| U.S. carrier starts Philippine storm relief; death toll jumps Posted: 14 Nov 2013 02:36 PM PST By Stuart Grudgings TACLOBAN, Philippines (Reuters) - A U.S. aircraft carrier started unloading food and water in the typhoon-ravaged central Philippines, while the United Nations, citing government figures, put the latest death toll at 4,460 - almost double the last official number given. President Benigno Aquino has faced mounting pressure to speed up the distribution of supplies and stoked debate over the extent of casualties from Typhoon Haiyan. Earlier this week, he said estimates of 10,000 dead by local officials were overstated and caused by "emotional trauma". ... |
| North Korea denies aiding Syria in fight against rebels Posted: 14 Nov 2013 04:47 PM PST  North Korea denied it was sending military aid to the Syrian government, one of its few close allies, in its battle against rebel forces after media reports said that Pyongyang had sent advisors and helicopter pilots. "Some foreign media are floating misinformation that the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) supplied war equipment to Syria, its airmen are directly involved in air-raids on insurgent troops in Syria," the North's state run KCNA news agency said late on Thursday. The Jerusalem Post reported in October that 15 North Korean helicopter pilots were operating in Syria "on behalf of President Bashar Assad's regime" and said the report had been confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
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| Iran putting brakes on nuclear expansion under Rouhani: IAEA report Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:39 PM PST  By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA (Reuters) - Since Hassan Rouhani became president, Iran has stopped expanding its uranium enrichment capacity, a U.N. inspection report showed on Thursday, in a potential boost for diplomacy to end Tehran's nuclear dispute with the West. The quarterly report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also said that since August no further major components had been added to a potential plutonium-producing reactor that worries the United States and its allies. ...
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| Toronto mayor says 'I'm sorry' again, to get help for alcohol problem Posted: 14 Nov 2013 12:00 PM PST  By Solarina Ho and Cameron French TORONTO (Reuters) - Embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, under huge pressure to quit after he admitted smoking crack cocaine, said on Thursday he was getting help for a drinking problem, but offered no indication that he might step down. Ford also expressed remorse for an obscene outburst he made earlier in the day when denying an allegation he had made sexual overtures to a female member of his staff. "I want to apologize for my graphic remarks this morning," Ford said in the latest of a string of apologies, his wife, Renata, standing silently at his side. ...
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| Court rejects Polish request to keep CIA jail hearing private Posted: 14 Nov 2013 11:05 AM PST  By Christian Lowe PRAGUE (Reuters) - The European Court of Human Rights has rejected a request from the Polish government to exclude the press and public from a hearing next month into whether Poland hosted a secret CIA jail on its soil, the court said on Thursday. The hearing in Strasbourg, scheduled for December 3, will be the first time an open court has heard the allegations that Warsaw allowed the United States to detain and interrogate al Qaeda suspects in a forest in northern Poland. The Polish government has denied any CIA jail existed, and has said its communications with the court should be kept secret to protect its national security. The court told Reuters last month that Warsaw had requested that the hearing into allegations from two men who say they were illegally detained by the CIA in Poland should take place behind closed doors.
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| Army occupation angers Sri Lankan Tamils four years after war ends Posted: 14 Nov 2013 02:37 PM PST  By Frank Jack Daniel JAFFNA, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - The threats came by text message, a phone call and a delivery of two cow skulls. The message was clear: stop protesting against the army's occupation of your land or you will be killed. Four years after Sri Lanka's army crushed the Tamil Tiger guerrilla army and ended a civil war that had lasted nearly three decades, Tamils say they are blatantly repressed in Jaffna, the capital of this Indian Ocean island's northern peninsula. ...
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| Christianity threatened with extinction in areas: UK minister Posted: 14 Nov 2013 05:06 PM PST  London (AFP) - Christians are being driven out of some of the religion's historic heartlands through discrimination and violence, a British government minister warned on Friday.
