| U.S.'s Kerry expresses regret to India over diplomat case Posted: 18 Dec 2013 04:17 PM PST  By Arshad Mohammed WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called a top Indian official to express regret about the case of an Indian diplomat strip-searched after her arrest in New York last week on charges including visa fraud, the State Department said on Wednesday. Kerry's call to Indian National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, disclosed by the U.S. State Department, aimed to defuse a diplomatic crisis sparked by the December 12 arrest of Devyani Khobragade on charges of visa fraud and underpaying her nanny, an Indian national. India has been furious in its response to what it considers the degrading treatment of a senior diplomat by the United States, a country it sees as a close friend, and retaliated on Tuesday by removing security barriers at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi.
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| U.N. General Assembly condemns Syria, Iran, North Korea for rights abuses Posted: 18 Dec 2013 02:59 PM PST  By Michelle Nichols and Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday condemned Syria for widespread human rights abuses and expressed concern about such violations in Iran and North Korea, but it welcomed pledges by Iran's president to improve in some areas. The resolution on Iran was approved with 86 votes in favor, 36 against and 61 abstentions, and the draft on Syria was adopted with 127 votes in favor, 13 against and 47 abstentions.
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| South Sudan army says loses town as fighting spreads Posted: 18 Dec 2013 02:01 PM PST By Andrew Green JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan's army said it had lost control of the flashpoint town of Bor on Wednesday, its first acknowledged reversal in three days of clashes between rival groups of soldiers that have triggered warnings of a slide into civil war. President Salva Kiir earlier said he was ready for dialogue with his sacked vice president Riek Machar - the man he accuses of starting the fighting, which diplomats say has killed up to 500 people, and plotting a coup. But the United Nations said tensions was still spreading across South Sudan's remote states as the violence, which first erupted in the capital Juba late on Sunday, moved north to Bor, the site of an ethnic massacre in 1991. Witnesses and officials said fighting had broken out in two barracks in Bor between troops loyal to Kiir, from South Sudan's Dinka ethnic group, and Machar, a Nuer, though the reports were sketchy. |
| U.N. heads, EU call for humanitarian ceasefire in Syria Posted: 18 Dec 2013 12:34 PM PST  By Adrian Croft BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The heads of the U.N. and European Union aid agencies called on Wednesday for a "humanitarian ceasefire" in Syria to allow convoys to deliver help to areas that aid workers cannot reach. Calling the Syria conflict the "greatest humanitarian tragedy of our times", the aid chiefs said they feared the worst as another harsh winter threatened even greater suffering. The statement was issued by U.N. emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres and the heads of the U.N. Children's Fund, Anthony Lake, and World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin, with EU humanitarian aid chief Kristalina Georgieva.
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| Venezuela's Maduro holds rare meeting with opponents Posted: 18 Dec 2013 04:27 PM PST  By Deisy Buitrago and Andrew Cawthorne CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro held a rare meeting with opponents on Wednesday, challenging them to collect signatures to oust him in 2016 if they wanted but to work with him in the meantime. Maduro invited opposition mayors and governors to Miraflores presidential palace in an attempt to draw a line after four bitterly-fought elections in Venezuela in little over a year. "Our differences will remain, but I urge you to work." Before the meeting, Maduro shook hands with high-profile opponents such as Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, who he has repeatedly lampooned as a "vampire," and Valencia Mayor Miguel Cocchiola, who he has called a "thief" and "criminal." The president also offered them gifts of writings by Hugo Chavez, who died of cancer in March, and played a recording of the late president singing Venezuela's national anthem. And Maduro reminded his opponents of their constitutional right to seek a recall referendum half-way through his term should they collect the nearly 4 million signatures needed.
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| Israeli-Palestinian talks might take a year to complete: Erekat Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:01 PM PST  By Crispian Balmer BEIT JALA, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinians and Israelis will need up to one more year to complete a peace deal if they can reach a broad framework accord in the coming weeks, the chief Palestinian negotiator said on Wednesday. However, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat made clear that the talking could go on for much longer, with the emphasis at the moment placed on establishing the outlines of a final accord, which would then have to be carefully defined. "If we reach a framework agreement by April 29, you need six to 12 months to draft a full agreement," he told reporters in Beit Jala, a West Bank village next to Jerusalem. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, making his ninth visit to the region since February, met both the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week to push the idea of a framework deal.
