| Syria foes clash over Assad, atrocities at first meeting Posted: 22 Jan 2014 11:42 AM PST By John Irish and Stephanie Nebehay MONTREUX, Switzerland (Reuters) - Syria's government and opposition, meeting for the first time at a U.N. peace conference, angrily spelled out their hostility on Wednesday as world powers also offered sharply divergent views on forcing out Bashar al-Assad. Opposition leader Ahmed Jarba accused the president of Nazi-style war crimes and demanded the Syrian government delegation at the one-day meeting in Switzerland immediately sign up to an international plan for handing over power. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem insisted Assad would not bow to outside demands and painted a graphic picture of "terrorist" rebel atrocities supported by Arab and Western states who back the opposition and were present in the room. The United States and Russia, co-sponsors of the conference which U.N. officials hope will lead to negotiations in Geneva from Friday, also revealed their differences over Assad during a day of formal presentations at Montreux on Lake Geneva. |
| Exclusive: Khamenei's business empire gains from Iran sanctions relief Posted: 22 Jan 2014 07:36 AM PST  One of the chief beneficiaries of this week's easing of Iranian sanctions is the country's ruler - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei controls a massive business empire known as Setad that has invested in Iran's petrochemical industry, which is now permitted to resume exports. Under a six-month deal between Iran and world powers, Tehran has promised to scale back its nuclear development program in exchange for the suspension of certain economic sanctions, including curbs on the export of petrochemicals. On Monday, the day the suspension of the restrictions took effect, the U.S. Treasury Department published a list of 14 Iranian petrochemical companies that previously had been sanctioned but are now permitted to do business abroad.
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| Seven dead in tit-for-tat killings in Central African Republic Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:35 PM PST  By Emmanuel Braun BANGUI (Reuters) - Seven people died in inter-religious attacks and reprisal killings in Central African Republic's capital Bangui on Wednesday, a human rights campaigner said, underlining the challenge the new interim president faces in restoring peace. The local Red Cross said it also found another 11 corpses, most burnt beyond recognition. Christian self-defense groups known as "anti-balaka" (anti-machete) have since taken up arms against them, and the United Nations estimates that tit-for-tat violence has claimed more than 2,000 lives. Wednesday's violence erupted after Seleka fighters left a military base looking for food and shot and killed two Christians, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.
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| Israel says cracks Palestinian al Qaeda cell in Jerusalem Posted: 22 Jan 2014 01:48 PM PST By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said on Wednesday it had arrested two Palestinians from East Jerusalem who were planning to carry out attacks for al Qaeda, including on the U.S. Embassy, with the help of foreign suicide bombers posing as Russian tourists. The men were recruited by another al Qaeda agent in the Gaza Strip, said Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency, the second Israeli report in as many months suggesting the militant network was taking root among Palestinians. |
| Romania arrests suspected hacker of Bush family emails Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:07 PM PST  By Radu Marinas and Joseph Menn BUCHAREST/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Romanian authorities have arrested a man they suspect of being the hacker "Guccifer," famous for breaking into the email accounts of former U.S. President George W. Bush's family and other prominent political and entertainment figures. Romania's Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism said on its website on Wednesday that it had detained a suspect with the initials LML in the county of Arad, near the border with Hungary. The agency said there was "reasonable suspicion" that throughout 2013, the suspect "repeatedly and illegally accessed, breaking security rules, email accounts belonging to public persons in Romania with the aim of getting electronic mail confidential data." Police declined to give LML's full name. Romania's public radio Radio Romania identified the suspect as Marcel Lazar Lehel, who received a suspended sentence in 2012 after a hacking charge.
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| Toronto Mayor Rob Ford calls latest rant video a 'minor setback' Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:11 PM PST  A video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford ranting in a Jamaican accent and slurring his words on Monday was a "minor setback," he said, maintaining that his personal life did not interfere with his job. I had a minor setback. We all experience these difficult bumps in life," Ford said at a press conference called on Wednesday to discuss the city's budget vote. "Folks, that is absolute nonsense." Ford, who pledged last year to clean up his act after a crack-smoking scandal, admitted on Tuesday he had been drinking the previous evening when the video was shot at a suburban eatery.
