| Long road ahead in U.S.-Pakistan ties after NATO deal Posted: 05 Jul 2012 11:53 AM PDT  ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan and the United States are set to resume broader talks on security cooperation, militant threats, aid and other issues in the wake of an agreement to reopen supply routes into Afghanistan, Pakistan's envoy to Washington said on Thursday. But bridging underlying differences that strained U.S.-Pakistani ties close to the breaking point will be daunting as the allies remain at odds over how to handle the twin threats of the Taliban in Afghanistan and militants in Pakistani tribal areas. ...
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| Defection cheers anti-Assad coalition at Paris meet Posted: 05 Jul 2012 03:32 PM PDT  PARIS (Reuters) - Reports of the defection of a general and personal friend of Bashar al-Assad will cheer the Syrian leader's enemies at a meeting in Paris on Friday of the Western and Arab states that want to drive him from power. A source in the exiled opposition said Manaf Tlas, a brigade commander in Assad's Republican Guard, was en route to Paris where the "Friends of Syria" group of states opposed to Assad was due to meet. He has family there. ...
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| Japan's atomic disaster due to "collusion:" panel report Posted: 05 Jul 2012 10:55 AM PDT  TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis was a preventable disaster resulting from "collusion" among the government, regulators and the plant operator, an expert panel said on Thursday, wrapping up an inquiry into the worst nuclear accident in 25 years. Damage from the huge March 11, 2011, earthquake, and not just the ensuing tsunami, could not be ruled out as a cause of the accident, the panel added, a finding with serious potential implications as Japan seeks to bring idled reactors on line. ...
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| Final Mexican results confirming Pena Nieto win Posted: 05 Jul 2012 01:58 PM PDT  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's Enrique Pena Nieto was a clear victor in Sunday's presidential election, according to a second tally of votes made after the runner-up refused to accept defeat. With 97 percent of polling stations counted by Thursday afternoon, Pena Nieto held 38.3 percent of the vote, nearly 7 points ahead of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. A win for Pena Nieto sets up a return to power by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico, at times ruthlessly, between 1929 and 2000. ...
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| Nervous Libyans ready for first taste of democracy Posted: 05 Jul 2012 12:26 PM PDT  TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyans will vote in their first free national poll in more than half a century on Saturday amid fears that violence could taint an election meant to usher in a temporary national assembly and draw a line under Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year autocratic reign. Voters will select a 200-member assembly that will choose a cabinet to replace the self-appointed interim government and also pick a new prime minister. Many of the 3,700 candidates have strong Islamic agendas. The chamber was also due to appoint a committee charged with drafting a new constitution. ...
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| Training flaws exposed in Rio-Paris crash report Posted: 05 Jul 2012 10:50 AM PDT  PARIS (Reuters) - Pilot error, defective sensors, inadequate training and insufficient oversight combined to send an Air France passenger plane plunging into the south Atlantic in 2009 in the airline's worst disaster, French investigators said on Thursday. The final report on the Rio-Paris Airbus A330 crash that killed 228 people went further than expected in castigating the air safety establishment, saying France's flag carrier was subject to less inspection than smaller rivals. ...
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| Greece admits veering from bailout obligations Posted: 05 Jul 2012 12:14 PM PDT  ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece conceded on Thursday it had slipped "in some respects" in implementing the cuts and reforms demanded by lenders in exchange for saving Athens from bankruptcy, and tried to persuade them to cut the country some slack. Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras made the admission after meeting senior officials from Greece's "troika" of lenders from the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, whose inspectors have begun picking through the country's books after weeks of political paralysis. ...