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| EU officials reach deal on handling failed banks Posted: 18 Dec 2013 05:07 PM PST  BRUSSELS (AP) — After more than a year of hard bargaining, European finance ministers on Wednesday reached a political agreement on a final piece of the bloc's planned banking union, which is the most ambitious step in integrating Europe's economy since the adoption of the common currency.
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| EU finance ministers reach banking union deal Posted: 18 Dec 2013 04:46 PM PST  EU finance ministers Wednesday reached a banking union accord which will hand Brussels unprecedented new powers to prevent failing banks from wrecking the economy, official sources said. "Today is a momentous day for banking union," EU Financial Markets Commissioner Michel Barnier said after some 12 hours of tough talks. It forms the banking union along with an already agreed new supervisory regime to be overseen by the European Central Bank.
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| White House task force urges limit on NSA snooping Posted: 18 Dec 2013 04:42 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — A presidential advisory panel has recommended sweeping changes to government surveillance programs, including limiting the bulk collection of Americans' phone records by stripping the National Security Agency of its ability to store that data in its own facilities. Court orders would be required before the information could be searched.
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| Syria jihadists torturing, killing detainees: Amnesty Posted: 18 Dec 2013 04:15 PM PST  Amnesty International on Thursday accused an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group in Syria of abducting, torturing and killing detainees at secret prisons in areas under its control. The rights group said detainees held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) include children as young as eight and that minors have been sentenced to severe floggings and held with adults in "cruel and inhuman conditions". It described individuals being seized by masked men, held for weeks on end in solitary confinement at unknown locations and tried by self-styled Islamic sharia courts that mete out death or floggings with little if any due process. Former detainees described being beaten with rubber generator belts or cables, tortured with electric shocks and being forced into a painful stress position known as the "scorpion" in which the detainee's wrists are bound over one shoulder.
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| India diplomat in US is transferred to UN mission Posted: 18 Dec 2013 03:48 PM PST  UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Indian diplomat who was strip-searched after her arrest in New York City on visa charges has been transferred to India's mission to the United Nations, her lawyer and a former colleague said Wednesday.
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| UN assembly blasts Syria over war abuses Posted: 18 Dec 2013 03:23 PM PST  UNITED NATIONS (United States) (AFP) - The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday slammed rights abuses in Syria, whose UN envoy launched a furious onslaught against Saudi Arabia for pressing the initiative. A resolution that has become an annual event since the start of Syria's civil war in 2011 was backed by 127 countries in the 193-nation assembly, with support down from 135 last year. The resolution expressed "outrage" at the escalation of the 33-month-old Syrian civil war and laid most of the blame for the mounting death toll on President Bashar al-Assad's government. The resolution also came close to blaming Assad's government for an August 21 chemical weapons attack near Damascus in which hundreds died.
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| UN votes to protect privacy in digital age Posted: 18 Dec 2013 03:18 PM PST UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution aimed at protecting the right to privacy against unlawful surveillance in the digital age on Wednesday in the most vocal global criticism of U.S. eavesdropping. |
| Pope given San Lorenzo's trophy after victory Posted: 18 Dec 2013 03:18 PM PST  VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis celebrated his beloved San Lorenzo's victory in the Argentine soccer championship Wednesday, congratulating team members, reminiscing about going to the stadium as a child and hoisting up the team's trophy in St. Peter's Square for all to see.
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| Once-stolen Stradivarius sells for £1.3 million Posted: 18 Dec 2013 03:12 PM PST  A rare Stradivarius violin, which was once stolen and offered for just £100 ($162, 118 euros) by thieves, sold at auction in Britain on Wednesday for £1.3 million ($2.3 million, 1.6 million euros). Thieves took the antique instrument, which was made in 1696, and two valuable bows from Korean-born violinist Min-Jin Kym as she ate a sandwich at a cafe in London's Euston station in 2010. The violin was sold on Wednesday by fine instrument auction house Tarisio in an online sale for £1,385,000, which included the buyer's premium, the firm said on its website. The auction house said part of the proceeds would go towards British Transport Police, the force that helped track down the instrument.
