| Army chief Sisi in focus as Egyptians vote on constitution Posted: 14 Jan 2014 11:28 AM PST By Tom Perry and Asma Alsharif CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptians voted on Tuesday for the first time since the military deposed president Mohamed Mursi on a draft constitution that may set the stage for a presidential bid by army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. At least seven people were killed in confrontations between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and police, official sources said, highlighting the tensions in the country. A small bomb went off in Cairo, injuring no one. The Brotherhood, still backing Mursi who is now in jail, has called for a boycott and protests over the draft, which deletes Islamic language written into the basic law approved a year ago when he was still in office. |
| Israel minister apologizes to Kerry over scorn for peace drive Posted: 14 Jan 2014 03:26 PM PST By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's hawkish defense minister apologized to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday after a newspaper quoted him scorning the diplomat's quest for Israeli-Palestinian peace as messianic and obsessive. Moshe Yaalon did not deny making the closed-door remarks published on the front page of the best-selling Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, which drew rare condemnation from Washington and added to acrimony over Jewish settlement of occupied West Bank land where the Palestinians seek statehood. Yaalon was initially silent about the report but he moved to calm the furor after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implicitly rebuked him in a speech. He issued a statement of guarded appreciation for the United States and followed it hours later with another explicitly praising Kerry. |
| Russia denies visa to U.S. journalist critical of Putin Posted: 14 Jan 2014 02:12 PM PST  By Timothy Heritage and Gabriela Baczynska MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has barred a U.S. journalist critical of President Vladimir Putin from the country for five years, in a move that could upset relations with the United States and has echoes of the Cold War. Moscow's treatment of David Satter could fuel concern about freedom of speech before the Winter Olympics in Sochi next month, although Putin has tried to appease critics by freeing former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and members of the Pussy Riot protest group in the run-up to the Games. ...
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| Syrian government forces advance as rebel infighting rages Posted: 14 Jan 2014 10:31 AM PST  By Oliver Holmes BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian government has retaken territory around the northern city of Aleppo, the military said on Tuesday, after two weeks of rebel infighting that has weakened the insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad. The internecine conflict among various rebel groups will allow Assad to portray himself as the only secular alternative in Syria to a radical Islamist regime when peace talks begin in Switzerland on January 22. His military advances will give the Syrian government delegation greater leverage at the negotiating table. An army statement said government forces had pushed out from their base at Aleppo's international airport, southeast of the city, and were moving towards an industrial complex used as a rebel base and the al-Bab road, needed by insurgents to supply the half of Aleppo under their control.
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| Iraq violence kills 24, militants stage big attacks near Falluja Posted: 14 Jan 2014 11:36 AM PST By Alistair Lyon BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Sunni Muslim militants staged coordinated attacks near the western Iraqi city of Falluja on Tuesday, destroying two army tanks and capturing a police station, police said. There was no immediate word on the casualty toll from those assaults, which occurred during a standoff between the army and al Qaeda-linked militants who overran Falluja two weeks ago. Elsewhere, car bombs and shootings killed at least 24 people, mainly in the capital Baghdad, police and medics said. A suicide bomber in an explosives-laden fuel tanker blew it up under a highway bridge near the town of Saqlawiya, about 10 km (six miles) north of Falluja, causing the bridge to collapse and destroying one of two army tanks parked on top, police said. |
| Hollande stonewalls on private life to make reform pitch Posted: 14 Jan 2014 11:34 AM PST  By Mark John PARIS (Reuters) - President Francois Hollande brushed away questions about an alleged affair with an actress on Tuesday and unveiled moves to ease company taxes, cut labor charges and trim France's high public spending to revive a stagnant economy. He called for France and Germany to harmonize corporate taxation and create a joint venture to manage the transition to renewable energy, modeled on European plane giant Airbus. With over 500 journalists packed into the Elysee Palace ballroom for a New Year news conference, the Socialist leader, deeply unpopular with voters, made no mention of controversy about his private life in a 30-minute introductory speech and defiantly stonewalled on the subject for the next two hours. His official partner, Valerie Trierweiler, is in hospital recovering from shock after a celebrity magazine published pictures of what it said was Hollande wearing a motorcycle helmet visiting actress Julie Gayet for nocturnal trysts.
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| Mexico forces face off with vigilantes after clash Posted: 14 Jan 2014 04:19 PM PST  APATZINGAN, Mexico (AP) — Mexican soldiers and federal police kept a tense standoff with vigilantes Tuesday after a new government campaign to stop violence in western Michoacan state turned deadly.
