| Gaza ceasefire takes hold as focus turns to longer term Posted: 26 Aug 2014 02:14 PM PDT  By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ari Rabinovitch GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians aimed at ending their seven-week conflict in Gaza appeared to be holding early on Wednesday as the focus shifted to securing an arrangement for the long term. No clear victor emerged from what had become a war of attrition between the Middle East's most powerful armed forces and the dominant Hamas militant movement in the Gaza Strip. Exacting a heavy toll in Palestinian lives and property, Israel said it dealt a strong blow to Hamas, killing several of its military leaders and destroying the group's cross-border infiltration tunnels. Palestinian and Egyptian officials said the deal, which was mediated in Cairo and took effect on Tuesday evening, called for an indefinite halt to hostilities, the immediate opening of Gaza's blockaded crossings with Israel and Egypt and a widening of the territory's fishing zone in the Mediterranean.
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| Poroshenko to seek ceasefire plan after 'very tough' talks with Putin Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:17 PM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin urged his Ukrainian counterpart on Tuesday not to escalate an offensive against pro-Moscow rebels, and threatened economic retaliation for signing a trade accord with the European Union. At the leaders' first meeting since June, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko replied by demanding a halt to arms shipments from Russia to the separatist fighters. The pair shook hands at the start of talks in the Belarussian capital Minsk, only hours after Kiev said it had captured Russian soldiers on a "special mission" on Ukrainian territory. Responding to a video of the detained servicemen, a Russian defense ministry source told Russian news agencies that the servicemen had crossed the border by mistake.
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| Iran supplied weapons to Iraqi Kurds; Baghdad bomb kills 12 Posted: 26 Aug 2014 11:15 AM PDT  By Isabel Coles ARBIL (Reuters) - Iran has supplied weapons and ammunition to Iraqi Kurdish forces, Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani said Tuesday at a joint press conference with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Arbil, capital of Iraq's Kurdish region. The direct arming of Kurdish forces is a contentious issue, because some Iraqi politicians suspect Kurdish leaders have aspirations to break away from the central government completely. The move could also be seen by some as a prelude to Iran's taking a more direct role in broader Iraqi conflict. "We asked for weapons and Iran was the first country to provide us with weapons and ammunition," Barzani said.
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| Libyan raids herald bolder Arab action as U.S. wavers Posted: 26 Aug 2014 01:24 PM PDT By William Maclean DUBAI (Reuters) - Air strikes by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates on Libyan Islamists - affirmed by Washington on Tuesday despite denials from Cairo and the Gulf state - would mark an escalation of a regional struggle over the future of the Arab world. Arab responsibility for the attacks would add to a picture of the West's regional allies acting increasingly independently in the absence of decisive U.S. The Pentagon and State Department said on Tuesday for the first time that the air strikes against Islamist fighters in Tripoli were carried out by Egypt and the UAE, which has one of the most powerful air forces in the Middle East. |
| Afghan president will not attend NATO summit next week: spokesman Posted: 26 Aug 2014 02:22 PM PDT  President Hamid Karzai will not attend a key NATO summit next week because of his disagreements with Washington over Afghan security needs after most foreign troops leave his country at the end of 2014, his spokesman said on Tuesday. The Sept. 4-5 summit in Wales is meant to determine how much aid Afghan security forces will get after NATO's combat mission ends. The alliance wants a smaller force to stay beyond 2014 to train and advise the security forces but it needs the Kabul government's consent -- something Karzai has refused to give. "There is no change in that and the conditions are the same," Faizi said, adding that Karzai had responded to the NATO invitation by saying either his successor as Afghan president or a member of the current government would attend instead.
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| Ex-banker replaces rebel minister in French cabinet shake-up Posted: 26 Aug 2014 12:01 PM PDT  By Mark John and Julien Ponthus PARIS (Reuters) - President Francois Hollande replaced his maverick leftist economy minister with a former Rothschild partner on Tuesday, in a reshuffle intended to reconcile his efforts to revive the stagnant French economy with deficit-cutting orthodoxy. Arnaud Montebourg, ejected from the key economy ministry post on Monday after his latest tirade against German-enforced "austerity" in the euro zone, was replaced by Emmanuel Macron.
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| Air New Zealand's profit up 45 percent Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:59 PM PDT WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand's national airline has posted a 45 percent increase in profit on slightly higher revenues. |
| 2 new Maya civilization centers studied in Mexico Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:50 PM PDT  MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two lost Maya cities recently uncovered by an international team of scientists in Mexico could help decipher the story of the empire's early capitals to the south that were eventually abandoned for large cities on the Yucatan peninsula.