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| Key Argentine "Dirty War" figures jailed for baby thefts Posted: 05 Jul 2012 04:25 PM PDT BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Three key figures from Argentina's "Dirty War" got hefty jail terms for the systematic theft of babies from political prisoners during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, an Argentine court ruled on Thursday. The missing children - stolen from their parents and illegally adopted, often by military families - are one of the most painful legacies of the crackdown on leftist dissent in which rights groups say up to 30,000 people were killed. Just over 100 of the children have discovered their true identities, but many families are still searching more than three decades later. ... |
| Left, right criticize Humala over deadly Peru clashes Posted: 05 Jul 2012 02:02 PM PDT  LIMA (Reuters) - Peruvian lawmakers on Thursday harshly criticized President Ollanta Humala's crackdown on protests against Newmont's $5 billion Conga mine, as deadly violence prompted calls for him to shuffle his Cabinet. A fifth protester died on Thursday after two days of clashes with police as left-wing leader Marco Arana, a soft-spoken former Roman Catholic priest who has rallied demonstrators to stop construction of the biggest mine in Peruvian history, was released from police custody a day after a video aired on local TV showed him being detained and beaten by police. ...
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| Dry taps and open sewers: welcome to India's "Millennium City" Posted: 05 Jul 2012 02:19 PM PDT  GURGAON, India (Reuters) - Sarika Kapoor lives in a spacious home in one of the wealthiest cities in India. But something as simple as having a shower is fraught with problems. Most days there is just a trickle of water from the taps and sometimes even that dries up before noon. The 56-year-old has often had to scurry to a neighbor across a potholed road to borrow a bucket of water and haul it back to her rented $300,000 home, sweat rolling down her face. "Every morning I have to decide whether I want the upper half of my body clean or my lower half. ...
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| US, partners to push for global sanctions on Assad Posted: 05 Jul 2012 04:22 PM PDT  The United States and its European and Arab partners will threaten the Assad regime with global sanctions if it fails to quickly implement a Syrian peace plan that includes the appointment of a new interim government, U.S. officials said Thursday on the eve of an 80-nation conference.
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| First NATO supply trucks cross Pakistan border Posted: 05 Jul 2012 12:45 PM PDT  Trucks carrying NATO supplies rolled into Afghanistan for the first time in more than seven months Thursday, ending a painful chapter in U.S.-Pakistan relations that saw the border closed until Washington apologized for an airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
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| Aide: Palestinian leader wants more on Arafat Posted: 05 Jul 2012 11:23 AM PDT  Digging up Yasser Arafat's bones may offer the best shot at learning if the legendary Palestinian leader was poisoned, as many of his old comrades-in-arms claim, but Palestinian officials signaled Thursday they're not rushing into an autopsy.
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| What is polonium-210 and how can it kill? Posted: 05 Jul 2012 04:52 PM PDT  Polonium first hit the headlines when it was used to kill KGB agent-turned-Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.
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| Iraq warns al-Qaida flowing into Syria Posted: 05 Jul 2012 11:52 AM PDT  Iraq asserted Thursday that al-Qaida insurgents are streaming out of the country to carry out attacks in Syria, an ominous development as the Syrian conflict enflames an already hostile region.
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| Faulty data misled pilot in Brazil-France crash Posted: 05 Jul 2012 01:06 PM PDT  A pilot facing faulty data and deafening alarms in an oversea thunderstorm pitched his plane sharply up instead of down as it stalled, then lost control, sending the Air France jet and all 228 people aboard to their deaths in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.
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| 2 ex-Argentine dictators convicted in baby thefts Posted: 05 Jul 2012 04:53 PM PDT  Former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla was convicted and sentenced to 50 years Thursday for a systematic plan to steal babies from prisoners who were kidnapped, tortured and killed during the military junta's war on leftist dissenters three decades ago.
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| Japan powered by nuclear energy again, blamed anew Posted: 05 Jul 2012 08:35 AM PDT  Nuclear power returned to Japan's energy mix for the first time in two months Thursday, hours before a parliamentary panel blamed the government's cozy relations with the industry for the meltdowns that prompted the mass shutdown of the nation's reactors.
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| South Korean arrested for unapproved trip to North Posted: 05 Jul 2012 07:59 AM PDT  As North Koreans cheered and waved white "unified Korea" flags, a South Korean activist was arrested as soon as he set foot on home soil Thursday, resisting police in a stunt of defiance after an unapproved, three-month stay in the North.
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| WikiLeaks has data from 2.4 million Syrian emails Posted: 05 Jul 2012 12:34 PM PDT  The secret-spilling group WikiLeaks said Thursday it was in the process of publishing material from 2.4 million Syrian emails — many of which it said came from official government accounts.
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