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| Briton jailed 27 years for Florida murders seeks to reopen case Posted: 14 Jan 2014 04:03 PM PST  By David Adams MIAMI (Reuters) - Lawyers for a British man convicted in Florida for a 1986 double homicide sought to reopen the case on Tuesday, claiming that three Colombian drug traffickers were the real killers. Krishna Maharaj's lawyers have contended for years that Colombian cartels were responsible for the shooting deaths of Derrick and Duane Moo Young, but the defense motion filed in state court represents the first time the lawyers were specific in their allegations. Lawyers for Maharaj mounted a private investigation in Colombia that they say resulted in three Colombian drug traffickers coming forward to claim the killings were done "at the behest of Pablo Escobar," the former head of the Medellin cartel gunned down by police in 1993. "Krishna Maharaj was not involved in the murder of the Moo Youngs, and they had to be eliminated because they had lost Colombian drug money," according to one of the drug traffickers quoted in the defense motion.
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| White House plays down Rouhani crowing on nuclear deal Posted: 14 Jan 2014 03:54 PM PST  The White House Tuesday dismissed an aggressive claim of victory by Iran's President Hassan Rouhani over an interim nuclear deal, and attempted to face down rising domestic political pressure over the pact. Washington said Rouhani's comment that world powers were now bowing to Tehran was a symptom of domestic politics and insisted the deal, curbing aspects of Iran's nuclear program in return for limited sanctions relief, hinged on its words and not its rhetoric. Rouhani's comment, on his official Twitter account, played into complaints of hawkish members of the US Congress that the deal, due to come into force on January 20, gave too much up to Iran for too little in return. The White House is fighting a battle to prevent Congress from slapping a new round of sanctions on Iran which it says could cause the Islamic republic to walk away from the negotiating table, and eventually push Washington into a war to thwart Tehran's nuclear program.
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| Boy, 12, opens fire at New Mexico school, wounds two students Posted: 14 Jan 2014 03:51 PM PST A 12-year-old boy armed with a shotgun opened fire at a middle school in New Mexico on Tuesday, seriously wounding two students before a staff member persuaded him to put down the firearm, authorities said. The shooting at Berrendo Middle School in Roswell took place in a gym where students had gathered to stay warm from the frigid weather outside before the start of class, Governor Susana Martinez told reporters. The wounded students were taken to a local hospital, where they were stabilized. They were then flown by helicopter to University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, about 150 miles east of Roswell, because that facility has a Level 1 trauma center, said hospital spokesman Eric Finley. |
| Israeli defence minister apologises to Kerry over diatribe Posted: 14 Jan 2014 03:43 PM PST  Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel's Minister of Defence Moshe Yaalon apologised Tuesday to US Secretary of State John Kerry after he accused the American of having an "obsession" with Middle East peace, sparking a furious diplomatic row between the two allies.
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| Egypt vote lays bare sharp, post-coup divisions Posted: 14 Jan 2014 03:35 PM PST  CAIRO (AP) — A referendum on a new constitution laid bare the sharp divisions in Egypt six months after the military removed the elected Islamist president, with pro-army voters lining up Tuesday outside polling stations, singing patriotic songs, kissing images of Egypt's top officer and sharing upbeat hopes for their troubled nation.
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| Mexican security forces seize gang-dominated city Posted: 14 Jan 2014 03:34 PM PST  Apatzingán (Mexico) (AFP) - Mexican federal security forces took control Tuesday of a city considered a drug cartel stronghold after heavily armed vigilantes threatened to seize the town. More than 200 soldiers and federal police swept into Apatzingan and disarmed the municipal police as part of a new effort to pacify the troubled western state of Michoacan. A federal police commander, who requested anonymity, told AFP the local officers were held in their headquarters without communications equipment. The commander did not say how many local police were detained but AFP reporters saw around 10 municipal officers in the city known as an urban bastion of the Knights Templar drug cartel.
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| Fulham ease past Norwich in FA Cup Posted: 14 Jan 2014 03:13 PM PST  Fulham overwhelmed fellow Premier League strugglers Norwich 3-0 at Craven Cottage to move into the fourth round of the FA Cup on Tuesday. Former England striker Darren Bent scored Fulham's opener before setting up Ashkan Dejagah's decisive second goal as Norwich's winless run stretched to eight matches. Steve Sidwell scored Fulham's third goal shortly before the hour to leave the Cottagers with a fourth round tie against third tier Sheffield United.
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| Police may have had role in Brazil killings: police Posted: 14 Jan 2014 03:09 PM PST  A Brazilian police commander said Tuesday that there was strong evidence that fellow officers may have been involved in a spate of killings in the southeastern Brazilian city of Campinas. Monday, ten public buses were destroyed in Campinas in rioting that erupted after 12 people were shot and killed in murky circumstances. Julio Cesar Fernandes Neves, the recently arrived police inspector general of Sao Paulo state, said nine out of ten people who have talked investigators said they suspected police involvement. A group of about 20 assailants, most them hooded and armed with sticks and stones, ransacked a Campinas bus terminal where five of the overnight deaths occurred.
