| Israel intensifies Gaza assault, Egyptians revise truce plan Posted: 29 Jul 2014 01:13 PM PDT By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel knocked out Gaza's only power plant and pounded dozens of other high-profile targets on Tuesday, while Egyptian mediators prepared a revised proposal for halting its war with Islamist guerrillas in the enclave. Israel's Channel Two TV said progress was being made on such a deal in Cairo, where a Palestinian delegation is expected later on Tuesday, although the station retracted an earlier report that a truce had already been provisionally agreed. Health officials said at least 85 Palestinians died in some of heaviest bombardments from air, sea and land since Israel's offensive began on July 8 in response to rocket salvoes fired by Gaza's dominant Hamas Islamists and their guerrilla allies. UNRWA, the main U.N. relief agency in Gaza, said it was at "breaking point" with more than 200,000 Palestinians having taken shelter in its schools and buildings following calls by Israel for civilians to evacuate whole neighborhoods before military operations. |
| EU and U.S. announce new sanctions on Russia over Ukraine Posted: 29 Jul 2014 01:26 PM PDT  By Justyna Pawlak and Eric Beech BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The European Union and the United States on Tuesday announced further sanctions against Russia, targeting its energy, banking and defense sectors in the strongest international action yet over Moscow's support for rebels in eastern Ukraine. The measures mark the start of a new phase in the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War, which worsened dramatically after the downing of Malaysian flight MH17 over rebel-held territory on July 17 by what Western countries say was a Russian-supplied missile. "If Russia continues on this current path, the costs on Russia will continue to grow," President Barack Obama said in Washington. "Russia's actions in Ukraine and the sanctions that we've already imposed have made a weak Russian economy even weaker," he said.
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| Libyan militants overrun Benghazi special forces base as chaos deepens Posted: 29 Jul 2014 10:51 AM PDT  By Ayman al-Warfalli BENGHAZI Libya (Reuters) - Militant fighters overran a Libyan special forces base in the eastern city of Benghazi on Tuesday after a battle involving rockets and warplanes that killed at least 30 people. A special forces officer said they had to abandon their main camp in the southeast of Benghazi after coming under sustained attack from a coalition of Islamist fighters and former rebel militias in the city. "We have withdrawn from the army base after heavy shelling," Saiqa Special Forces officer Fadel Al-Hassi told Reuters. A separate special forces spokesman confirmed the militants had taken over the camp after the troops pulled out.
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| Sierra Leone's top Ebola doctor dies from virus Posted: 29 Jul 2014 01:09 PM PDT  By Umaru Fofana and Adam Bailes FREETOWN (Reuters) - The doctor leading Sierra Leone's fight against the worst Ebola outbreak on record died from the virus on Tuesday, the country's chief medical officer said. The death of Sheik Umar Khan, who was credited with treating more than 100 patients, follows those of dozens of local health workers and the infection of two American medics in neighboring Liberia, highlighting the dangers faced by staff trying to halt the disease's spread across West Africa. Ebola is believed to have killed 672 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since the outbreak began in February, according to the World Health Organisation. The contagious disease, which has no known cure, has symptoms that include vomiting, diarrhea and internal and external bleeding.
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| U.S. nuclear negotiator declines setting deadline on Iran deal Posted: 29 Jul 2014 11:50 AM PDT  By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The lead U.S. nuclear negotiator declined to give a final deadline on Tuesday for negotiating a final nuclear agreement with Iran, but said participants mean to finish the international talks at the end of the current four-month extension. Iran and six world powers agreed to extend nuclear talks, and the temporary agreement, by four months after they failed to reach a July 20 deadline for a long-term deal. The deal would gradually lift sanctions, which have crippled Iran's economy, in exchange for curbs on Tehran's atomic program. Many members of the U.S. Congress are skeptical about the talks and say they are concerned that Iran is negotiating only to win lighter sanctions while secretly continuing its pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
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| U.S. judge says cannot seize Kurdish crude for now Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:36 PM PDT  By Anna Driver and Kristen Hays HOUSTON (Reuters) - A high-stakes dispute over a tanker carrying $100 million in Iraqi Kurdish crude took a surprising turn on Tuesday when a U.S. judge said she lacked jurisdiction given the ship's distance from the Texas shore and urged that the case be settled in Iraq. Federal magistrate Nancy K. Johnson said that because the tanker was some 60 miles (100 km) offshore, and outside territorial waters, an order she issued late on Monday for U.S. Marshals to seize the cargo could not be enforced. She said the dispute between Iraq's central government and the autonomous region of Kurdistan should be resolved in Iraq. Overnight Johnson signed an order directing the marshals to seize the 1 million barrels of crude from the United Kalavrvta tanker anchored in the Gulf of Mexico.