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| Bolivia says U.S. orchestrated getaway of detained New Yorker Posted: 18 Dec 2013 03:07 PM PST Bolivia on Wednesday accused the United States of helping a New York businessman escape from the South American country where he had spent 18 months in prison and was under house arrest for alleged money laundering. Interior Minister Carlos Romero said Washington orchestrated a clandestine operation that spirited Jacob Ostreicher, 54, out of Bolivia illegally - further clouding what is known about the entrepreneur's surprise getaway. Washington has had a wobbly relationship with the government of President Evo Morales, who regularly accuses the U.S. of meddling in the affairs of Latin American countries. Washington on Wednesday denied having a hand in Ostreicher's flight. |
| C. African president, PM to hold talks amid tensions Posted: 18 Dec 2013 02:57 PM PST  Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - The Central African Republic's interim president and prime minister held talks Wednesday in a bid to end a political rift, as several European countries offered to help quell deadly sectarian violence in the country. Tensions have spiked between rebel leader-turned-president Michel Djotodia and Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye after three ministers were unexpectedly fired by presidential decree at the weekend. Djotodia, whose Seleka rebel coalition seized power in a March coup, and Tiangaye held a "reconciliation meeting" in the president's palace in Bangui with African attending, their aides said. A decision will be made later," Tiangaye told AFP.
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| Winnie Mandela blasts family feud reports Posted: 18 Dec 2013 02:55 PM PST  Nelson Mandela's ex-wife Winnie denied Wednesday there was a dynastic battle within his extensive family, amid reports of a renewed feud shortly after the peace icon's death. According to various media reports the family cut off Mandela's eldest grandson Mandla and heir to the clan title since the icon's died on December 5. But his ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela slammed "mischievous innuendos" and "apartheid-style" tactics. "Numerous articles, op-eds, reports, and editorials...have hammered on the idea that the Mandela family is at war with itself since the news first broke that Madiba is no longer with us," said her spokesman Thato Mmereki in a statement, referring to Mandela by his clan name.
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| Brazil picks Sweden's Gripen for its air force Posted: 18 Dec 2013 02:33 PM PST  Brasília (AFP) - Sweden's Saab edged out French and US rivals to win a multi-billion-dollar contract to supply Brazil's air force with 36 new fighter jets, Defense Minister Celso Amorim said Wednesday. Saab's Gripen NG was in competition with the Rafale made by France's Dassault company and US aviation giant Boeing's F/A-18 fighter for the long-deferred FX-2 air force replacement program "After analyzing all the facts, President Dilma Rousseff directed me to inform that the winner of the contract for the acquisition of the 36 fighter jets for the Brazilian Air Force is the Swedish Gripen NG," Amorim told a press conference.
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| Israeli army shoots Palestinian dead in Jenin clash Posted: 18 Dec 2013 02:27 PM PST  The Israeli army shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded others Wednesday in clashes that erupted following military activity in the northern West Bank, sources on both sides said. Palestinian security sources named the man as Nafaa al-Saedi, 23, of the radical Islamic Jihad movement. The clashes erupted during an operation "to arrest a suspect" in Jenin, according to an Israeli military statement, when Palestinians "opened fire and threw improvised grenades and explosive devices at security forces". According to the director of the Palestinian emergency medical services in Jenin, clashes erupted after Israeli forces entered the Jenin refugee camp, and six casualties were taken to a Jenin hospital.