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| Mexico vigilantes refuse to lay down arms in troubled state Posted: 14 Jan 2014 03:01 PM PST  By Simon Gardner APATZINGAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Vigilante groups battling a powerful drug cartel in a troubled region of Mexico on Tuesday rejected a government call to lay down their arms, raising the risk of a serious security challenge to President Enrique Pena Nieto. On Monday, Mexico's interior ministry ordered the heavily armed vigilantes to stop fighting the Knights Templar drug gang in the western state of Michoacan, where violent confrontations have converged on the city of Apatzingan in the last few days. Apatzingan is considered a stronghold of the Knights Templar, and over the past week, so-called self-defense groups have pushed to take control of surrounding towns and villages.
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| French president admits problems in personal life Posted: 14 Jan 2014 03:01 PM PST  PARIS (AP) — French President Francois Hollande conceded Tuesday that he is going through "painful moments" with his companion, who was hospitalized after a magazine reported that he is secretly having an affair with a movie actress.
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| Spy court judge slams proposed privacy advocate Posted: 14 Jan 2014 02:55 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. judiciary told Congress on Tuesday it opposes the idea of having an independent privacy advocate on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, while members of Congress lauded the idea at a Capitol Hill hearing.
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| French president indignant over tabloid report Posted: 14 Jan 2014 02:41 PM PST PARIS (AP) — French President Francois Hollande conceded Tuesday that he is going through "painful moments" with his companion, who was hospitalized after a magazine reported that he is secretly having an affair with a movie actress. |
| French to cut 50 billion euros in public spending Posted: 14 Jan 2014 02:33 PM PST  PARIS (AP) — French President Francois Hollande pledged Tuesday to slash 50 billion euros in public spending and abolish 30 billion euros worth of payroll taxes by 2017 as he tries to encourage hiring and clean up public finances.
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| West African lion threatened with extinction: study Posted: 14 Jan 2014 02:15 PM PST  By Emma Farge DAKAR (Reuters) - West Africa's lions, which once prowled across the region in their tens of thousands, are close to extinction as farmland eats up their ancient habitats and human hunters kill the animals they feed on, a study has shown. "These lions are standing on a cliff looking at the chasm of extinction," Luke Hunter, one of the paper's authors and president of wild cat conservation group Panthera, told Reuters on Tuesday.
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| Still got it: Kate Moss turns 40 Posted: 14 Jan 2014 02:04 PM PST  It's been 26 years since the skinny girl from south London was spotted at JFK airport but Kate Moss, who celebrates her 40th birthday on Thursday, is still on top of her game. "But there will never be a new Kate, in the same way there will never be another Coco Chanel or Marilyn Monroe -- she's a one-off," says Ormerod.
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| Scores fleeing South Sudan fighting drown in Nile: officials Posted: 14 Jan 2014 02:02 PM PST  By Carl Odera JUBA (Reuters) - Scores of South Sudanese drowned when a packed ferry capsized in the White Nile near the capital of an oil-producing region where government forces and rebels have fought for control, officials said on Tuesday. A government spokesman said about 200 people died as they took to the river to flee clashes in Malakal, a major transit point and administrative center of Upper Nile state. "The boat was overloaded with people," said Banak Joshua, the director general of disaster management at the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry. Rebels led by former Vice President Riek Machar said on Tuesday they had seized control of Malakal, which lies 330 miles north of the capital, a report denied by President Salva Kiir's government, which said their rivals were repelled.
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| UK television stars in court to face sex charges Posted: 14 Jan 2014 02:01 PM PST  Three ageing stars of British television appeared in separate courts Tuesday, all accused of raping or assaulting women and young girls. Australian entertainer Rolf Harris, TV soap star William Roache and veteran presenter Dave Lee Travis deny the charges against them, most of which date back several decades. Roache, 81, is the world's longest-serving soap star, having played character Ken Barlow in the ITV show "Coronation Street" since its first episode in 1960. "Favour or condemn him on the evidence, not because he plays Ken Barlow," prosecutor Anne Whyte warned the jury.
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| Egypt: 5 things to know about constitutional vote Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:55 PM PST  CAIRO (AP) — Egyptians voted on a draft constitution Tuesday, in a referendum that will decide whether the country adopts a text drawn up under the military-backed interim government that ousted Egypt's Islamist president in a July coup.
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| Isolated and misinformed, Syrian refugees struggle Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:54 PM PST  ZAHLEH, Lebanon (AP) — Fear, confusion and a lack of information are preventing many Syrian refugees in Lebanon from knowing where to turn for aid.
