| U.S. aircraft hit by gunfire in South Sudan as conflict worsens Posted: 21 Dec 2013 02:25 PM PST  By Carl Odera JUBA (Reuters) - Three U.S. aircraft came under fire from unidentified forces on Saturday while trying to evacuate Americans from a spiraling conflict in South Sudan. The U.S. military said four of its members were wounded in the attacks. Nearly a week of fighting in South Sudan threatens to drag the world's newest country into a Dinka-Nuer ethnic civil war just two years after it won independence from Sudan with strong support from successive U.S. administrations. Consequently, U.S. President Barack Obama warned that any move to take power by military means would lead to an end of U.S. and international community support for South Sudan.
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| Car bomb kills six, wounds up to 15 outside Libya's Benghazi: medical sources Posted: 21 Dec 2013 04:59 PM PST BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded at an army base outside Benghazi in eastern Libya, killing at least six people and wounding up to 15 on Sunday, medical sources said. All those killed were soldiers, the sources said. (Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Sandra Maler) |
| India transfers diplomat to U.N. in bid to defuse row with U.S. Posted: 21 Dec 2013 08:53 AM PST  By Sanjeev Miglani NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India said on Saturday that it had transferred the diplomat at the center of a row with the United States to its U.N. delegation, a move that it hopes will give her protection from prosecution for visa fraud and underpaying a maid. Whether the accreditation of Devyani Khobragade as a member of India's U.N. mission leads to a way out of the dispute could depend on the U.S. State Department approving her transfer. Asoke Mukherji, India's ambassador to the United Nations, said he had written to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon informing him of the 39-year-old diplomat's transfer. The world's two largest democracies have been at loggerheads for the past week, amid mounting outrage in India over the arrest of Khobragade, who was strip-searched and handcuffed while in custody.
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| Freed from jail, Khodorkovsky reunited with family in Berlin Posted: 21 Dec 2013 04:41 PM PST  By Michelle Martin and Lidia Kelly BERLIN/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was reunited with family members in Berlin on Saturday, a day after he was released from a decade-long jail term during which he became one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critics. Khodorkovsky, 50, was released from a remote prison near the Arctic Circle on Friday after Putin pardoned him with the stroke of a pen. He immediately flew to Berlin, where he was joined by his relatives, including his elderly parents, Marina and Boris, on Saturday. "My family is finally reunited and we're very, very happy to be together after the 10 years of separation," his son Pavel Khodorkovsky, who arrived from the United States, said outside the Adlon Hotel in the German capital.
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| Cuba president notes tone of recent relations with U.S. Posted: 21 Dec 2013 02:03 PM PST  By Marc Frank HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Raul Castro on Saturday called on the United States to establish civilized relations with his country, recognizing a new tone in bilateral talks on secondary issues while reiterating that the country's political and economic system were non-negotiable. The United States and Cuba have appeared more positive of late as talks around immigration, postal services, disaster prevention and other security issues have taken place, with officials from both countries cautiously welcoming each other's pragmatism and seriousness in interviews with Reuters. Castro said that "a civilized relationship between both countries" was something "our people and the immense majority of U.S. citizens and Cuban immigrants desire." Castro's speech came just two weeks after he and U.S. President Barack Obama shook hands at a memorial for the late Nelson Mandela. U.S. and Cuban officials overcame a series of potentially divisive incidents this summer, including the interception of a shipment of Cuban weapons headed for North Korea, with mutual displays of prudent diplomacy rarely seen since the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power.
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| Arab report slams U.S. security ideas for Palestine Posted: 21 Dec 2013 08:34 AM PST  The Arab League on Saturday rejected U.S. proposals that would allow Israeli soldiers to be stationed on the eastern border of a future Palestinian state, underscoring the challenge facing a U.S. effort to wrap up a peace deal by April. At an emergency meeting called at the request of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said there could be not one Israeli soldier in the territory of a future Palestine. The report, seen by Reuters, said the U.S. security proposals "achieved Israeli security expansionist demands, and guaranteed (Israel's) continued control of (the Jordan Valley) on the security pretext". Israel says its troops have to remain there to prevent arms and militants entering the West Bank.