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| Venezuela president vows no letup in price-gouging crackdown Posted: 14 Nov 2013 05:00 PM PST  By Andrew Cawthorne CARACAS (Reuters) - President Nicolas Maduro has promised to step up a pre-election "economic offensive" that has resulted in inspections of hundreds of Venezuelan businesses for price gouging and caused crowds to flock to shops to take advantage of state-ordered discounts. The move - Maduro's boldest since taking office in April - is reminiscent of the dramatic governing style of his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, who nationalized large swathes of the OPEC member's economy during his 14-year socialist rule. The inspections have shaken Venezuela three weeks before local elections that his enemies are casting as a referendum on the 50-year-old former bus driver.
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| Venezuela says 100 'bourgeois' businessmen jailed in crackdown Posted: 14 Nov 2013 05:00 PM PST Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday that authorities had arrested more than 100 "bourgeois" businessmen in a crackdown on alleged price-gouging since the weekend. The socialist leader, who won a vote to replace the late Hugo Chavez in April, said his government was preparing new regulations to limit businesses' profits to between 15 percent and 30 percent. |
| Japan drastically scales back CO2 emissions-cut target: Kyodo Posted: 14 Nov 2013 04:20 PM PST  Japan on Friday drastically scaled back its commitment to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, Kyodo News reported, bowing to the inevitable as a complete shutdown of the nation's nuclear power industry has forced Japan to burn more carbon-based fuels. (Writing by William Mallard;
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| British experts warn of rise in genital cosmetic surgery Posted: 14 Nov 2013 04:09 PM PST  British gynaecologists warned on Friday that increasing numbers of teenage girls and women are undergoing genital cosmetic surgery, driven in part by unrealistic images of how they should look based on pornography. The state-funded National Health Service (NHS) performed more than 2,000 labial reduction procedures -- labiaplasties -- in 2010, a five-fold increase in ten years, according to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG). This is "probably the tip of the iceberg compared to the number of procedures that are done in the private sector" where the data is not routinely collected, said Professor Sarah Creighton, a member of RCOG's ethics committee.
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| Venezuela parliament backs Maduro rule by decree bid Posted: 14 Nov 2013 04:00 PM PST  Venezuela's legislature gave initial backing Thursday to a measure granting extraordinary powers over the economy to President Nicolas Maduro, following his controversial attempt to forcibly cut consumer prices. Maduro's supporters, who hold the majority in the National Assembly, approved the measure which would allow him to govern by decree, without having to seek parliamentary approval. National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello, a close Maduro ally, was mildly mocking of those in the legislature who opposed the measure.
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| California court upholds state's right to sell carbon permits Posted: 14 Nov 2013 03:46 PM PST By Rory Carroll SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's environmental regulator can sell carbon emission permits at quarterly auctions as part of the state's cap-and-trade program, a state court said on Thursday, in a setback to businesses that argued that the sales constitute an illegal tax. The California Chamber of Commerce and tomato processor Morning Star sued to stop the sales last year, arguing that the permits should be given out freely to companies covered by the program. They said the California Air Resources Board (ARB) overstepped its authority when it approved auctions as a mechanism for distributing permits. California's landmark emissions reduction law, AB 32, passed by a simple majority vote in 2006. |
| Armed men burn records of El Salvador war missing Posted: 14 Nov 2013 03:45 PM PST  SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Armed men broke into a nonprofit agency that works to locate children missing from El Salvador's civil war and set fire to the group's archives, national fire officials said Thursday.
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| Lampard has ton of worries over Brazil Posted: 14 Nov 2013 03:41 PM PST  Frank Lampard admits that he will have to fight to ensure his place in the England squad at next year's World Cup finals despite being only the eighth Englishman to rack up 100 caps. The Chelsea star will skipper England in Friday's friendly against Chile at Wembley where he will also be presented with a special golden cap having reached the landmark against Ukraine last month. But the 35-year-old knows that his reputation alone will not guarantee a place in Roy Hodgson's Brazil-bound squad.
