| Protesters fell Lenin statue, tell Ukraine's president 'you're next' Posted: 08 Dec 2013 12:01 PM PST By Gareth Jones and Alissa de Carbonnel KIEV (Reuters) - Anti-government protesters toppled a statue of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine's capital and attacked it with hammers on Sunday in a symbolic challenge to President Viktor Yanukovich and his plans for closer ties with Russia. The gesture rejecting Moscow's historic influence over Ukraine came after opposition leaders told hundreds of thousands of demonstrators on Kiev's Independence Square to keep up pressure on Yanukovich to sack his government. |
| U.N. inspectors visit Iranian site linked to nuclear program Posted: 08 Dec 2013 11:30 AM PST  U.N. inspectors visited an Iranian plant on Sunday linked to a planned heavy-water reactor that could yield nuclear bomb fuel, taking up an initial offer by Tehran to open its disputed nuclear program to greater scrutiny. The increased transparency is the result of a thaw in relations between Iran and the West that culminated in a deal struck last month under which Tehran is to curb its nuclear program in return for some easing of sanctions. Iran's heavy water work is a big concern for the West because it could be used in the process of making a nuclear bomb. Tehran says its program is for peaceful purposes.
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| South Africans remember Mandela with praise and prayers Posted: 08 Dec 2013 07:13 AM PST  By Ed Cropley and Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - With hymns and eulogies, South Africans of all colors and creeds remembered Nelson Mandela in a day of prayers on Sunday, holding him up as a symbol of freedom, forgiveness and hope for the nation and the world. Mandela, South Africa's first black president who steered his nation out of apartheid and into multi-racial democracy, died on Thursday at the age of 95 after months of illness. Crowds have piled flowers, candles, balloons and messages outside his Johannesburg home. At the cavernous Regina Mundi church in Soweto, South Africa's largest Catholic Church, hundreds of mourners, young and old, gathered to pray for Mandela and the nation's future.
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| North Korea says Kim's uncle dismissed for 'criminal acts' Posted: 08 Dec 2013 02:16 PM PST  North Korea announced on Monday the dismissal of Jang Song Thaek, the once powerful uncle of leader Kim Jong Un, for what it described as a string of criminal acts including corruption, womanising and drug-taking. South Korea's spy agency last week said it believed Jang, long regarded as the second most powerful man in the secretive state, had been relieved of his posts in November. The sacking means Pyongyang is undergoing its biggest leadership upheaval since the death in 2011 of former leader Kim Jong Il, the younger Kim's father. "Jang and his followers committed criminal acts baffling imagination and they did tremendous harm to our party and revolution," the North's KCNA news agency said in a report following a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party politburo on Sunday.
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| Brash Florence mayor Renzi wins centre-left leadership Posted: 08 Dec 2013 02:06 PM PST  By Steve Scherer ROME (Reuters) - Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi won a primary vote to become leader of Italy's center-left Democratic Party (PD), preliminary results showed on Sunday, giving him influence over the fragile coalition government and the timing of the next elections. "With the new secretary, Matteo Renzi, we will work together with team spirit that will be productive for the country and the center left," Letta said in a statement after Renzi's victory.
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| Venezuela local vote tests President Maduro's strength Posted: 08 Dec 2013 04:48 PM PST  By Daniel Wallis and Andrew Cawthorne CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelans voted in municipal elections on Sunday that were the biggest political test yet for President Nicolas Maduro as he tries to halt an economic slide and preserve the socialist legacy of his late mentor, Hugo Chavez. The outcome of ballots to choose 337 mayors and about 2,500 councillors will be seen as a sign of Maduro's strength, nine months after Chavez died from cancer and he narrowly beat opposition leader Henrique Capriles to win the presidency. In Caracas shantytowns and elsewhere, pro-Maduro activists woke up supporters before dawn with bugle calls and trumpets in an election mobilization tactic begun under Chavez. "It's important to vote though I don't think it will bring the changes I want," said graphic designer Antonella Gutierrez, 45, voting at a primary school in a pro-opposition upscale suburb of Caracas nestled under the Avila mountain.