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| Turkey PM brands graft probe 'ugly' anti-government plot Posted: 18 Dec 2013 02:17 PM PST  Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan charged Wednesday that the detention of dozens of people in a high-profile graft probe was an "ugly" operation against his government. Several dozen police chiefs have been sacked in the wake of the dawn raids on Tuesday which led to the detention of 51 people including the sons of three ministers and several top business leaders, sending shockwaves through Turkey's political establishment. The operation has exposed deep fractures in Erdogan's traditional support base, particularly a bitter feud between his government and an influential Muslim cleric who wields considerable clout in the police and the judiciary. Political tensions are running high in Turkey ahead of a series of elections starting next year that will pose a key test for Erdogan after the anti-government unrest in June.
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| Brazilian senator urges asylum for Snowden Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:58 PM PST  SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said Wednesday she would not comment on the letter written by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden in which he said he was willing to help Brazil investigate NSA spying on its soil but could only do so if granted political asylum.
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| Task force urges limit on NSA snooping Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:57 PM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — A presidential advisory panel has recommended sweeping limits on the government's surveillance programs, including requiring a court to sign off on individual searches of phone records and stripping the National Security Agency of its ability to store that data from Americans. |
| Palestinians ready to extend talks with Israel Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:55 PM PST  BEIT JALLA, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinians are ready to extend current peace talks with Israel beyond an April deadline if a detailed framework agreement is in place by then, the chief Palestinian negotiator said Wednesday.
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| UN group says torture less prevalent in Morocco Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:49 PM PST RABAT, Morocco (AP) — A U.N. delegation investigating detention conditions in Morocco says torture occurs there, but is no longer as systematic as it once was. |
| US 'regrets' diplomat treatment as India seethes Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:48 PM PST  The United States on Wednesday voiced regret to India over the treatment of a diplomat whose account of being stripped and cavity-searched triggered outrage. With New Delhi vowing to "restore the dignity" of diplomat Devyani Khobragade, Indian media reported that the 39-year-old was being moved from her post as deputy consul general in New York to the UN mission in a bid to thwart her prosecution. As India retaliated against American diplomats in the usually US-friendly country, Secretary of State John Kerry tried to end the row in a telephone call to India's national security advisor Shivshankar Menon. "As a father of two daughters about the same age as Devyani Khobragade, the secretary empathizes with the sensitivities we are hearing from India about the events that unfolded after Ms. Khobragade's arrest," a State Department statement said.
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| Head of Qaeda's Syria branch says does not seek rule in first TV appearance Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:34 PM PST The leader of Syria's al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front said in his first televised interview that his group was not seeking to rule Syria, but future rule must be based on Islamic law. The hardline Nusra Front is one of the most powerful groups fighting alongside rebels trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Its leader, known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, rarely gives public messages and had never appeared on a public forum until his interview with the pan-Arab news channel Al Jazeera, parts of which were aired late on Wednesday. "The Nusra Front does not seek to rule society on its own when we reach the stage of the liberation of Sham (Syria)," Abu Golani told Al Jazeera in the pre-recorded interview. |
| Syria defends jailing of British doctor who died in prison Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:18 PM PST  Syria said Wednesday that a British doctor alleged to have been effectively murdered in custody had hanged himself after being arrested for "unauthorised activities." Meanwhile, regime warplanes pounded Aleppo for a fourth straight day in raids that have killed at least 189 people and overwhelmed the northern city's hospitals, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said, citing local medics. The death of Dr Abbas Khan just days before he was to be handed over to a British lawmaker sparked a diplomatic row with London, which accused President Bashar al-Assad's regime of effectively murdering the 32-year-old orthopaedic surgeon. But state news agency SANA said Khan had entered Syria illegally and undertaken "unauthorised activities."
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| Syria opposition insists West wants Assad out Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:14 PM PST  A senior member of the Syrian opposition said Wednesday Western nations had offered reassurances that President Bashar al-Assad will play no role in a negotiated political transition. His remarks appeared to contradict recent press reports suggesting that Western nations, fearing the rising power of jihadist groups in Syria, may want Assad or members of his inner circle to remain in power during the transition. Monzer Aqbiq, an advisor to the leader of the Syrian National Coalition, insisted that remarks behind closed doors at a meeting last week in London among countries backing the opposition matched a statement issued after the meeting, which said: "Assad will have no role in Syria, as his regime is the main source of terror and extremism in Syria." "The 11 countries (including the United States, France and Britain), and behind them the 100 members of the 'Friends of Syria,' agree that there should be no role for Assad," Aqbiq told AFP.