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| US gambling with Israel's security: minister Posted: 14 Nov 2013 03:03 PM PST  Israel accused the United States of gambling with its security Thursday as it grapples for a nuclear deal with Iran, and renewed warnings it could conduct its own military strikes. Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, dispatched by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to campaign against a nascent deal being negotiated by western powers with Iran, spoke out against moves which in a first phase would apparently allow Tehran to halt but not dismantle its nuclear program. "While I yearn for peace I do not believe that now, is the right time to gamble with our security," Bennett said. The tough sanctions now in place against Iran must not falter, Bennett insisted in a speech to the Brookings Saban Center for Middle East Policy.
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| UN: $300 million needed for nearly 700,000 homeless Posted: 14 Nov 2013 02:47 PM PST  Tacloban (Philippines) (AFP) - A huge US aircraft carrier arrived off the coast of the typhoon-hit Philippines Thursday, offering hope of a dramatic uptick in aid to destitute survivors as officials buried scores of rotting corpses. The USS George Washington, with 5,000 sailors aboard, headed an eight-strong flotilla of US vessels bearing badly needed equipment, supplies and expertise for the thousands left homeless and hungry by one of the strongest storms in history. But almost a week after Super Typhoon Haiyan swept through the country's central islands, killing thousands and leaving a security vacuum in its wake, desperation was still apparent and many of the dead remained unburied. "I do feel that we have let people down," conceded United Nations humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos, who had visited the shattered city of Tacloban on Wednesday.
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| U.S. EPA to unveil biofuel rules as soon as Friday Posted: 14 Nov 2013 02:39 PM PST  By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Environmental regulators are likely to unveil rules on Friday dictating how much ethanol and other renewable fuels must be blended into the U.S. gasoline supply in 2014, following weeks of lobbying by the oil and biofuels industries, industry sources who have been briefed on the process said on Thursday. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy testified before a House panel on Thursday that the proposed Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) for 2014 was "soon to be proposed." Some industry sources briefed by the agency said were told they would see the proposal as soon as Friday. Rumors have circulated, based on a leaked draft of the EPA's proposals, that the agency will require less corn-based ethanol to be blended into U.S. gasoline in 2014 than the 14.4 billion gallons now required by law, and less than the 13.8 billion mandated for this year. McCarthy added at the hearing of the House Science Committee that once released, the proposal will "take some time" to finalize.
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| Gambia breaks off diplomatic ties with Taiwan Posted: 14 Nov 2013 02:36 PM PST  Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) - Gambia on Thursday announced that it had abruptly broken off diplomatic relations with Taiwan, established over the past 18 years, for reasons to do with the "national strategic interest".
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| Toronto mayor denies latest allegations Posted: 14 Nov 2013 02:31 PM PST  TORONTO (AP) — Toronto's mayor denied Thursday that he pressured a female employee for oral sex, in an obscenity-laced statement on live television in which he also threatened to take legal action against former staffers who spoke to police about his drinking and drug use.
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| Brazil government figures confirm spike in Amazon deforestation Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:51 PM PST  By Paulo Prada RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Deforestation in the Amazon increased by nearly a third over the past year, according to Brazilian government figures released on Thursday, confirming a feared reversal in what had been steady progress over the past decade against destruction of the world's largest rainforest. The figure, boosted partly by expanding farms and a rush for land around big infrastructure projects, is the second-lowest annual tally since Brazil's space agency began tracking deforestation. "You can't argue with numbers," said Marcio Astrini, coordinator for the Amazon campaign at the Brazilian chapter of Greenpeace, the environmentalist group. "This is not alarmist - it's a real and measured inversion of what had been a positive trend." Brazil tracks the amount of land cleared each year as part of its efforts to protect the Amazon, a Western European-sized jungle that is an abundant source of the world's oxygen and fresh water and considered by scientists to be a crucial buffer against climate change.
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| China's smog threatens health of global coal projects Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:48 PM PST  By Fayen Wong SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A choking smog across much of northern China threatens not just the health of local residents, but also of major coal projects globally that are still on the drawing board. With China's coal demand the primary driver for a slew of mine investments over the past decade, this trend could derail a list of capital intensive coal projects from Australia to Indonesia and Mozambique. Even without the environmental drive, new railways from mines to ports, falling investment in coal-fired generation and slowing power demand growth could see China's miners export some of their surplus output at competitive prices, hitting regional miners and the viability of new projects. "China is kicking its coal addiction," said Chen Yafei, vice-director at the China Coal Research Institute.