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| Ancient farming seen curbing extinctions of animals, plants Posted: 08 Dec 2013 05:02 PM PST Ancient farming practices, such as raising fish in rice paddies in China or Aboriginal Australian fire controls, will get a new lease of life under plans to slow extinctions of animals and plants, experts said on Monday. Turning to traditional farming is seen as a way of limiting what U.N. studies say is the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago, driven by a rising human population that is wrecking natural habitats. A 115-nation group seeking to protect the diversity of wildlife, which underpins everything from food supplies to medicines, will look at ways to revive and promote indigenous peoples' practices at talks in Turkey from December 9-14. "Indigenous and local knowledge ... has played a key role in arresting biodiversity loss and conserving biodiversity," Zakri Abdul Hamid, founding chair of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), told Reuters. |
| North Korea purges Kim Jong Un's powerful uncle Posted: 08 Dec 2013 04:47 PM PST  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Monday acknowledged the purge of leader Kim Jong Un's influential uncle for alleged corruption, drug use, gambling and a long list of other "anti-state" acts, apparently ending the career of the country's second most powerful official.
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| Thai capital braces for protests Posted: 08 Dec 2013 04:41 PM PST  BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's capital braced for another wave of unrest Monday as protesters trying to overthrow the country's democratically elected government vowed to swarm Bangkok's streets for a "final showdown." The demonstrations come one day after the main opposition party resigned from Parliament en masse, exacerbating the nation's deep political divide.
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| Netanyahu missing Mandela memorial for cost reasons Posted: 08 Dec 2013 04:41 PM PST  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided not to attend a memorial service for Nelson Mandela this week because it is too expensive to travel to South Africa, Israeli media reported Sunday. Netanyahu had notified the South African authorities that he would fly in but cancelled his plans at the last minute due to the costs involved -- around 7.0 million shekels ($2 million) for his transport and security alone, pubic radio and the Haaretz daily reported. More than 50 heads of state and government have confirmed their intentions to travel to South Africa to pay their respects to the anti-apartheid hero who died last Thursday, South Africa's foreign ministry has said. US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle will be among 80,000 people attending a vast memorial service Tuesday in the Soweto sports stadium that hosted the 2010 World Cup final.
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| Venezuela municipal elections a test for Chavez heir Posted: 08 Dec 2013 04:25 PM PST  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro faced a big test Sunday as municipal polls, seen as a referendum on his performance amid soaring crime, high inflation and household shortages, closed. Maduro, the handpicked heir of leftist icon Hugo Chavez, was narrowly elected to office in April, one month after his popular predecessor died of cancer. Shortly before the end of the twelve-hour voting window, the National Electoral Council (CNE) estimated in a tweet that more than 50 percent of Venezuelans had voted, the same proportion seen in recent years. After casting his ballot in the capital Caracas, Maduro called on citizens to "respect" the outcome of the vote as the "decision of the people."
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| Netanyahu urges world powers to take tough line on final Iran deal Posted: 08 Dec 2013 03:42 PM PST By Matt Spetalnick and Allyn Fisher-Ilan WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday pressed world powers to take a hard line with Iran in negotiations for a final nuclear deal, urging them to demand that Tehran abandon all uranium enrichment, halt its ballistic missile program and end a "genocidal" anti-Israel policy. One day after President Barack Obama deemed it unrealistic to believe Iran could be compelled to dismantle its entire nuclear infrastructure, Netanyahu said Tehran should have to take apart all centrifuges used to refine uranium, despite its insistence it would never agree to do so. Netanyahu, deeply skeptical over an interim six-month deal reached with Iran in Geneva in late November, also suggested that the imposition of new sanctions could help the West secure a "better deal" in the next round of negotiations. |
| North Korea says Kim's uncle removed from power Posted: 08 Dec 2013 03:22 PM PST SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Monday acknowledged the purge of leader Kim Jong Un's influential uncle for alleged corruption, drug use, gambling and a long list of other "anti-state" acts, apparently ending the career of the country's second most powerful official. |
| Renzi elected Italian left's new leader Posted: 08 Dec 2013 03:15 PM PST  Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi won a resounding victory Sunday in the race to lead Italy's centre-left Democratic Party, part of the coalition government. The 38-year-old Renzi, who just a year ago was a virtual unknown in Italian politics, trounced rivals Gianni Cuperlo, a party apparatchik, and Giuseppe "Pippo" Civati with around 68 percent of the vote. The election of Renzi, who has said he takes inspiration from Tony Blair and Barack Obama, marks a transformation for the Democratic Party given his youth and the fact that he did not rise through the ranks of what was once Europe's largest communist party.