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| Sweet sixteen is perfect for Celtic Posted: 21 Dec 2013 04:39 PM PST  Celtic assistant manager Johan Mjallby says his side are taking great pride in their unbeaten 16-match start to the Scottish Premiership season. The Hoops extended their run with a 2-0 win over Hearts at Celtic Park on Saturday, to open a 10-point lead at the top of the table. And the Hoops assistant boss was delighted to see the current crop of Parkhead stars equal that feat as they look to get over their disappointment of exiting Europe. "It is great, obviously we did exceptionally well in Europe last year in the Champions League, maybe not this year.
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| Graeme Swann quits international cricket Posted: 21 Dec 2013 04:36 PM PST  England spinner Graeme Swann has announced he is retiring from international cricket with immediate effect, team officials said in Melbourne on Sunday. "After a great deal of consideration I have decided to call it a day on my international and first class career," Swann said in a statement. "This decision has been very difficult seeing as the England team has been my family for seven years now, but I feel that now is the right time to step down."
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| Possible tornado injures several people in Arkansas Posted: 21 Dec 2013 04:32 PM PST (Reuters) - A possible tornado in eastern Arkansas injured several people and damaged a few homes on Saturday near the town of Hughes, officials said The wind storm struck at about 4 p.m., said dispatcher Lynn Morgan of the Saint Francis County Sheriff's Office. Tommy Jackson, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, said one person was seriously hurt and two suffered lesser injuries in the storm. The storm has not yet been classified as a tornado by the National Weather Service and no other possible tornadoes had been reported on Saturday in the state, he said. The possible tornado struck a few miles (km) west of Hughes, a town of 1,400 people about 20 miles southwest of Memphis near the eastern border of Arkansas, officials said. |
| 3 US military aircraft hit in S. Sudan, 4 wounded Posted: 21 Dec 2013 04:18 PM PST  NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Gunfire hit three U.S. military aircraft trying to evacuate American citizens in a remote region of South Sudan that on Saturday became a battle ground between the country's military and renegade troops, officials said. Four U.S. service members were wounded in the attack in the same region where gunfire downed a U.N. helicopter the day before.
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| Obama keeps eye on tense situation in South Sudan Posted: 21 Dec 2013 04:17 PM PST HONOLULU (AP) — President Barack Obama said Saturday that continued violence and militancy in South Sudan would cost the world's newest country the support of the United States and other nations. |
| Things you didn't know about reindeer Posted: 21 Dec 2013 03:34 PM PST  HELSINKI (AP) — Reindeer are featured on Christmas cards and in movies worldwide this time of year, galloping across the sky with Santa's sleigh in tow.
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| British TV chef Nigella Lawson faces drugs probe Posted: 21 Dec 2013 03:20 PM PST  British celebrity chef Nigella Lawson faces a police investigation into claims of cocaine use which emerged during her personal assistants' fraud trial after a U-turn by Scotland Yard, the Sunday Telegraph reported. Italian sisters Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo were cleared Friday of fraudulently spending £685,000 ($1.12 million, 820,000 euros) on a company credit card owned by Lawson's then-husband, the millionaire art collector Charles Saatchi. Following the verdict, London's Metropolitan Police said they would not be investigating allegations of drug use by the 53-year-old. But Commander Stephen Watson on Saturday told the Telegraph that he didn't think "the full colour of the Metropolitan Police Service's position was conveyed in that statement".
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| Mozambique airline captain 'intentionally' crashed: probe Posted: 21 Dec 2013 03:03 PM PST  A Mozambican Airlines captain had a "clear intention" to crash an airplane that went down in Namibia killing 33 at the end of November, according to a preliminary investigation reported Saturday. Flight recorders showed flight TM470 went down on November 29 while Captain Herminio dos Santos Fernandes manipulated the Embraer 190's autopilot in a way which "denotes a clear intention" to bring the plane down, said Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (IACM) head Joao Abreu. It was flying from the Mozambican capital Maputo to Luanda in Angola. Abreu told a news conference that Dos Santos Fernandes locked himself inside the cockpit, ignored warning signals and did not allow his co-pilot back in moments before the Embraer 190 hit the ground.