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| COUTURE: Von Teese at Gaultier, Paz Vega hits Saab Posted: 22 Jan 2014 04:46 PM PST  PARIS (AP) — Thousands of hours of fastidious couture burst out onto the catwalks for Wednesday's dramatic Paris shows — including displays from Valentino, Elie Saab and Viktor & Rolf. The spring-summer 2014 collections provoked applause, gasps, cheers and generally so much enthusiasm that one fashion journalist even fell off the stage trying to speak to Jean Paul Gaultier. The Associated Press also caught up with a real life haute couture client who owns over 1,500 astronomically-priced gowns.
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| 3 years after revolt, Egypt quashing rights: Amnesty Posted: 22 Jan 2014 04:29 PM PST  Egypt's military-installed authorities are quashing dissent and trampling on human rights, three years after the revolt which toppled Hosni Mubarak, Amnesty International charged Thursday. "Egypt has witnessed a series of damaging blows to human rights and state violence on an unprecedented scale over the last seven months," Amnesty's Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui said in a report, as Egypt prepares to mark on Saturday the anniversary of Mubarak's overthrow.
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| Italy's Renzi flexes muscles in electoral reform drive Posted: 22 Jan 2014 04:25 PM PST  By James Mackenzie ROME (Reuters) - Italian center-left leader Matteo Renzi's brisk dismissal of party critics who opposed a deal with their old nemesis Silvio Berlusconi on electoral reform has injected momentum into a political system frozen in deadlock for months. "He's succeeded in dealing with all sides that were willing to discuss the issue and came up with a deal that left no one completely satisfied but which was practical," said Lorenzo De Sio, coordinator of the Italian Centre for Electoral Studies at Rome's LUISS university. Boosted by a triumph in the Democratic Party (PD) primary in December, he has shown scant regard for his party colleague Prime Minister Enrico Letta, a careful, old-school consensus builder who has held a fragile coalition together during months of turbulence, but who has now been completely eclipsed. Renzi has also seen off two senior adversaries, former Deputy Economy Minister Stefano Fassina and former party chairman Gianni Cuperlo, who quit on Tuesday after Renzi steamrollered his electoral reform proposals through the PD leadership.
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| California Gov Brown urges continued fiscal restraint Posted: 22 Jan 2014 04:23 PM PST  By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown took credit for his state's fiscal rebound in a state of the state address on Wednesday that also urged continued restraint by lawmakers seeking to rebuild a social safety net tattered by years of tight budgets and economic malaise. In a speech that could preview the tone of an expected bid for re-election this year, Brown said that California had added 1 million jobs since 2010 and extricated itself from "a financial sinkhole that defied every effort to climb out of it.
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| UN calls for tougher force in Central Africa Posted: 22 Jan 2014 04:12 PM PST  UN envoys urged African countries Wednesday to reinforce a military mission struggling to contain strife that some officials have warned could become genocide. Only 4,000 troops of a promised 6,000 African force have been deployed while France now have 1,600 soldiers in the country, mainly in the capital Bangui. But on a day in which at least 10 people were killed in lynchings and other sectarian attacks in the capital, UN envoys on genocide prevention, human rights, children and sexual violence in conflict all called on the UN Security Council to order tougher action. Adama Dieng, the UN adviser on the prevention of genocide, said the size of the African force officially known as MISCA means it cannot cope with the chaos.
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| Sundance film spotlights Palestinian spy for Israel Posted: 22 Jan 2014 04:07 PM PST  Park City (United States) (AFP) - The son of a founder of Hamas who spent 10 years as an Israeli "mole" at the heart of the Palestinian Islamist movement is thrown into the spotlight, in a film that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. From 1997 to 2007, Mossab Hassan Youssef, the oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, worked for Israel's Shin Bet internal security services, before relocating to the United States and converting to Christianity. "I realized that we knew nothing of Hamas. He also met Gonen Ben Yitzhak, the Palestinian mole's Shin Bet handler -- and decided to focus his movie on the astonishing relationship between the two men.