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| Venezuelan president faces first electoral test Posted: 08 Dec 2013 02:58 PM PST  CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans cast ballots in municipal elections Sunday, offering a glimpse of their judgment on the government's handling of economic troubles as President Nicolas Maduro faced his first electoral test since being elected in April.
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| Spain PM urges greater European integration Posted: 08 Dec 2013 02:49 PM PST  Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy urged more unity for Europe and said a banking union for the region should be finalised this month, El Pais reported in an interview published on its website late on Sunday. Spanish politicians are not impervious to the consequences of corruption, Rajoy told El Pais, and he denied any parallel accounting in his party in relation to a slush fund scandal that has dogged the center-right People's Party this year. The country recently tumbled 10 places to rank 40th in a global index of perceived official corruption following a spate of scandals in the ruling People's Party and the royal family. Spain was at the heart of the euro zone debt crisis last year, but emerged from recession in the third quarter and is funding itself comfortably on the money markets once more following a European Central Bank pledge to defend the euro at all costs.
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| Gut wins Lake Louise super-G Posted: 08 Dec 2013 02:38 PM PST  Lake Louise (Canada) (AFP) - Switzerland's Lara Gut won a women's alpine World Cup super-G on Sunday as American Lindsey Vonn's injury comeback gathered steam. Gut clocked 1min 22.86sec to edge Liechtenstein's Tina Weirather by just 0.03sec. Austrian Anna Fenninger was third, 0.33sec behind the winner.
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| Dutch premier's Israel trip hit by Gaza row Posted: 08 Dec 2013 02:35 PM PST  A visit to Israel by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte Sunday was marred by a dispute over a new security scanner on the Gaza border, an Israeli official said. "Installation of the Dutch scanner, which would have been used to verify the contents of containers from Gaza destined for export, was postponed after the Netherlands made unexpected demands," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Technically, there is no problem about the scanner at the Kerem Shalom crossing through which goods originating in Gaza pass," the official said. "But the Dutch suddenly imposed political conditions, notably on the percentage of merchandise destined for the West Bank or abroad.
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| Watchdog warns of delay in moving Syria chemical weapons Posted: 08 Dec 2013 02:31 PM PST  The world's chemical watchdog said Sunday that the transportation of Syria's chemical arsenal out of the country could be delayed by a few days due to technical difficulties. A roadmap adopted earlier this month by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to rid Syria of its chemical stockpile, says "priority" weapons have to be removed from the country by December 31. "This may not be possible perhaps because of the technical issues that we have encountered," OPCW director Ahmet Uzumcu said on arrival in Oslo, where he will on Tuesday receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of his organisation. Despite the possible hold-up, Uzumcu said he was "confident that we will be able to meet the deadline of June 2014 to destroy all chemical weapons in Syria".
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| Drones, Taliban on agenda as Hagel heads to Pakistan Posted: 08 Dec 2013 02:25 PM PST  Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel heads to Pakistan on Monday for talks as Washington seeks to defuse tensions over controversial US drone strikes and Islamabad's role in Afghanistan. In the first visit by a US defence secretary in nearly four years, Hagel will fly from Kabul to Islamabad to meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other top officials, including the country's new army chief.
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| South Africans of all faiths pray for Mandela Posted: 08 Dec 2013 02:00 PM PST  CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — In death, Nelson Mandela unified South Africans of all races and backgrounds Sunday on a day of prayer for the global statesman — from a vaulted cathedral with hymns and incense to a rural, hilltop church with goat-skin drums and barefoot dancing.
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| Winter storm pushes up U.S. East Coast after deep-freeze in the South Posted: 08 Dec 2013 01:57 PM PST A massive winter storm that left parts of Southeastern United States in a deep freeze was pushing up the East Coast on Sunday, with snow and ice snarling road travel and forcing another round of airline cancellations. The storm system dropped between 3 and 6 inches of snow on West Virginia early Sunday before blanketing the Washington, D.C., metro area with its first accumulation of the season. Marching north, it was expected to pummel the East Coast with snow, sleet, and freezing rain from Baltimore to north of Portland, Maine, according to the National Weather Service. The storm system coated roads and highways from Virginia through southeastern Pennsylvania with snow and ice, and reduced visibility made car travel treacherous. |
| France tries to rewrite its role in Africa Posted: 08 Dec 2013 01:46 PM PST  PARIS (AP) — France is coming to the rescue again, deploying soldiers in a former African colony to help stave off catastrophe — dirty work that Paris says it doesn't really want. France has its eyes on a dynamic new Africa that is creating jobs, not conflicts.
