the face of threatened U.S. military action following a Syrian chemical attack against rebels and their supporters in a civil war aimed at overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad. Full Story | Top |
| Skype says user information safe in Syrian Electronic Army hack Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 02:51 PM PST  By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A day after the Syrian Electronic Army said it had hacked into Skype's social media accounts, the Internet calling service acknowledged on Thursday it had been hit with a "cyber attack" but said no user information was compromised. A Tweet posted on Skype's official Twitter feed on Wednesday read: "Don't use Microsoft emails (hotmail, outlook), They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments. #SEA" Similar messages were posted on Skype's official Facebook pages and on a blog on its website before being taken down later in the afternoon. Skype is owned by Microsoft Corp. The Syrian Electronic Army, an amorphous hacking collective that supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, later claimed the attack. Full Story | Top |
| Qaeda leader held in Lebanon raised funds for anti-Assad militants -experts Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 01:59 PM PST By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Saudi leader of an al-Qaeda spinoff group arrested in Lebanon this week was a key fundraiser in the Gulf for militants fighting to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, official and private experts say. The Lebanese army arrested Muhammad al-Majid, who leads the Lebanon-based Abdullah Azzam Brigades which claimed a double suicide attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut last November. That attack was part of a spiral of sectarian violence in Lebanon that appears to be a spillover from Syria's civil war. Laith Alkhouri of Flashpoint Partners, a private group which monitors militant websites for business and government clients, said Majid had "been behind a great deal of financing to the jihadists fighting in Syria." U.S. and European officials say that the most militant Sunni factions fighting Assad's forces, including the Nusrah Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, both aligned with al-Qaeda, are being financed largely by wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Gulf states. Full Story | Top |
| Briton, New Zealander killed in western Libya: security source Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 01:58 PM PST A Briton and a New Zealander, both with gunshot wounds, were found dead in western Libya on Thursday, while two Americans were arrested in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libyan security sources said. The security situation has deteriorated in recent months in the North African country where the government is struggling to rein in militias and tribesmen who helped oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and kept their guns. Another source said the New Zealander was a woman and the Briton a man. A spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign Office said, "We are aware of reports that the bodies of two foreign nationals have been found in Libya and we are urgently seeking further information from the authorities." A New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said the ministry was aware of reports that a New Zealander may have been killed in Libya. Full Story | Top |
| Israel arrests Islamic Jihad suspects over bus attack Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 01:54 PM PST Israeli authorities said on Thursday they had arrested four suspected members of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad in connection with a bomb attack on a bus in a Tel Aviv suburb last month. Israel's Shin Bet security agency said in a statement that four Palestinians from the West Bank town of Bethlehem had been arrested - three suspected of preparing the bomb, one of bringing it to the bus. Full Story | Top |
| Shooting heard at airport in Congo's capital Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 01:24 PM PST Heavy gunfire rang out from an airport in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a Reuters witness in Kinshasa said on Thursday, days after an attack on the main airport. That's what justified the firing that was heard," government spokesman Lambert Mende told Reuters. On Monday, Congolese forces killed dozens of armed youths who attacked the main international airport, a barracks and a state television centre in incidents claimed by a disgruntled religious leader. Full Story | Top |
| Car bomb kills at least five in Hezbollah district of Beirut Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 01:04 PM PST By Oliver Holmes and Stephen Kalin BEIRUT (Reuters) - A car bomb killed at least five people in Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut on Thursday, the latest in a series of deadly attacks on Shi'ite and Sunni targets in Lebanon. A security source said the blast was caused by a car bomb. The explosion occurred less than a week after former finance minister Mohamad Chatah, a critic of the Shi'ite Hezbollah militant group and its ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was killed along with six others by a car bomb in Beirut. Last summer, bombs exploded in southern Beirut and outside two Sunni Muslim mosques in the northern city of Tripoli, killing scores of people. Full Story | Top |