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| State court tosses lawsuit over Carnival port in South Carolina Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:50 PM PST Carnival Cruise Lines on Wednesday won a round in a three-pronged legal battle with residents and environmental groups in Charleston, South Carolina, over the impact of port operations on the historic downtown. The state Supreme Court tossed out a lawsuit in which residents claimed a 2,000-passenger Carnival ship that uses Charleston as its home port created a nuisance. South Carolina Ports Authority and the city of Charleston intervened in the lawsuit on Carnival's behalf. The plaintiffs, which included the Preservation Society of Charleston and Coastal Conservation League, claimed the ship Fantasy caused regular traffic congestion while loading and unloading passengers in the densely populated downtown area, created air pollution and blocked views. |
| 6.3 million eligible for Medicaid since Obamacare launch: U.S. agency Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:39 PM PST  More than 6.3 million Americans were deemed eligible for government healthcare plans for the poor since the October 1 launch of President Barack Obama's healthcare law through December, federal officials reported on Wednesday. The swelling rolls for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) reflect both an expansion of Medicaid under Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA) and what healthcare policy analysts call an "out-of-the-woodwork effect," in which people who heard about Obamacare sought to obtain health insurance and discovered that they had qualified for Medicaid even before the law expanded eligibility. "We have people who for the first time will have some health security that they never had before," Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said of the Medicaid numbers at the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. It was not clear how much credit goes to the healthcare law, however.
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| Sunderland stun United in League Cup semi Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:37 PM PST  Manchester (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Manchester United's desperate season met with fresh degradation on Wednesday as they sensationally lost on penalties to Sunderland in the League Cup semi-finals at Old Trafford. Trailing 2-1 from the first leg, United levelled the tie through Jonny Evans's 37th-minute header, only for Phil Bardsley to net a dramatic equaliser late in extra time with a low shot that squirmed past David de Gea.
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| Moyes keeps mum over Mata reports Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:36 PM PST  Manchester (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Manchester United manager David Moyes has refused to answer questions about British media reports that his side are close to completing a club-record move for out-of-favour Chelsea midfielder Juan Mata. Several media outlets, including the BBC, claimed that Chelsea have accepted an offer worth around £37 million ($61.3 million, 45.3 million euros), which would exceed the £30.75 million that United paid Tottenham Hotspur for Dimitar Berbatov in 2008. Mata, 25, was voted Chelsea's player of the year in his first two seasons at Stamford Bridge, but he has fallen down the pecking order following Jose Mourinho's return to the club as manager last year.
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| Japan-China tensions take center-stage with Abe in Davos Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:35 PM PST  By Steve Adler and Paul Taylor DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing took centre-stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday as Japan's prime minister called for military restraint in Asia and a senior Chinese academic branded him a troublemaker. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe defended his visit to a controversial shrine to Japan's war dead, which outraged China and South Korea, and took a veiled swipe at China's military buildup in his speech to global business leaders. Sino-Japanese ties, long colored by what Beijing considers Tokyo's failure to atone for its occupation of parts of China before and during World War Two, have deteriorated in the past two years over a territorial dispute, Abe's visit to a shrine that critics say glorifies Japan's wartime past and a new Chinese air-defense zone.
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| Central African Republic children forced to commit atrocities: U.N. Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:35 PM PST By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - As many as 6,000 children in Central African Republic have been recruited by armed groups and forced to commit atrocities along religious lines in a conflict that is at high risk of spiraling into genocide, U.N. envoys said on Wednesday. More than half the landlocked state's 4.6 million people need assistance and nearly one million have fled their homes after mostly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in a March coup d'etat that ousted former President Francois Bozize. Christian self-defense groups known as "anti-balaka" (anti-machete) have taken up arms against them, and the United Nations estimates that retaliatory violence has claimed thousands of lives. "The impact of the conflict on children has been dramatic with unprecedented levels of brutality," the U.N. envoy for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, told the U.N. Security Council. |
| Bitter cold lingers as U.S. northeast digs out from snow Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:27 PM PST By Victoria Cavaliere and Barbara Goldberg NEW YORK/MAPLEWOOD, New Jersey (Reuters) - Residents of the northeastern United States on Wednesday dug out from a deadly winter storm that dumped more than 15 inches of snow in some places, with frigid temperatures forcing school closings and extensive flight delays and cancellations. "It's brutal out here," said Ian Chapin, 28, an appliance repairman braving stiff winds as he pumped fuel into his work vehicle at a gas station outside Philadelphia. The deep chill and heavy snow on Wednesday closed schools in Philadelphia and many suburbs throughout New Jersey, Rhode Island and other states. New York City pushed toward normalcy, opening its schools, but the snowstorm that dropped 11 inches of powder in Central Park touched off some complaints about unequal treatment by new Mayor Bill de Blasio. |
| Argentine president ends long public silence Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:26 PM PST  BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentine President Cristina Fernandez spoke publicly for the first time in 42 days on Wednesday, ending a long silence that had led to speculation about her health following head surgery.