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| Israeli defense chief comments spark spat with US Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:47 PM PST  JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's defense minister was quoted Tuesday as deriding U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's Mideast peace efforts as naive and foolhardy, triggering an angry response from Washington and rekindling simmering tensions with Israel's closest and most important ally.
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| Quarter of 'Wolf of Wall Street' cut in Dubai Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:46 PM PST  DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — About 45 minutes have been cut from the nearly 3-hour high-finance extravaganza "The Wolf of Wall Street" for Dubai audiences, or a quarter of the film, leaving many viewers disappointed and confused about the sequence of events.
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| Panama canal threatens to take over key expansion project Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:45 PM PST  By Lomi Kriel PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - The Panama Canal Authority (PCA) said on Tuesday it might take over a key part of the waterway's expansion if the consortium in charge of the project makes good on a threat to suspend work. PCA chief Jorge Quijano told reporters the remaining work, which could be taken over as early as February, would cost about $1.5 billion. The consortium, known as Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC), threatened to suspend work by January 20 unless the PCA paid $1.6 billion in cost overruns. The authority has rejected that demand and asked GUPC to withdraw the threat of suspension, but Quijano said the consortium has yet to reply.
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| GOP chairman seeks Afghan detainee names Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:44 PM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — A House Republican chairman is seeking from U.S. military officials the names of 72 detainees that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered released from prison. |
| Dems signal willingness to wait on Iran sanctions Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:43 PM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats who favor a new batch of sanctions on Iran have signaled a willingness to hold off on levying penalties to give diplomatic negotiations a chance. They've been getting pressure from the Obama administration |
| UN nuclear agency to meet on Iran pact Jan. 24 Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:42 PM PST  VIENNA (AP) — As diplomats worked on the next step of implementing a landmark Iran nuclear deal, the country's president described it Tuesday as a "surrender" of Western powers to Tehran's demands.
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| Myanmar still using rape as weapon of war: women's group Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:41 PM PST  By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A women's group says that Myanmar's military is still using rape as a weapon of war, with more than 100 women and girls raped by the army since a 2010 election brought about a nominally civilian government that has pursued rapprochement with the West. The Thailand-based Women's League of Burma said in a report made available to Reuters on Monday that 47 of the cases documented were gang rapes and 28 of the women were either killed or had died of their injuries. The group said the issue showed the need for legal reform in Myanmar, also known as Burma, and for changes to a 2008 constitution to ensure that the military is placed under civilian control. Myanmar's government denied rape was used as a means of war.
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| Endangered female leopard killed while mating at Pennsylvania zoo Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:37 PM PST An endangered female leopard put in a cage to breed was killed by her potential mate, who a day later remained on public display at the Erie Zoo, wildlife officials said on Tuesday. The two Amur leopards, 5-year-old Edgar and 7-year-old Lina, were placed together in an enclosure at the western Pennsylvania zoo on Monday, said Erie Zoo president and CEO Scott Mitchell. Edgar attacked Lina, biting her throat. The leopards were separated and veterinarians were brought it, but Lina died of injuries to her trachea. |
| Scores drown as civilians flee South Sudan fighting Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:33 PM PST  At least 200 civilians including women and children drowned in a ferry accident while fleeing heavy fighting between government forces and rebels in Malakal, a northern oil city in South Sudan, the army said Tuesday. Army spokesman Philip Aguer said the ferry disaster occurred when the overloaded boat, packed with women and children, capsized in the White Nile river. "The reports we have are of between 200 to 300 people, including women and children. Thousands of people had sought refuge in Malakal since the conflict broke out about a month ago between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar.
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| US set to unfreeze aid to Egypt Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:31 PM PST  Congress is prepared to allow US President Barack Obama to restore $1.5 billion in aid to Egypt, which is on a political knife edge as the military-backed government bids to consolidate its rule. A clause inserted deep into a broad federal spending bill, which is expected to pass as early as Friday, authorizes Washington to send $975 million to the Egyptian government. This could be activated provided the US administration certifies that Egypt "has held a constitutional referendum, and is taking steps to support a democratic transition in Egypt." An additional $576 million in aid would flow if and when Egypt holds parliamentary and presidential elections.
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| Same-sex ban 'legalises' homophobic violence: gay Nigerians Posted: 14 Jan 2014 01:30 PM PST  Gay activists on Tuesday vowed to fight the Nigerian government after the country outlawed same-sex unions, warning the act legitimised homophobic violence and increased fears of persecution. The United Nations also attacked the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill 2013, accusing President Goodluck Jonathan of trampling over a raft of basic human rights and threatening vital healthcare plans. Nigeria's presidency has dismissed international concerns about the law, which threatens up to 14 years in jail for anyone in a same-sex marriage or civil partnership, saying it reflects public opinion. Evangelicalism Christianity is popular in Nigeria's south, while the north is mainly Muslim and Islamic law runs alongside state and federal justice systems.
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