| Catalan president calls on EU leaders to support push for independence Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 12:56 PM PST  Catalonia's president has called on European Union prime ministers for support as the region seeks a vote on independence in November this year, the source of an increasingly bitter fight with Spain's central government. In letters dating from December and made public on Thursday, Artur Mas urged European powers to encourage a referendum that the center-right government of Mariano Rajoy says is unconstitutional and it will not allow. The Catalan struggle is likely to dominate the political agenda this year in Spain, which is slowly emerging from a recession and heading towards a general election in 2015. "Contrary to some reports, there are a number of legal and constitutional options which allow this referendum to take place in Catalonia," Mas wrote in a December 20 letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which was reproduced on his official website and is one of 27 sent to European leaders. Full Story | Top |
| Daughter sees foul play in death of Palestinian envoy Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 12:48 PM PST  By Jan Lopatka and Nidal al-Mughrabi PRAGUE/GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian envoy to Prague was 'deliberately killed', his daughter alleged on Thursday, a day after he died in a mysterious explosion after opening a safe in his residence. Czech police said the blast that killed ambassador Jamal al-Jamal might have been caused by mishandling an explosive securing the safe. Jamal suffered lethal injuries to his head, chest and abdomen in the explosion on New Year's Day. His daughter Rana al-Jamal, 30, told Reuters: "We believe my father was killed and that his death was something arranged and not an accident. Full Story | Top |
| Czech police say weapons found at Palestinian mission Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 12:48 PM PST PRAGUE (Reuters) - Czech police found weapons at the Palestinian mission in Prague, a police spokeswoman said on Thursday, a day after safe exploded there, killing ambassador Jamal al-Jamal. "Yes I can confirm that," spokeswoman Andrea Zoulova told Reuters when asked about a report on the discovery of weapons. She gave no details about the type or quantity of weapons found. (Reporting by Jan Lopatka; Editing by John Stonestreet) Full Story | Top |
| China denounces U.S. for sending Uighur 'terrorists' to Slovakia Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 12:24 PM PST China's Foreign Ministry criticized the United States on Thursday for sending the last three Uighur Chinese inmates at the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Slovakia, saying they were "terrorists" who posed a real security danger. Yusef Abbas, Saidullah Khalik, and Hajiakbar Abdul Ghuper are the last of 22 Muslim minority Chinese nationals to be moved from the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, according to the Pentagon. Slovakia's Interior Ministry confirmed that it would take in the three. Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim people from China's far western region of Xinjiang. Full Story | Top |
| Sunni fighters repel army in western Iraqi cities Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 11:12 AM PST  By Suadad al-Salhy BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Sunni Muslim fighters clashed on Thursday with Iraqi troops trying to regain control of two western cities, in a serious escalation of their confrontation with the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Tension has been running high in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar since Iraqi police broke up a Sunni protest camp on Monday, leaving at least 13 people dead. Thousands of anti-government tribal fighters took over local government buildings in the two main cities, Falluja and Ramadi, on Wednesday after the army pulled back in an attempt to calm the situation. Fighting broke out on Thursday, tribal leaders and security officials said, when the army tried to re-enter the cities. Full Story | Top |
| Netanyahu gloomy as Kerry returns for peace talks Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 10:58 AM PST  By Arshad Mohammed JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a gloomy assessment of peace prospects with the Palestinians on Thursday as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry began his 10th visit to the region in pursuit of a deal. "There is growing doubt in Israel that the Palestinians are committed to peace," said Netanyahu, speaking with Kerry at his side and accusing Palestinian officials of orchestrating a campaign of "rampant" incitement against Israel. Netanyahu specifically criticized Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the heroes' welcome he gave a group of Palestinian prisoners, most convicted of murdering Israelis, who were released from Israeli jails on Tuesday. In the days before Kerry's latest trip to Jerusalem, Palestinian leaders have likewise accused Israel of trying to sabotage the talks aimed at ending their decades-old conflict. Full Story | Top |
| Berlusconi files appeals against sex conviction Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 10:47 AM PST  Italian center-right leader Silvio Berlusconi filed an appeal on Thursday against his conviction for paying for sex with a minor and abuse of office over former teenage nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, legal sources said on Thursday. Berlusconi was sentenced to seven years jail and banned from holding public office after being found guilty of paying for sex with El Mahroug, better known under her stage name "Ruby the Heartstealer" when she was a minor. Berlusconi has always denied all of the charges and his lawyers asked for his conviction to be overturned completely. The prostitution accusations against Berlusconi date from 2010 and first surfaced when he was still prime minister, and added to a series of scandals just as the euro zone debt crisis hit its peak towards the end of 2011. Full Story | Top |