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| Bulgaria warns migration laws risk Britain's reputation Posted: 21 Dec 2013 03:01 PM PST  Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev on Saturday warned Prime Minister David Cameron his tough rhetoric and policies on immigration risked damaging Britain's reputation and leaving it isolated. Plevneliev told The Observer newspaper that Britain should see itself as "a great global power that pioneered integration" and resist nationalist calls for hard laws to limit immigration. Cameron recently announced that he would rush through legislation banning migrants from other EU countries from claiming unemployment and housing benefits until they have been in Britain for three months as part of a package of measures to restrict "benefit tourism". "Isolating Britain and damaging Britain's reputation is not the right history to write," warned Plevneliev, in an interview published on the British paper's online edition.
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| Memorials mark Lockerbie attack anniversary Posted: 21 Dec 2013 02:58 PM PST ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Families of some of the 270 people who died in an airliner bombing 25 years ago gathered for memorial services Saturday in the United States and Britain, honoring victims of a terror attack that killed dozens of American college students and created instant havoc in the Scottish town where wreckage of the plane rained down. |
| Body of British doctor who died in Syria returned to family Posted: 21 Dec 2013 02:57 PM PST  The body of a British doctor who died in Syrian custody was handed over to his family and British officials in Lebanon Saturday as relatives said the regime killed him. Human Rights Watch also piled the pressure on Syrian authorities, accusing the government of "wreaking disaster" in deadly air raids on second city Aleppo. On the diplomatic front, peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held talks with the foreign minister of Syria's ally Iran, after negotiators failed to agree on a role for Tehran in a peace conference. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Doctor Abbas Khan's body was brought out of Syria and given to his family and British officials in Beirut.
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| Third British evacuation plane planned for S. Sudan Posted: 21 Dec 2013 02:49 PM PST  London (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Britain's Foreign Office on Saturday announced plans to send a "third and final" flight to evacuate its nationals from South Sudan as fighting intensified in the fledgling nation. "Due to the continued violence in South Sudan, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is planning to send a third and final plane to assist any remaining British nationals to leave," said a ministry statement. The charter flight will depart from capital Juba for Dubai on Monday afternoon. A Royal Air Force C-17 military transport plane on Friday evacuated 93 people from Juba to Uganda.
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| Flood exit set to put World Cup spot in jeopardy Posted: 21 Dec 2013 02:45 PM PST  England fly-half Toby Flood will leave Leicester Tigers after all at the end of the season, the English Premiership giants director of rugby Richard Cockerill confirmed on Saturday. The 28-year-old -- capped 60 times but who is behind Owen Farrell in the pecking order for the number one England spot -- is likely to sign for four-time European Cup winners Toulouse. That, though, would rule him out of the 2015 World Cup -- being hosted by England -- as the Rugby Football Union have a policy of not selecting players not playing in England.
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| Castro tells US to drop the demands on political front Posted: 21 Dec 2013 02:30 PM PST  President Raul Castro warned Saturday his country could remain estranged from the United States for decades if Washington does not drop political demands. "If we really want to make progress in bilateral relations, we have to learn to respect each other's differences and get used to living peacefully with them. Castro, 82, recently made world headlines for simply sharing a handshake with US President Barack Obama at the funeral of South Africa's iconic anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela. The United States and Cuba do not have full bilateral relations.
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| Raul Castro issues stern warning to entrepreneurs Posted: 21 Dec 2013 01:36 PM PST HAVANA (AP) — President Raul Castro issued a stern warning to entrepreneurs pushing the boundaries of Cuba's economic reform, telling parliament on Saturday that "those pressuring us to move faster are moving us toward failure." |
| Hundreds protest France nuclear firm in Niger Posted: 21 Dec 2013 12:50 PM PST  Up to 1,000 demonstrators marched in the Niger capital Niamey on Saturday to protest their country's "unbalanced" partnership with nuclear firm Areva as the French giant negotiates a new uranium mining agreement with the government. The protesters, including students, rights activists and politicians, chanted "Down with Areva!" and "No to a win-lose contract" as they made their way from the parliament building to the Areva offices, where they were held back by a police cordon. Areva's contract to extract uranium in the west African country expires on December 31, after more than four decades of mining at two sites on the southern edge of the Sahara, with a third under development. The French group and the Niger government are locked in talks to renegotiate the terms for a further 10 years, and Niamey has been pressing for a greater share of revenue from Areva's activities.