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| Six held over new claims of English match-fixing Posted: 08 Dec 2013 01:42 PM PST  Six people have been arrested following fresh allegations of match-fixing in English football, authorities announced Sunday, with media reports suggesting that even next year's World Cup could be a target. Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) said it had acted on information passed on by the Sun on Sunday tabloid. The paper said an undercover reporter had met former Portsmouth player Sam Sodje, who allegedly boasted he'd arranged for a player in English football's second-tier Championship to get themselves a yellow card in return for £30,000 ($49,000, 36,000 euros). It also alleged the 34-year-old Sodje had said he could rig Premier League matches and that the former Nigeria international, who played in the Premier League for Reading, was preparing to rig fixtures at next year's World Cup finals in Brazil.
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| Dynasty's Congress party punished in Indian state elections Posted: 08 Dec 2013 01:35 PM PST  India's Congress party was headed for a bruising defeat in key state elections, including in the capital, early results showed on Sunday, underlining the struggle it will face to cling to power in a national election due by May. Congress, led by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has ruled India for most of the 66 years since independence, is facing widespread anger at corruption and high inflation after two successive terms at the head of a national coalition. The center-left party's main opponent, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was the clear winner in three big states that went to the polls, though with the count still on it was a neck-and-neck race in a fourth. Markets are closely tracking the outcome of the polls, seen as a test of support the BJP's business-friendly candidate for prime minister, Narendra Modi. Bond, rupee and share prices rose last week after exit polls predicted a strong BJP performance.
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| India's ruling party stumbles as opponent Modi marches on Posted: 08 Dec 2013 01:35 PM PST By Sruthi Gottipati and Mike Collett-White NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's ruling Congress party has a very big problem, and his name is Narendra Modi. Results from local elections in four states, announced on Sunday, suggest Modi, chief minister of economic powerhouse Gujarat in the west of the country since 2001, has helped galvanise his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). With most votes counted, the BJP retained Madhya Pradesh and ousted Congress in Rajasthan, while the state of Chhattisgarh was on a knife-edge. In Delhi, the BJP is set to be the biggest party, with Congress pushed from first to third place by an impressive debut from the anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party. |
| French troops set to begin rebel disarmament in C.Africa Posted: 08 Dec 2013 01:32 PM PST  Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - France said its troops will begin to disarm rebels in the Central African Republic on Monday, as terrified residents in the capital Bangui holed up in their homes after a wave of sectarian violence left nearly 400 dead. Speaking on Sunday evening, the French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned that the operation to disarm rebel groups would begin "tomorrow morning". "The period of impunity is over," he said, speaking on French radio station RTL. French army spokesman Colonel Gilles Jaron said the contingent had reached its full strength of 1,600 by Sunday and troops were on patrol "throughout" Bangui as well as other towns and forest areas.
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| Bittersweet Guantanamo transfer follows decade-long battle Posted: 08 Dec 2013 01:26 PM PST  Lawyer Robert Kirsch fought tooth and nail for a decade to free his clients from Guantanamo Bay prison, but the forced transfer of the last one to Algeria was bittersweet. After 12 years behind bars at the US naval base in southern Cuba, Belkacem Bensayah was sent back to Algeria on Thursday, where he fears for his life and no longer has any relatives. Kirsch expressed "great frustration" and "anger" at the Pentagon's decision to send Bensayah and another long-held Algerian detainee, Djamel Ameziane, back to their country of origin against their will. Bensayah, 51, was the last of Kirsch's six Guantanamo clients known as the "Algerian Six." They were arrested in Bosnia in late 2001 and were among the first to arrive when Guantanamo opened in January 2002.
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| Ukraine sees largest anti-govt protest since 2004 Posted: 08 Dec 2013 01:09 PM PST  KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Ukraine's capital on Sunday, toppling a statue of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and blockading key government buildings in an escalating standoff with the president over the future of the country.