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| Australia rules out new sanctions against Russia Posted: 29 Jul 2014 04:53 PM PDT CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott says his government is not considering ratcheting up sanctions against Russia while it is focusing on retrieving Australian victims from the wreckage of the Malaysian airliner disaster in Ukraine. |
| Israel's 'Iron Dome' makers were hit by hackers, expert says Posted: 29 Jul 2014 04:51 PM PDT By By Eric Auchard VIENNA (Reuters) - Three Israeli defense contractors behind the Iron Dome missile shield and related systems were robbed of hundreds of documents by hackers linked to the Chinese government starting in 2011, a U.S.-based computer forensics expert said on Tuesday. Comment Crew, as the hacking group is known, stole designs for Israeli rocket systems in a spree of attacks during 2011 and 2012, Joseph Drissel, chief executive of Cyber Engineering Services (CyberESI), said in a phone interview. The targets of the online attacks were top military contractors Elisra Group, Israel Aerospace Industries[ISRAI.UL], and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The companies built the system that now partially insulates Israel from rocket barrages fired from the Gaza Strip. |
| At least 20 dead, dozens missing in shipwreck off Libya Posted: 29 Jul 2014 04:40 PM PDT  More than 20 migrants have died and dozens are missing after their makeshift boat sank off the Libyan coast, the navy said late Tuesday. "A navy patrol on Monday rescued 22 clandestine migrants who were clinging to debris from their boat," spokesman Colonel Ayoub Kassem told AFP, adding that more than 20 bodies were plucked from the water. The migrants from south of the Sahara desert had sought to reach the Italian coast or nearby Malta after crossing restive and lawless Libya. This year nearly 80,000 migrants have landed in Italy so far, many more than the 2011 record of a total of 63,000, according to authorities in Rome.
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| Canada says China hacked science agency computers Posted: 29 Jul 2014 04:35 PM PDT  Canada accused China on Tuesday of hacking into the computers of its research and development arm, which Beijing strongly denied. China partners each year with thousands of Canadians firms to roll out new technologies, and took advantage of this arrangement to engage in a cyber attack, Ottawa said. "Recently, the government of Canada, through the work of the Communications Security Establishment, detected and confirmed a cyber intrusion on the IT infrastructure of the National Research Council of Canada by a highly sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored actor," said a government statement.
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| Gaza death toll passes 1,200 amid latest talk of truce Posted: 29 Jul 2014 04:30 PM PDT  The Palestine Liberation Organisation expressed readiness for a Gaza truce and Washington said Israel had sought help Tuesday in calming a 22-day conflict that has killed more than 1,200 people in the enclave. US Secretary of State John Kerry said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked for fresh help from America in trying to broker a ceasefire. The top US diplomat added that Netanyahu had said he "would embrace a ceasefire that permits Israel to protect itself against (Palestinian militants') tunnels and obviously not be disadvantaged for the great sacrifice they have made thus far."
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| US, Europe slap Russia with toughest sanctions yet Posted: 29 Jul 2014 04:26 PM PDT  The United States and Europe targeted Russia's key financial, arms and energy sectors Tuesday with tough new sanctions in response to Moscow's intervention in the Ukraine crisis. Announcing the measures, US President Barack Obama denied that the West had begun a new Cold War against its former Soviet foe, but urged his counterpart Vladimir Putin to reverse course. He warned the new sanctions would hurt a Russian economy already stumbling towards zero growth, and said Washington had proof that Russian artillery had fired on Ukrainian forces.
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| Kiribati boxer makes ring debut _ at Comm Games Posted: 29 Jul 2014 04:24 PM PDT  GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Taoriba Biniati spends most of her practice time whacking a punching bag hanging from a breadfruit tree by the road side in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati.
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| No Fukushima radiation in tests off U.S. West Coast: scientists Posted: 29 Jul 2014 04:14 PM PDT By Courtney Sherwood PORTLAND Ore. (Reuters) - Tests of water off the U.S. West Coast have found no signs of radiation from Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, although low levels of radiation are ultimately expected to reach the U.S. shore, scientists said on Tuesday. Results obtained this week in tests of water gathered by an Oregon conservation group and tested by East Coast scientists came in as expected with no Fukushima-linked radiation, and five more tests are planned at six-month intervals to see if radiation levels will climb. "We've seen radiation halfway across the Pacific, north of Hawaii, but in U.S. waters there has been none, yet," Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution senior scientist Ken Buesseler said. Tests of some fish species, which can race across the ocean more quickly than slow-moving currents, have shown higher levels of radiation, although radiation levels in sea life off the U.S. shore are still safe, Buesseler said. |
| Last crew member of Enola Gay bomber dies in US Posted: 29 Jul 2014 04:12 PM PDT  ATLANTA (AP) — The last surviving member of the U.S. crew that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, hastening the end of World War II and moving the world into the atomic age, has died.