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| Obama keeping with tense situation in South Sudan Posted: 21 Dec 2013 12:50 PM PST  HONOLULU (AP) — President Barack Obama says any effort in South Sudan to seize power through military force will lead the U.S. and others to cut off support.
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| Pope Francis visits Rome children's hospital Posted: 21 Dec 2013 12:22 PM PST  ROME (AP) — Young patients at Rome's main children's hospital have presented Pope Francis with a basket full of notes expressing their wishes, most of all to get well.
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| Iran says 'slow' progress in nuclear deal talks Posted: 21 Dec 2013 12:22 PM PST  Technical talks between Iran and world powers on how to implement a landmark nuclear deal clinched last month are making progress, but slowly, a senior Iranian negotiator said Saturday. The negotiations began Thursday in Geneva on the accord reached in the Swiss city that is aimed at buying time for a diplomatic solution to a decade-long standoff over Iran's nuclear drive. "The talks that extended to a third day are making progress but slowly," deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi, who himself is not attending the talks, told a state-run television network in Tehran. Experts had held four days of inconclusive talks in Vienna last week, but the Iranians walked out after Washington expanded its sanctions blacklist against Tehran.
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| 'Nation's survival' depends on disarmament: C. African leader Posted: 21 Dec 2013 12:20 PM PST  Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - Central African president Michel Djotodia on Saturday urged Muslim fighters backing him and the Christian vigilantes they oppose to lay down their arms, after 30 more people were killed in ongoing violence. The mainly Christian country's first Muslim president -- who holds the post on an interim basis after seizing power in a March coup -- also renewed an offer of talks with the Christian "anti-balaka" vigilantes. "A physical disarmament but also and especially a disarmament of the heart, for the survival of our nation depends on it," said Djotodia, who headed the Seleka rebel coalition. An explosion of bloodletting on December 5 had claimed nearly 1,000 lives in Bangui when ex-rebels went on a two-day rampage to avenge deadly Christian militia attacks, Amnesty International has said.
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| Putin foe Khodorkovsky meets family a free man in Berlin Posted: 21 Dec 2013 12:04 PM PST  Russia's former richest man and ardent Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky was reunited Saturday with his family after his surprise early release from a Russian prison and lightning transfer to Germany. A day after he was whisked away from his prison camp in a remote corner of northern Russia, Khodorkovsky was ensconced in one of the most luxurious hotels in the German capital. The extraordinary operation was worked out behind the scenes with the German government and came about after negotiations between German former foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Russian President Vladimir Putin. After meeting the 50-year-old ex-oil tycoon for more than an hour, Germany's Greens MP Marieluise Beck said his return to Russia was "not on the agenda" but added that she had no mandate to talk about his plans.
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| Russian oligarch Khodorkovsky reunited with family Posted: 21 Dec 2013 11:21 AM PST  BERLIN (AP) — The former oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky was reunited with his family in Berlin on Saturday, a day after being released from a decade-long imprisonment in Russia.
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| Saracens thrash Leicester despite Farrell blow Posted: 21 Dec 2013 11:12 AM PST  Premiership leaders Saracens demonstrated their title credentials with a crushing 49-10 defeat of rivals Leicester on Saturday. On an afternoon of howling wind and driving rain, Chris Ashton crossed twice, Jack Wilson, Billy Vunipola and Jackson Wray each scored tries and referee Wayne Barnes also awarded a penalty try. However, the game's closing stages were overshadowed by an injury to England fly-half Owen Farrell. It curtailed a fine performance from Farrell, who had kicked three penalties and two conversions as Saracens condemned title rivals Leicester to their heaviest defeat of the season.
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| Czech Christian Democrats accept posts in center-left coalition Posted: 21 Dec 2013 11:06 AM PST  By Robert Muller PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech Christian Democratic Party leadership accepted posts in a potential center-left coalition on Saturday, clearing the way for the prospective prime minister to present a cabinet to the president by the end of the year. The smallest party in the emerging center-left majority coalition was granted its demand to run the Agriculture Ministry along with two other cabinet positions, the Culture Ministry and a ministry without portfolio. "We have given preference to stability, so we would have a chance to start a good period for the country in the next four years," the Christian Democrat's vice chairman, Marian Jurecka, said on television. The central European country is run now by a caretaker government lacking a mandate to push through major legislation while the economy recovers from a record-long recession.