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| Egypt's Morsi to face new trial on terror charges Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:13 PM PST  CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian prosecutors on Wednesday announced a new trial of ousted President Mohammed Morsi and the top leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood, accusing them of conspiring with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran's Revolutionary Guard and militant groups to carry out a wave of terrorism to destabilize the country.
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| Violence spreads in South Sudan; fears of return to civil war Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:11 PM PST  Violence in South Sudan is spreading, the UN said Wednesday, worsening a crisis that has seen hundreds killed this week in fierce fighting and prompting the US to evacuate Americans and other foreigners. There were fears the poor and unstable nation, which became independent from Sudan in 2011, could topple back into civil war. South Sudan's Red Cross reported at least 19 civilians killed in new clashes between rival army factions that have now spread outside the capital Juba, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told journalists in New York on Wednesday. South Sudan President Salva Kiir has blamed the bloodshed on an attempted coup bid by his arch-rival, former vice president Riek Machar.
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| Syrian air raids exact high toll on Aleppo Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:11 PM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — In a withering four-day air assault, the Syrian government pummeled opposition-held neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo, leveling apartment buildings, flooding hospitals with casualties and killing nearly 200 people.
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| Govt: 500 killed in South Sudan violence Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:04 PM PST  JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — At least 500 people, most of them soldiers, have been killed in South Sudan since Sunday, a senior government official said, as an ethnic rivalry threatened to tear apart the world's newest country.
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| Terrorism lawsuit clouds Chinese Israel visit Posted: 18 Dec 2013 01:03 PM PST  JERUSALEM (AP) — China's foreign minister paid a rare visit to Israel on Wednesday, reflecting the burgeoning trade ties between the two countries. But the trip was clouded by fresh accusations that Israel's prime minister had compromised the global war on terrorism under heavy Chinese pressure.
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| Canada to have first faith-based law school Posted: 18 Dec 2013 12:50 PM PST  Canada's first faith-based law school has received preliminary approval from the nation's law societies, despite objections to its seemingly anti-gay policies, it was reported Wednesday. Trinity Western University in westernmost Canada received the nod from the Federation of Law Societies of Canada for its plan to enrol 60 first-year law students starting in 2016. Several prominent lawyers and hundreds of law students, however, expressed concern it might produce barristers with an anti-gay bias. Trinity risks producing "graduates who don't fully comprehend Section 15 (of the constitution on equality rights), for example, or have a very skewed view about what Section 15 of the Charter means, or an overly enhanced importance attached to freedom of religion," criminal defence lawyer Eric Gottardi told the daily Globe and Mail.
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| Weather expected to help fight California coastal wildfire Posted: 18 Dec 2013 12:45 PM PST  By Laila Kearney SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Firefighters battling a blaze that has destroyed 22 homes along California's scenic Big Sur coastline were counting on lower temperatures and more favorable wind conditions to help them suppress the flames, officials said on Wednesday. The Pfeifer Fire blackened some 769 acres and was 20 percent contained by Wednesday morning, U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Lynn Olson said, adding that crews expect to contain it fully by late Friday. The flames were burning mainly on Pfeiffer Ridge in Big Sur, a mountainous coastal region south of the Monterey Peninsula that reaches into the Los Padres National Forest.
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| Family begs Syrian government to return body of British surgeon Posted: 18 Dec 2013 12:39 PM PST Fatima Khan said the government has not released the body of her son Abbas, an orthopedic surgeon from south London who had been imprisoned since last November after traveling to rebel-held Aleppo to offer his medical services. Fatima, who doesn't speak Arabic but spent the past five months in war-torn Damascus working for her son's release, said authorities had promised to release him this week. It is a falsehood for anyone to say otherwise." The circumstances surrounding Abbas Khan's death remain unclear. She said she suspects her son's British nationality contributed to his death. |
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