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| US Ebola doctor 'weak and quite ill,' says colleague Posted: 29 Jul 2014 04:09 PM PDT  An American doctor who has contracted the dangerous Ebola virus in Liberia is "weak and quite ill," a colleague of his told AFP on Tuesday. Kent Brantly, 33, became infected with Ebola while working with patients in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, as he helped treat victims of the worst Ebola outbreak in history. Brantly and another American healthcare worker are among the more than 1,200 people who have become infected with Ebola in West Africa since March. He is still in the early stages of the Ebola infection but having some daily struggles," David Mcray, a family medicine doctor in Fort Worth, Texas, told AFP by phone.
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| Suicide bombers kill at least six in Nigeria mosques: witnesses Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:57 PM PDT  Suicide bombers attacked two mosques in northeast Nigeria's Yobe state late Tuesday killing at least six people and injuring several others, witnesses told AFP blaming the Boko Haram Islamists. "A suicide bomber we believe was from Boko Haram blew himself up at the open air mosque used by Shiites which they name Saqafa shortly after saying their evening prayers there," witness Balarabe Dahiru said. The body of the suicide bomber was left untouched by residents in protest, he said. Resident Awwal Maikusa who gave a similar account said a second blast occurred five minutes later.
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| Israel public back Gaza assault despite death toll: analysts Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:50 PM PDT  The army's mounting death toll in Gaza has taken the Israeli public by surprise but without dampening its strong support for the military campaign against Hamas, analysts say. Funerals were held across the Jewish state on Tuesday for 10 soldiers killed the day before, five of them in a firefight with Palestinian militants who infiltrated Israel by a tunnel from Gaza. Four others were killed after a mortar shell exploded not far inside Israel and another in fighting in the Gaza Strip. An overwhelming "86.5 percent believes that Israel cannot agree to a ceasefire as long as Hamas continues to fire rockets on Israel, as long as all the tunnels have not been discovered and as long as Hamas refuses to surrender," it said.
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| Last crew member of Enola Gay dies in Georgia Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:48 PM PDT  The last surviving member of the crew that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima has died in Georgia.
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| Aviation officials call for anti-air weapons law Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:46 PM PDT  Aviation officials called for better dissemination of flight risks and a UN law restricting anti-aircraft weapons use, at an emergency meeting Tuesday on the downing of Flight MH17 over Ukraine. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Secretary General Raymond Benjamin and International Air Transport Association (IATA) Director Tony Tyler told a press conference in Montreal that both steps are urgently needed to fill gaps in airline safety in the wake of the MH17 disaster. Tyler pointed to international conventions on lethal chemical, nuclear and biological weapons, among others. "But there's no international law or convention that imposes on states a duty to manage the design, manufacture, and deployment of anti-aircraft weapons," he lamented.
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| After shaky start, Ukraine turns eastern offensive around Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:45 PM PDT  When Ukraine's military offensive to oust pro-Russian rebels from the restive east began in mid-April with humiliated soldiers meekly surrendering their armoured vehicles it looked doomed to failure. Analysts say the dramatic turnaround is down to a combination of growing professionalism and ruthlessness from Kiev's forces on the one hand and the shifting nature of the support that Russia is giving the rebels. "The Ukrainian army is finding out how to fight as it goes along and has shown how capable it is of learning," said Valentyn Badrak, director of the Research Centre for the Army, Demilitarisation and Disarmament in Kiev. Poorly coordinated, riddled by corruption and low on morale after the humbling loss of Crimea to Russia in March, Ukraine's military has undergone a radical shakeup after drafting highly motivated volunteers and improving its leadership.
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| Argentina officials arrive for debt deadline talks Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:36 PM PDT  NEW YORK (AP) — Argentina's finance secretary arrived Tuesday for talks aimed at avoiding that country's second default in 13 years, though it was unclear whether meetings with a mediator offered any real chance at a deal.
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| US, Europe impose tough new sanctions on Russia Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:34 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — Spurred to action by the downing of the Malaysian airliner, the European Union approved dramatically tougher economic sanctions Tuesday against Russia, including an arms embargo and restrictions on state-owned banks. President Barack Obama swiftly followed with an expansion of U.S. penalties targeting key sectors of the Russian economy.