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| Body of British doctor who died in Syria returns to family Posted: 21 Dec 2013 11:03 AM PST  The body of Abbas Khan, the British doctor who died in a Syrian jail, was brought to Lebanon Saturday for repatriation and returned to his family and British officials in Beirut. In a statement, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the body was transferred to Beirut and "the British Embassy in Lebanon is expected to rapidly fly the body to London." While Syrian authorities have said Khan committed suicide in jail, his mother Fatima Khan lashed out at Damascus, blaming her son's jailers for his death. In an interview with the BBC, she said: "How come they can't differentiate between humanitarian aid worker and a terrorist?"
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| Three Yemen soldiers killed as south paralysed by unrest Posted: 21 Dec 2013 10:59 AM PST  Tribesman killed three Yemeni soldiers in an assault on a military post Saturday, as a second day of confrontations sparked by a tribal chief's death paralysed cities across the restive south. It came after police said armed clashes broke out in cities across southern Yemen, and medics said a militant wounded on Friday had died of his injuries. Tension also spiked in northern Yemen, where the Sunni Islamist Al-Islah party accused Zaidi Shiite rebels known as Huthis of abducting one of its members as fighting raged. Attacks on oil and gas pipelines are frequent in Yemen, with the government saying sabotage has cost the country $4.75 billion (3.5 billion euros) in the two years to March 2013.
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| NATO starts own talks with Afghanistan on post-2014 mission pact Posted: 21 Dec 2013 10:58 AM PST  By Adrian Croft BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO and Afghan officials started work on Saturday on drawing up a framework for the alliance to stay on after 2014 despite the fact that a separate pact with the United States, which contributes the bulk of the forces, has still not been signed. President Hamid Karzai last month defied a consensus in Afghanistan's grand assembly in favor of the security agreement with the United States, and said he would not sign unless certain conditions were met, and even then, not until after April elections. But with the clock ticking on the current 49-nation mission ending before 2015, NATO and U.S. officials have said they must have agreements in place very soon to govern what happens afterward or risk being forced to withdraw all of the 84,000 soldiers, 60,000 of whom are American. Opening negotiations now is designed to make the best use of time, said a NATO official, who asked not to be named.
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| Wyoming to fight U.S. over Indian reservation land grant Posted: 21 Dec 2013 10:47 AM PST By Laura Zuckerman SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Wyoming will challenge a U.S. government ruling that more than one million acres of the western state's land still legally belongs to two Native American tribes, Governor Matt Mead said on Friday. In a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week, Mead said he has directed the Wyoming attorney general to take aggressive action to overturn the agency's decision, which he said would adversely affect the state. The land ruling was in response to an application from two sovereign native American tribes living on the Wind River Indian Reservation to the EPA seeking the same status afforded to U.S. states in order to implement provisions of the U.S. Clean Air Act. A subsequent U.S. study found that the tribes should have access to the land, which includes the city of Riverton, that had been opened to non-tribal members under a 1905 act of Congress. |
| Fuel queues in Sudan amid concern over South's oil flow Posted: 21 Dec 2013 10:42 AM PST  Dozens of buses queued for fuel on Saturday at Khartoum-area petrol stations but an oil ministry official said there was no connection with fighting in the oil fields of South Sudan. But "so far, there is no effect" on oil moving through Sudan, Osman said.
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| Polish pranksters stop tram to film Tolkien scene Posted: 21 Dec 2013 10:42 AM PST WARSAW, Poland (AP) — It's almost like in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Fellowship of The Ring:" Gandalf stands in the way of Balrog and tells him to "go back to the shadow" to buy time for fleeing Frodo Baggins and his companions. |
| Syrian rebels seize strategic hospital in Aleppo Posted: 21 Dec 2013 10:36 AM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels seized control a strategic hospital near Aleppo, giving a boost to beleaguered anti-government forces in the northern city after days of relentless airstrikes on opposition-held neighborhoods there, activists said Saturday.
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