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| Hezbollah commander killed in Syria, civilians 'executed' Posted: 08 Dec 2013 12:54 PM PST  A Hezbollah commander was killed in battle in Syria on Sunday, as a monitoring group accused regime forces of executing five civilians during fierce fighting near the Lebanon border. The death of the Hezbollah commander came as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces advanced in the key town of Nabuk, one of the last rebel-held areas of the strategic Qalamoun region along the Lebanese border. A key member of the Syrian opposition meanwhile said the National Coalition would make a "final decision" later this month on whether to attend a Geneva peace conference planned for January 22 and aimed at ending the nearly three-year-old conflict. Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite movement, has lost scores of fighters since it joined Assad in battling the Sunni-led rebels, inflaming sectarian tensions on both sides of the border.
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| Colombian FARC rebels declare 30-day unilateral ceasefire Posted: 08 Dec 2013 12:52 PM PST  Colombia's FARC rebels declared a 30-day unilateral ceasefire Sunday and urged the government to do the same, in a surprise move after a deadly bombing blamed on the guerrillas. The announcement, effective December 15, came in a statement issued in the Cuban capital where the FARC and Bogota are in talks to end their bloody decades-long conflict. "In a unilateral manner we order all our units... to cease fire and hostilities for 30 days," said the statement read to reporters by FARC spokesman Pablo Catatumbo. But at the same time, the FARC ordered its fighters to "remain alert for any enemy operations" and to respond to these "without delay."
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| France to start disarming Central African Republic fighters on Monday Posted: 08 Dec 2013 12:51 PM PST  By Emmanuel Braun and Paul-Marin Ngoupana BANGUI (Reuters) - France said it will start disarming fighters in the Central African Republic by force if necessary on Monday, as relative calm returned to the capital Bangui following three days of heavy fighting between Christians and Muslims. Residents reported sporadic gunfire from some Bangui neighbourhoods on Sunday after the violence in which the Red Cross said at least 394 people had died. Despite a government order for gunmen to return to their barracks, a Reuters reporter saw soldiers in camouflage fatigues driving around in pickup trucks near the presidential palace and in clear view of French troops, deployed to the country under United Nations authorisation. Central African Republic has slid into chaos as interim president Michel Djotodia struggled to control his loose band of Seleka fighters, who have attacked members of the Christian majority and prompted them to organise militias.
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| New protests at Egypt's Al-Azhar university Posted: 08 Dec 2013 12:39 PM PST  CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian police fired tear gas Sunday in an attempt to disperse supporters of the country's ousted Islamist president protesting at the dormitories of an Islamic university in Cairo.
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| Netanyahu says military option 'necessary' on Iran Posted: 08 Dec 2013 12:36 PM PST  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that a "military option" was "necessary" for the success of negotiations aimed at reining in Iran's disputed nuclear program. Netanyahu said the Jewish state shared US President Barack Obama's "preference" to pursue diplomacy "but for diplomacy to succeed, it must be coupled with powerful sanctions and a credible military threat." "A diplomatic solution is better than a military option but a military option is necessary for diplomacy to succeed as a powerful sanction because of the pressure," he told a forum hosted by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. Netanyahu's remarks follow a landmark deal between world powers and Tehran under which the Islamic state will freeze or curb some of its atomic activities in return for limited relief from crippling international sanctions.
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| Kurdish protesters clash with police in Turkey Posted: 08 Dec 2013 12:27 PM PST  Diyarbakir (Turkey) (AFP) - Police and demonstrators clashed in Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey on Sunday as tensions mounted following the deaths Friday of two Kurdish protesters. Police fired tear gas and water cannons to break up a demonstration by around 5,000 protesters brandishing effigies of the jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan in the main town of Diyarbakir. Around a dozen people, including four police officers, were wounded and at least five protesters were arrested. The local governor's office has denied the destruction of these cemeteries, where fighters from Ocalan's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are buried.
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| Car bomb attacks across Iraq kill at least 39 Posted: 08 Dec 2013 12:26 PM PST  By Kareem Raheem BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Car bombs killed at least 39 people across Iraq on Sunday and wounded more than 120, mainly targeting busy commercial streets in and around the capital, police sources said. The deadliest attack took place in the predominantly Shi'ite Muslim district of Bayaa in Baghdad, when a bomb in a parked vehicle exploded near car workshops, killing seven and wounding 14, the sources said. An attack on another car workshop in the Sunni district of Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, killed three and wounded 10 after nightfall. Violence in Iraq is at the highest level in at least five years and the capital has been targeted almost daily.
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