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| 4 charged with murder in death of Chinese student Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:32 PM PDT LOS ANGELES (AP) — Four U.S. teens were charged Tuesday with murder in the fatal beating of a Chinese graduate student with a baseball bat and wrench as he walked to his apartment. |
| Aussies upstaged in pool, Jamaica reign on track Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:29 PM PDT  England achieved a stunning victory over Australia in the men's 4x100m relay on the final day of swimming at the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday, while Jamaica dominated on the track. Australia bossed the six days of competition at Glasgow's Tollcross International Swimming Centre and finished with an unprecedented haul of 57 medals, but they had to share the glory on the last day of competition. England's Chris Walker-Hebborn, Adam Peaty, Adam Barrett and Adam Brown inflicted Australia's first Commonwealth relay defeat in eight years by claiming gold in a Games-record time of 3min 31.51sec. Australia also encountered disappointment in the men's 50m freestyle final, where 19-year-old Englishman Benjamin Proud beat Cameron McEvoy and James Magnussen.
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| Israel hits symbols of Hamas rule; 128 killed Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:26 PM PDT  GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel unleashed its heaviest air and artillery assault of the Gaza war on Tuesday, destroying key symbols of Hamas control, shutting down the territory's only power plant and leaving at least 128 Palestinians dead on the bloodiest day of the 22-day conflict.
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| Canadian doctor quarantined after exposure to Ebola Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:25 PM PDT  A Canadian doctor has put himself in quarantine as a precaution after spending weeks in West Africa treating patients with the deadly Ebola virus alongside an American doctor who is now infected, local media said Tuesday. Azaria Marthyman of Victoria, British Columbia had worked in Liberia, one of four countries hit by an outbreak, with the Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse. He has not tested positive for the virus, nor shown any symptoms since returning to Canada on Saturday, but one of his American colleagues, doctor Kent Brantly, is being treated for the disease. "Azaria is symptom-free right now and there is no chance of being contagious with Ebola if you are not exhibiting symptoms," Melissa Strickland, a spokesperson for Samaritan's Purse, told broadcaster CTV.
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| 3-month sentence for Japan-Hawaii flight assault Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:20 PM PDT  HONOLULU (AP) — A Japanese man received a three-month sentence Tuesday for a drunken altercation with flight attendants during a trip to Hawaii for his honeymoon.
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| Body of young stowaway found in US military plane Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:09 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — The body of a young stowaway was found inside a compartment near the wheel well of an Air Force cargo jet that had landed in Germany, U.S. military officials said Tuesday, triggering questions about the security of an aircraft that had made several stops in Africa. |
| U.S. EPA kicks off hearings on power plant emissions rules Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:05 PM PDT By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Environmental Protection Agency launched public hearings on Tuesday on its proposal to slash carbon emissions from the country's power plants, and interested groups ranging from coal miners to senators made their views known. The agency is holding two-day hearings in Atlanta, Denver, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. and expects oral comments from more than 1,600 people, on top of more than 300,000 written comments already received on the 645-page Clean Power Plan. The plan, unveiled on June 2, is the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's climate change strategy. In Pittsburgh, a coal, oil and gas hub, speakers from neighboring states like West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio descended upon the Highmark Stadium to give testimony. |
| Jamaica drought leads to $8 million in crop losses Posted: 29 Jul 2014 03:01 PM PDT KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — A Jamaican official said Tuesday that a severe drought and brush fires on the Caribbean island have led to roughly $8 million in crop losses over the last few months. |
| US accuses Russia of violating 1987 missile treaty Posted: 29 Jul 2014 02:56 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration accusation that Russia violated a key nuclear weapons treaty leaves the future of the 26-year-old accord in question and further dampens President Barack Obama's hopes to burnish his legacy with deeper cuts to nuclear arsenals.
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| Body of young stowaway found in US cargo plane Posted: 29 Jul 2014 02:55 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — The body of a young stowaway was found inside a compartment near the wheel well of an Air Force cargo jet that had landed in Germany, U.S. military officials said Tuesday, triggering questions about the security of an aircraft that had made several stops in Africa. |
| 6 die when swept away by swollen river in Mexico Posted: 29 Jul 2014 02:53 PM PDT HERMOSILLO, Mexico (AP) — Six people have died and four are missing in northern Mexico after their vehicles were swept away by a swollen river near the U.S. border. |
| Admiral: World getting 'numb' to NKorean missiles Posted: 29 Jul 2014 02:52 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid concerns about its development and testing of nuclear weapons, North Korea may be lulling the world into largely accepting its advances in missile technology, the admiral in charge of American forces in Asia and the Pacific said Tuesday. |
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