| Turkish military seeks review of coup plot convictions Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 10:43 AM PST By Tulay Karadeniz ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's military said on Thursday it had filed a criminal complaint over court cases involving members of the armed forces, a move which could pave the way for the retrial of hundreds of officers convicted on coup plot charges. Turkey's appeals court in October upheld the convictions of top retired officers for leading a plot to overthrow Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government a decade ago, a case which underlined civilian dominance over a once all-powerful army. The complaint comes as Erdogan's government is weakened by a wide-ranging corruption investigation which has led to the resignation of three members of his cabinet and highlighted concern about the independence of the judiciary. The Hurriyet newspaper said the military's complaint argued that evidence in the cases against serving and retired officers had been fabricated. Full Story | Top |
| Italy's Renzi pushes for change on election law Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 10:29 AM PST  By James Mackenzie ROME (Reuters) - Italian center-left leader Matteo Renzi called on Thursday for swift reform of an electoral system blamed for the country's bouts of political deadlock and said he expected an agreement could be completed within weeks. Renzi is not in the government but as head of the Democratic Party, the biggest party in Prime Minister Enrico Letta's left-right coalition, he will have a decisive role to play in shaping the agenda and has already called for quicker action on reforms. Earlier on Thursday, Renzi suggested that moves to fix the economy and political system might lead to an easing of European Union deficit limits that have forced austerity measures on a resentful Italian public already coping with a long recession. Electoral reform has been one of the thorniest issues facing the coalition, formed after an inconclusive election last year prevented any side from forming a government on its own. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. senators press Afghan president over prisoner release Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 10:18 AM PST  By Jessica Donati KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. senators visited the Afghan president on Thursday to try to push forward talks to sign a crucial bilateral security deal and halt the release of prisoners the United States considers a threat to security. Afghanistan plans to release hundreds of prisoners from Bagram prison, which was handed over from U.S. control only after a deal was reached in March after intense negotiations because Washington feared dangerous inmates would be freed. The disagreement further strains relations between the two countries, which are already at breaking point over President Hamid Karzai's refusal to sign a bilateral security deal to shape the post-2014 U.S. military presence in the country. Without the pact, Washington could pull most of its troops out after this year, when most foreign troops are due to exit. Full Story | Top |
| Netanyahu: doubts growing in Israel over Palestinian peace commitment Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 10:12 AM PST Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday that doubts about the Palestinians's commitment to peace are mounting in Israel. "There is growing doubt in Israel that the Palestinians are committed to peace," Netanyahu said, with Kerry at his side, at the start of their talks in Jerusalem. Full Story | Top |
| Sharpshooters to renew deer cull in heart of Washington D.C. Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 09:47 AM PST Sharpshooters will renew culling the white-tailed deer population, growing fast in the heart of the U.S. capital, as early as Thursday night, the National Park Service said. The nighttime hunts by Department of Agriculture shooters in Washington's Rock Creek Park will continue until March 31, or until 106 deer have been killed, said Nick Bartolomeo, the park's chief of resources management. The general public should remain out of harm's way because joggers and cyclists are generally barred from the park after dark, according to the park service. The three-year program is aimed at reducing the deer population to 15 to 20 per square mile (six to eight per square km) from 77 per square mile (31 per square km), Bartolomeo said during a conference call with reporters. Full Story | Top |
| Suicide car bomber kills at least 12 in Iraq Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 09:22 AM PST  A suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives killed at least 12 people who had gathered to buy and sell cars in Iraq on Thursday, local officials said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place near the car markets in the town of Balad Ruz, in northeastern Iraq, injuring another 25 people. However, suicide bombings are the hallmark of al Qaeda, whose Iraq affiliate has re-emerged, invigorated by the civil war in Syria and growing resentment among the country's Sunni Muslim minority towards the Shi'ite-led government. Two years after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, violence is at its highest levels since the sectarian bloodshed of 2006-7, when tens of thousands of people were killed. Full Story | Top |