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| Israel says it foiled al-Qaida plot on U.S. Embassy Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:06 PM PST  JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Wednesday said it had foiled an "advanced" al-Qaida plan to carry out a suicide bombing on the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and bomb other targets, in what analysts said was the first time the global terror network's leadership has been directly involved in plotting an attack inside Israel.
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| Fugitive Greek extremist taunts government Posted: 22 Jan 2014 02:57 PM PST  One of Greece's deadliest far-left extremists, who disappeared while on prison leave, on Monday taunted and threatened the country's government which he said had ruined the country with austerity measures. "Your democracy is long dead, and the aberration that remains is so blatantly fascist that the hooks of the swastika protrude," Christodoulos Xiros wrote in an online tract accompanied by a brief video of himself. "Nothing can save you.... When I return I will screw you," said Xiros, wearing a red tracksuit top and standing before images of Che Guevara, two heroes of Greece's revolutionary war against Turkey and a Greek civil war Communist guerrilla leader.
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| At least 10 dead in Bangui ahead of new leader's inauguration Posted: 22 Jan 2014 02:53 PM PST  Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - At least 10 people were killed in fresh clashes Wednesday in the conflict-riven Central African Republic capital, witnesses said, on the eve of new interim leader Catherine Samba-Panza's inauguration. Violence pitting civilians and Christian militiamen against ex-Seleka fighters of the Muslim minority broke out overnight in central Bangui, near a prison and a military barracks housing the former rebels, they told AFP. Medics from the 1,600-strong French peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic tried in vain to save the life of one former Seleka fighter with extensive machete wounds. The archbishop of the capital Bangui, Dieudonne Nzapalainga, and its imam, Oumar Kobine Layama, meanwhile lamented while on a visit to Paris that most of the country remains under the control of warlords.
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| Two British women charged with Syria terrorism offences Posted: 22 Jan 2014 02:51 PM PST  Two British women were on Wednesday charged with raising money suspected of funding terrorism in Syria, the Metropolitan Police announced in a statement. Amal Elwahabi, 27, from North West London and Nawal Msaad, 26, from North London were charged with offences "related to terrorist activity in Syria... contrary to section 17 of the Terrorism Act 2000". They will appear at London's Westminster Magistrates' court on Thursday. "Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command will continue to pursue individuals and networks in the UK seeking to support terrorists engaged in the Syrian conflict," added the statement.
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| California governor Brown urges continued fiscal restraint Posted: 22 Jan 2014 02:41 PM PST  By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown took credit for his state's fiscal rebound in a state of the state address on Wednesday that also urged continued restraint to lawmakers seeking to rebuild a social safety net tattered by years of tight budgets and economic malaise. In a speech that could preview the tone of an expected bid for re-election this year, Brown said that California had added 1 million jobs since 2010 and extricated itself from "a financial sinkhole that defied every effort to climb out of it.
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| Morocco amends controversial rape law Posted: 22 Jan 2014 02:37 PM PST RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Morocco's parliament on Wednesday unanimously amended an article in the penal code that had outraged people by allowing a rapist to escape prosecution if he married his underage victim. |
| Tuberculosis trial fails to aid S. African miners Posted: 22 Jan 2014 02:27 PM PST  What researchers described as a "radical" bid to cut down on tuberculosis among South African gold miners has failed to prevent infections or deaths, said a study out Wednesday. A high proportion -- as many as three percent -- of miners begin treatment for the contagious lung disease each year. Tuberculosis spreads easily among miners due to the close quarters in which they work, and the epidemic has worsened along with the rise in HIV infections, according to the article in the New England Journal of Medicine. The clinical trial led by scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine offered thousands of South African miners a preventive drug therapy called isoniazid over the course of nine months.
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| UK charges 2 women with terror offenses Posted: 22 Jan 2014 02:26 PM PST LONDON (AP) — British police say two women have been charged in relation to funding terrorist activities in Syria. |
| Ukraine opposition sets 24-hour deadline Posted: 22 Jan 2014 02:17 PM PST KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian opposition leaders issued a stark ultimatum to President Viktor Yanukovych on Wednesday to call early elections within 24 hours or face more popular rage, after at least two protesters were killed in confrontations with police in a grim escalation of a two-monthlong political crisis. |
| Five dead as Ukraine police battle protesters in Kiev Posted: 22 Jan 2014 02:14 PM PST  Ukrainian police and protesters on Wednesday engaged in ferocious clashes in the centre of Kiev, leaving five activists dead in the first fatalities in two months of anti-government protests. An area in the centre of the capital was turned into a virtual war zone as protesters hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at police and the security forces responded with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets. The bloody clashes marked a new peak in tensions after two months of protests over the government's failure to sign a deal for closer integration with the European Union under Russian pressure. Ukrainian opposition leaders said the next 24 hours would be crucial as they waited to hear from President Viktor Yanukovych if he would accept concessions to halt the bloodshed.