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| Poland seeks to make 'coal' a less dirty word at U.N. climate talks Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:41 PM PST  By Agnieszka Barteczko and Alister Doyle WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland is struggling to make "coal" less of a dirty word as it hosts U.N. talks on slowing global warming that usually focus mostly on phasing out fossil fuels in favor of renewable energies such as solar and wind power. Coal-dependent Poland has angered environmentalists and put the United Nations in a quandary by planning a coal industry summit next week on the sidelines of November 11-22 U.N. talks among 200 nations seeking ways to slow global warming.
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| German firm found liable in breast implants case Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:37 PM PST PARIS (AP) — A French commercial court on Thursday ordered a German product-testing company to pay damages to more than 1,600 women and six distributors after ruling that it failed to properly check silicone breast implants that turned out to be prone to leakage. |
| Two officers killed in Libya's Benghazi Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:32 PM PST  BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Gunmen killed two army officers in Benghazi in eastern Libya on Thursday, security sources said, the latest violence in the country's second-largest city despite the deployment of special forces. A captain was shot dead near a mosque, the sources said, and a former air force officer was also killed. When Prime Minister Ali Zeidan visited the port city of one million inhabitants on Monday he vowed to make its security "the highest priority of all priorities". ...
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| Chevron pipeline explodes, burns in rural Texas Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:28 PM PST  By Erwin Seba HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Chevron Corp pipeline exploded near a tiny Texas town south of Dallas on Thursday, shooting flames high in the air and prompting evacuations from nearby homes and a school district, but no injuries were reported, the company and emergency officials said The explosion south of Milford, Texas, was caused by a construction crew that accidentally drilled into a 10-inch liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) line, Tom Hemrick, director of Hill County Emergency Management, told KTVT-TV in Dallas. He said all workers were accounted for "The fire is definitely getting smaller," Hemrick said of the conflagration in an open field near Milford, a town of 700 people some 50 miles south of Dallas. By mid-afternoon Chevron confirmed Hemrick's version of events, identifying the line as a Chevron-operated West Texas LPG system near Milford.
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| Philippines typhoon death toll at 4,460: U.N., citing government Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:21 PM PST UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations, citing Philippines government figures, on Thursday put the latest death toll from powerful Typhoon Haiyan at 4,460 - almost double the last official number given, but still less than the 10,000 estimated by local authorities. "As of 13 November, the government reported that 4,460 people have died," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its daily situation report, issued out of Manila and dated November 14. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Jackie Frank) |
| As fractious Nepal drifts, regional rivals step in Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:14 PM PST  By Sanjeev Miglani and Gopal Sharma KATHMANDU (Reuters) - In August, Indian security officials tracked down one of their most-wanted militants in a mountain town in Nepal where he had told neighbors he was a traditional healer. That same month, Indian agents picked up a man they suspected was a top bomb-maker for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, this time in Nepal's southern plain. To the north, the Chinese are busy too, trying to choke off an exodus of disaffected Tibetans into Nepal and leaning on it to clamp down on the 20,000 already there. While Nepal's leaders argue and the country drifts in a prolonged state of political limbo, its giant neighbors India and China are not waiting for it to sort itself out.
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| Attacks in Libya's Benghazi kill three Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:10 PM PST  Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - Attacks in Libya's Benghazi Thursday killed an air force chaplain, a former police officer and a soldier, security officials said, the latest in a wave of violence targeting security forces. Sheikh Muftah al-Fitouri, who preached at the city's Benina air base, was killed when an explosive device attached underneath his car detonated on Thursday morning, the official said. In Benghazi's Al-Lithi area, gunmen also shot dead Omar al-Orfi, who served in former dictator Moamer Kadhafi's internal security agency, the source added.
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| Ghana's prisons "inhuman, cruel": UN representative Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:07 PM PST  Squalid conditions, poor food and overcrowding in Ghana's prisons amount to "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment," a UN special representative said on Thursday. The comments by Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, came in the wake of a Human Rights Watch report released last year that criticised mental health care in Ghana for its reliance on forced confinement in harsh conditions. "If there is inadequate food, if there is inadequate medical treatment, if there are unsanitary conditions, those are by definition cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" and in violation of the UN Convention Against Torture, which Ghana has ratified, he added.
