| Iraq blasts kill 100 as fugitive VP gets death sentence Posted: 09 Sep 2012 01:57 PM PDT  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Car bombs tore through mainly Shi'ite Baghdad districts on Sunday after Iraq's fugitive Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi was sentenced to death, as more than 100 people were killed across the country in one of the bloodiest days this year. Hashemi's sentencing in absentia and the violence threatened to further stoke sectarian tensions in Iraq where a Shi'ite-led government is battling political deadlock and a Sunni Islamist insurgency nine months after U.S. troops left. ...
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| Simultaneous bombs hit army compounds in Aleppo Posted: 09 Sep 2012 02:15 PM PDT  AMMAN (Reuters) - Two bombs exploded simultaneously on Sunday night next to Syrian army compounds in the northern city of Aleppo, killing and wounding scores of President Bashar al-Assad's forces, residents and opposition activists said. The bombs targeted makeshift barracks and the military police headquarters, situated in two adjacent sealed off districts in the centre of the city, said several residents and opposition campaigners from Aleppo. The state news agency said an explosion near a hospital and a school in the Municipal Stadium district killed 17 people and wounded at least 40. ...
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| Gaddafi son's Libya trial to be delayed by five months: official Posted: 09 Sep 2012 12:02 PM PDT  TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The trial of Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam will be delayed by five months to include any relevant testimony obtained via the interrogation of Libya's former spy chief who was arrested last week, the prosecutor general office said on Sunday. Government officials said in August Saif al-Islam's trial on charges of war crimes - the most high-profile prosecution of a figure from his late father's entourage to date - was due to begin in September. ...
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| Mali Islamists say army killing of preachers declaration of war Posted: 09 Sep 2012 02:37 PM PDT  BAMAKO (Reuters) - Mali Islamic militant group MUJWA said on Sunday the killing of 16 Muslim preachers including eight Mauritanians and eight Malians by an army patrol in Mali was a declaration of war. The Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) is one of the Islamic groups that has hijacked a Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali since April with the intention of imposing sharia law in the country. "With this barbaric act that was not warranted, I don't see any future for Malian army or the Malian government because we are going to continue our southward push to Bamako. ...
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| Amid fraud fears, Somalia to elect new president Posted: 09 Sep 2012 04:07 PM PDT  MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Members of parliament in Somalia will vote for a new president on Monday in the first vote of its kind in decades amid fears that the historic election will be rigged and do little to alter the political landscape. Billed as a milestone in the war-ravaged country's quest to end two decades of violence, graft and infighting, a newly elected parliament will convene at the police academy in Mogadishu to vote for the next head of state by secret ballot. ...
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| Mexican opposition leader Lopez Obrador leaves coalition Posted: 09 Sep 2012 02:39 PM PDT  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican opposition leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who twice contested second-place losses in presidential elections, said on Sunday he would leave his coalition, a move that threatens to create a rift among leftists in Congress. "I have separated from the parties that form the Progressive Movement," Lopez Obrador said. "This isn't a rupture, I leave in the best of terms." Lopez Obrador said he would dedicate all his efforts to change Mexico with a new organization called Morena that has yet to be legally incorporated as a party. ...
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| Nigeria floods kill 137, displace thousands Posted: 09 Sep 2012 10:14 AM PDT LAGOS (Reuters) - Floods across Nigeria have killed 137 people and displaced more than 30,000 since the beginning of July, the local Red Cross said on Sunday. Nigeria, which has a rainy season from May to September suffers from seasonal flash floods, which are sometimes lethal, especially in rural areas or overcrowded slums where drainage is poor or nonexistent. Red Cross spokesman Umar Mairiga said the floods had affected some 15 local government areas, with the worst hit being Adamawa, Taraba and Benue states in the east-central part of the country. ... |
| German Jews, Muslims unite to protest against circumcision ban Posted: 09 Sep 2012 03:11 PM PDT  BERLIN (Reuters) - Hundreds of German Jews and Muslims held a joint rally in Berlin on Sunday demanding that their "freedom of religion" be respected, in a rare show of unity to protest against a court order that banned ritual circumcisions. The June ruling by a court in Cologne has sparked an emotive debate about religious freedom in a country which is sensitive to any accusations of intolerance because of its Nazi past. Although the ban applied only to the Cologne region, doctors across the country have refused to carry out operations because of what they say is a risk of legal action. ...