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| S. Sudan troops go 'door-to-door' in seized town Posted: 22 Jan 2014 01:53 PM PST  Malakal (South Sudan) (AFP) - South Sudanese government troops are staging "door-to-door" raids in a town seized from opposition forces, the United Nations said Wednesday as more people took refuge in UN compounds. The United Nations and aid groups have raised concerns over events in the Upper Nile state capital of Malakal since President Salva Kiir's forces seized it Monday from troops of former vice president Riek Machar in heavy fighting. The UN mission "has received reports of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) conducting house-to-house searches in Malakal," said Vanina Maestracci, a UN spokeswoman.
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| 9 killed in 5 days of clashes in Lebanon's Tripoli Posted: 22 Jan 2014 01:46 PM PST  Tripoli (Lebanon) (AFP) - Nine people have been killed in five days of fighting in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, where sectarian clashes linked to the Syrian war regularly break out, a security official said Wednesday. The latest deaths come a day after the army started deploying troops on the aptly named Syria street, that acts as the frontline separating the Sunni district of Bab al-Tebbaneh from Jabal Mohsen. While residents of Bab al-Tebbaneh support the revolt in neighbouring Syria against Bashar al-Assad, the Alawites of Jabal Mohsen -- who come from the same offshoot of Shiite Islam as Syria's president -- back the regime. "The clashes ensued despite the army's attempt to deploy, making it very difficult for troops to enter Syria street," said the security official.
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| Syria opponents together at last but still so far apart Posted: 22 Jan 2014 01:39 PM PST  Montreux (Switzerland) (AFP) - Avoiding eye contact and definitely not shaking hands, Syria's bitter opponents had never been so close, as they traded barbs just metres apart Wednesday at a peace conference in Switzerland. Sitting at either end of a large table, with representatives of the United Nations, opposition supporter the United States and regime-backer Russia between them, the two delegations avoided all contact during their historic first meeting since bloody civil war began nearly three years ago. But the deep divisions were quickly apparent, as the opposition continued to stress its sole aim of toppling President Bashar al-Assad -- something the regime has insisted is out of the question. The smiles faded when a stony-faced Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem launched into a rambling address attacking the opposition.
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| Senegal, Russia end fishing row with $1 mn accord Posted: 22 Jan 2014 01:27 PM PST  Moscow has paid $1 million (750,000 euros) to Dakar in exchange for the release of a trawler accused of fishing illegally off the coast of Senegal, both sides in the dispute said Wednesday. Senegal impounded the Oleg Naydenov on January 4 after accusing it of fishing without a permit in its waters, causing an uproar in the Russian press. The ship is now "free to leave", Senegalese Fisheries Minister Haidar El-Ali said, adding: "We accepted the transaction because going to court would take a lot of time and the outcome would not be guaranteed." El-Ali, a renowned environmentalist turned minister who has long fought for the west African nation's waters, boasted on Wednesday: "Senegal has shown its determination to manage its fishing resources well."
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| Morocco scraps law allowing rapists to marry young victims Posted: 22 Jan 2014 01:24 PM PST  Morocco on Wednesday scrapped a highly controversial law allowing a child rapist to evade punishment if he marries his victim, as rights activists pressed the government to legislate to protect women from violence. The amendment to Article 475 of the penal code, first proposed by the country's Islamist-led government a year ago, was adopted unanimously by lawmakers, parliamentary sources said. The offending article made international headlines in March 2012 when Amina Filali, 16, killed herself after being forced to marry the man who had raped her, and who remained free. Right activists hailed the amendment, while stressing that much more remained to be done to promote gender equality and protect women from violence in the North African country.
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| Hungarian legislator criticizes new US ambassador Posted: 22 Jan 2014 01:22 PM PST BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A Hungarian lawmaker from Prime Minister Viktor Orban's governing Fidesz party sharply criticized the incoming U.S. ambassador Wednesday, accusing her of being ignorant of local politics and having biased views, like some of her predecessors. |