| South Sudan army advances on rebel towns before peace talks Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 08:34 AM PST  By Carl Odera and Aaron Maasho JUBA/ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - South Sudan's army (SPLA) said it was advancing on two rebel-controlled towns on Thursday as both sides gathered in Ethiopia for peace talks to end three weeks of violence that has pushed the world's youngest nation towards civil war. Both sides have agreed in principle to a ceasefire but neither has indicated when the fighting, which has killed more than 1,000 people and displaced nearly 200,000, will stop. South Sudanese President Salva Kiir declared a state of emergency late on Wednesday in Unity state and Jonglei, whose respective provincial capitals of Bentiu and Bor are in the hands of militia loyal to former vice president Riek Machar. A rebel spokesman in Unity dismissed the SPLA's comments on its advance as lies and said South Sudan's army and the national government in the capital Juba had resorted to a "war of allegations" before peace negotiations could get underway. Full Story | Top |
| Scandal-plagued Toronto mayor launches re-election campaign Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 08:21 AM PST By Andrea Hopkins TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who won global ridicule last year after admitting to having used crack cocaine, registered on Thursday for the October mayoral election, saying he was the best mayor Canada's largest city has ever had and would be re-elected. Supporters and opponents alike have urged him to enter rehab, but Ford has insisted he is not an addict. Full Story | Top |
| Snowden 'justified,' deserves lighter punishment: NYT editorial Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 08:07 AM PST  The U.S. government should grant former NSA contractor Edward Snowden clemency or a plea bargain given the public value of revelations over the National Security Agency's vast spying programs, the New York Times editorial board said on Thursday. Information provided to journalists by Snowden has also prompted needed legal review of the intelligence gathering and led a presidential panel to call for a major overhaul of the agency, it said. He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service," the New York Times' editorial board wrote. The Guardian, a British newspaper that along with The Washington Post received Snowden's leaked documents, also called for President Barack Obama to pardon Snowden in its own editorial published on Wednesday. Full Story | Top |
| Former Israeli leader Sharon's condition deteriorating: hospital Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 07:44 AM PST By Jeffrey Heller JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, comatose since a 2006 stroke, slipped closer to death on Thursday after a sharp decline in the condition of the ex-general who long symbolized Israel's military might. Reviled by Arabs over his hardline policies and viewed with a mixture of respect and suspicion by many Israelis, 85-year-old Sharon has been on life support at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv for the past eight years, far from the public gaze. Full Story | Top |
| Somali Islamists claim Mogadishu hotel bombing Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 07:33 AM PST Islamist militants in Somalia said on Thursday that they carried out the triple bombing on a Mogadishu hotel that killed at least 11 people. Al Shabaab, who are battling African peacekeepers for control of territory in southern and central Somalia, said its bombers had targeted intelligence officials who were meeting at the Jazira hotel at the time. "The apostates are the eyes and the ears of the invaders and these attacks serve as a well-deserved punishment for their role in guiding and assisting the invading forces in their crusade," al Shabaab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage said in a statement. Al Shabaab said it had killed more than a dozen people in Wednesday's attack. Full Story | Top |
| Egypt arrests seven over Mansoura suicide bombing Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 07:33 AM PST  Seven people, including the son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, have been arrested in connection with a suicide bomb attack on a police station north of Cairo that killed 16 people last month, the interior minister said. The army-backed government listed the group as a terrorist organization after accusing it of carrying out the attack, one of the worst Egypt has faced since the army deposed Islamist Mohamed Mursi in July following protests against his rule. The Brotherhood, which won five consecutive elections since the overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011, denies any link to violence. A Sinai-based militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, claimed responsibility for the December 24 attack in Mansoura. Full Story | Top |
| Storms hit German insurers hard in 2013: GDV Thursday, Jan 02, 2014 07:13 AM PST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Summer floods and hailstorms will cost the German insurance industry almost 7 billion euros ($9.7 billion) for 2013, the biggest bill for damages the industry has faced in more than a decade, an industry report showed on Thursday. German insurance trade body GDV said it expects weather-related catastrophes to intensify in the coming decades, with flood frequency doubling and storm-related damages increasing by half by 2100. ... Full Story | Top |
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