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| Israel detains Palestinian journalist Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:06 PM PST  The Reporters Without Borders watchdog on Thursday condemned Israel's arrest and continuing detention of a Palestinian journalist working for the Arabic-language Al-Quds newspaper in Jerusalem. Mohamed Jamal Abu Khdeir was arrested on November 6 on charges of endangering Israeli national security, the watchdog said. A gag order was also placed on coverage of Khdeir's case in Israeli media on November 10, and will remain in place until November 19. "We call for Khdeir's immediate release and the lifting of the gag order on Israeli media coverage of his detention," the watchdog urged.
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| Five killed in Sudan friendly-fire shooting Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:04 PM PST  Friendly fire killed five members of the Sudanese security forces Thursday in South Kordofan state, where troops are battling an insurgency, the military said. Guards protecting a local district chief "erroneously opened fire on a patrol of the armed forces," spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad was quoted by the official SUNA news agency as saying. For two years the government has been battling rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) in South Kordofan.
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| Canada child porn probe led to hundreds of arrests: police Posted: 14 Nov 2013 01:00 PM PST  Ottawa (AFP) - A child pornography bust in Toronto two years ago has led to the arrests of 341 people and the rescue of 386 sexually abused children around the world, police announced Thursday.
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| Israel accelerates controversial park project Posted: 14 Nov 2013 12:53 PM PST  Jerusalem (AFP) - The Israeli government has accelerated a project for a national park between two Palestinian villages near annexed east Jerusalem to stop Palestinians building in the area, Israeli daily Haaretz reported Thursday.
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| Obama: we deserved to be 'slapped' over health rollout Posted: 14 Nov 2013 12:50 PM PST  Barack Obama admitted Thursday he deserved to be "slapped around" over the chaotic debut of his health care law, and pledged to work hard to restore confidence in his reeling presidency. Obama, with his approval rating tanking and fellow Democrats in open revolt, promised to fix website and coverage failures that have hampered the rollout of the new law and sparked an opening for gleeful Republicans. "These are two fumbles on ... a big game, but the game's not over," Obama said, announcing a plan to make good on his discredited promise that Americans who liked their existing health care plans could keep them. "Had I been informed, I wouldn't be going out saying, 'Boy, this is going to be great,'" Obama said, though he warned that buying health care was a complicated business and was "never going to be like buying a song on iTunes."
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| Libya 'seeks to make its laws more Islamic' Posted: 14 Nov 2013 12:41 PM PST  Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - Libya is seeking to revise existing legislation to make it conform more to Islamic sharia law, a justice ministry document obtained by AFP shows. The text announces the establishment of a "committee charged with revising current legislation and to propose amendments that would not contradict the fundamental rules and regulations of Islamic law". The committee, which would be chaired by a judge, would also include professors from Islamic universities, according to the document. Legislation amended by the committee would then be presented before Libya's top legislative authority the General National Congress for adoption.
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| EU officials welcome end of aid for Ireland, Spain Posted: 14 Nov 2013 12:41 PM PST  BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union officials welcomed the end of bailout support for Spain and Ireland, saying that showed the effectiveness of more than four years of efforts to cut excessive government debt.
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| Mozambique seeks to assuage concern over bond deal Posted: 14 Nov 2013 12:40 PM PST  Mozambique scrambled to reassure angry donors and investors on Thursday that a $850 million state-backed bond issue earmarked to pay for tuna trawlers is not being used to buy military equipment. The bonds were issued ostensibly to pay for a flotilla of 27 vessels in a deal facilitated by Credit Suisse and Russia's VTB Bank. The International Monetary Fund is among those now expressing concern that the money will in part be used to buy boats which can be equipped with artillery cannons, machine guns and even aerial drones. Shortly after the bond sale Abu Dhabi-owned French shipyard CMN announced an agreement with Mozambique to build a flotilla of 30 boats including 24 trawlers.
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