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| UK survivor of France shooting out of coma: prosecutor Posted: 09 Sep 2012 09:38 AM PDT  PARIS (Reuters) - The seven-year-old British girl who survived a gun attack in the French Alps last week that saw her father and mother shot dead in their car is out of a coma and will be questioned by police as soon as she is able, the French prosecutor said on Sunday. French and British police continued their search of the family home in Surrey near London of Saad al-Hilli, the Iraqi-born British driver who was shot twice in the head along with his wife, an older woman and a passing cyclist on Wednesday. ...
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| Russian Orthodox Church under attack: Patriarch Posted: 09 Sep 2012 12:53 PM PDT  MOSCOW (Reuters) - The head of the Russian Orthodox Church used a Sunday prayer service and a state TV interview to argue that the church he presides over is under attack from foes he said fear its post-Soviet revival and want to destroy its places of worship. Patriarch Kirill did not name punk music group Pussy Riot but was clearly referring to the collective, three of whose members were sentenced to jail for performing a "punk prayer" at the altar of a Moscow cathedral during which they criticized President Vladimir Putin. ...
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| Iraq's fugitive VP convicted as attacks kill 92 Posted: 09 Sep 2012 01:10 PM PDT  Iraq's fugitive Sunni vice president was sentenced Sunday to death by hanging on charges he masterminded death squads against rivals in a terror trial that has fueled sectarian tensions in the country. Underscoring the instability, insurgents unleashed an onslaught of bombings and shootings across Iraq, killing at least 92 people in one of the deadliest days this year.
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| Car bomb kills 17 in north Syrian city of Aleppo Posted: 09 Sep 2012 01:17 PM PDT A car bomb ripped through Syria's largest city of Aleppo on Sunday, killing at least 17 people and wounding 40 in one of the main battlegrounds of the country's civil war, state-run media said. |
| 16 moderate Muslim preachers killed in Mali Posted: 09 Sep 2012 01:42 PM PDT Sixteen Muslim preachers from a moderate sect were shot dead in central Mali as they traveled by road to a religious conference, the Malian and Mauritanian governments said Sunday. Early reports indicate that the men's long beards aroused the suspicion of Mali's military, which confused them for the extremists who have taken over the nation's north. |
| Adopting Daniel: US couple tests new Guatemala law Posted: 09 Sep 2012 11:05 AM PDT  It should have been good news.
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| Daughter of slain British-Iraqi couple back in UK Posted: 09 Sep 2012 11:04 AM PDT  The younger daughter of a British-Iraqi couple slain while vacationing in the French Alps has returned to Britain, while her badly wounded older sister has come out of an artificial coma, authorities said Sunday.
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| Ethiopia starts peace talks with separatist rebels Posted: 09 Sep 2012 08:52 AM PDT The Ethiopian government and separatist rebels say they have started negotiations. |
| Iraq's Sunni vice president sentenced to death Posted: 09 Sep 2012 08:42 AM PDT  A Baghdad court sentenced Iraq's fugitive Sunni vice president to death Sunday after finding him guilty of masterminding the killings of a lawyer and a government security official.
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| Ex-candidate quits Mexico's main leftist party Posted: 09 Sep 2012 03:37 PM PDT  The man who led Mexico's main leftist party in the past two presidential elections announced Sunday he is leaving it behind and may start a new party, throwing uncertainty over the future of the nation's political left.
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| Egypt: Most flights back on schedule after strikes Posted: 09 Sep 2012 12:45 PM PDT  Officials at Egypt's main international airport were working off a backlog of delayed flights and trying to placate angry passengers on Sunday, after two days of strikes left planes grounded and some travelers stranded.
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| Egypt vows structural reforms, meets US executives Posted: 09 Sep 2012 03:04 PM PDT  Egypt's Islamist leader vowed to carry out tough structural reforms to overhaul his country's ailing economy and create a better environment for business and investment, participants in a meeting between corporate executives and the president said on Sunday.
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