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| Hurricane Cristobal moving away from U.S., but rip currents likely Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:49 PM PDT  Hurricane Cristobal continued to turn to the northeast on Tuesday, moving away from the Bahamas and the United States coast but is still likely to stir up dangerous coastal conditions, the National Hurricane Center said. Centered about 460 miles (740 km) southwest of Bermuda, Cristobal had picked up speed to 15 mph (24 kph) with winds of 75 miles per hour (120 km per hour), the NHC added. The center of Cristobal is expected to pass northwest of Bermuda on Wednesday, causing tropical storm conditions on the British territory about 640 miles (1,030 km) off the coast of North Carolina. "Swells generated by Cristobal are affecting portions of the United States east coast from central Florida northward to North Carolina ... and will spread northward later this week," the Miami-based forecast office warned, adding that life-threatening surf and rip current conditions were likely.
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| Mexico officials pull off migrants from trains Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:43 PM PDT ARRIAGA, Mexico (AP) — U.S.-bound Central Americans are fleeing urban areas and hiking into the woods and low jungle for fear of being detained by Mexican officials rounding up migrants in southern Mexico. |
| NYC protest planned for Jamaica custody death Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:30 PM PDT KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — An attorney for relatives of a Jamaican man who died after a beating in a lockup earlier this month will lead a protest outside the Jamaican consulate in New York. |
| Official: Puerto Rico parrot births mark comeback Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:27 PM PDT  SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Two endangered Puerto Rican parrots were born in the wild in a natural nest found outside a national forest in the U.S. territory for the first time in 144 years, officials said Tuesday.
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| Saudi police arrest eight suspected jihadist recruiters Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:21 PM PDT  Saudi police have arrested eight people in the northwest suspected of recruiting young people to join the Islamic State jihadist group in Iraq and Syria, the interior ministry said Tuesday. Police in Tamir, 150 kilometres (100 miles) north of Riyadh, arrested eight people "who deluded young people into joining foreign extremist groups," the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency. The arrests were made as part of security operation implementing a royal decree ordering a crackdown on members and supporters of extremist groups, the statement said. An imam and a teacher were among the people arrested, "supporters of the Islamic State, accused of encouraging young people to go to the war zones in Syria and Iraq," the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reported.
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| Putin says up to Ukraine to clinch ceasefire Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:17 PM PDT Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he and Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko had discussed the need for a swift end to bloodshed in Ukraine, but it was up to Kiev to work out conditions for a ceasefire with separatist rebels. Putin and Poroshenko held two hours of one-on-one talks after six hours of wider negotiations with European Union officials and the leaders of Belarus and Kazakhstan, aimed at ending the crisis in Ukraine. "We talked about the need to end bloodshed as soon as possible, about the need to shift towards political resolution of all issues," Putin told journalists. |
| Peru police seize 3.3 tons of cocaine Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:17 PM PDT HUANCHACO, Peru (AP) — Peruvian police say they have seized at least 3.3 tons of cocaine, the year's biggest haul, hidden in a shipment of coal that was bound for Belgium and Spain. |
| Palmeiras ends talks to sign Ronaldinho Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:13 PM PDT SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian club Palmeiras says it could not reach an agreement with former World Cup veteran Ronaldinho, ending its hopes of signing the player as part of its centennial celebrations Tuesday. |
| Kate Bush returns to stage after 35 years Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:13 PM PDT  Ecstatic fans welcomed British pop singer Kate Bush back to the stage for her first show for 35 years on Tuesday, in the same venue as her only previous tour. The crowd stood and roared with approval as Bush, dressed in black, entered the stage with her back-up singers and opened with her 1993 song "Lily". Over 80,000 tickets for the 56-year-old's 22 shows in the "Before the Dawn" tour at the Hammersmith Apollo, where Bush last performed in 1979, sold out in 15 minutes when they went on sale in March as fans clamoured to be part of history.
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| Seaside refuge becomes Ukraine's new front Posted: 26 Aug 2014 04:02 PM PDT  When 15-year-old Daniil's family packed up their belongings in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk in May and moved to the coast of Ukraine's Azov Sea to get away from the fighting, they thought they were safe. Now the war between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces has caught up with them, turning their refuge in government-held territory into a "new front" of Ukraine's brutal conflict over the past few days. "The shelling started here, and my mother got scared," the teenage boy said, as his family readied to leave their refuge in Novoazovsk, a coastal town around 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Donetsk. The small working-class town of Novoazovsk is only 12 kilometres from the frontier with Russia's Rostov region, and Kiev has blamed Russia for sending armoured convoys across the border.
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| I.Coast footballers will not play in Sierra Leone at home amid Ebola Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:54 PM PDT  Ivory Coast's football federation said Tuesday it is desperately seeking a new venue to play Sierra Leone in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier after the government banned a home match over Ebola virus fears. The government has refused to allow the match to go ahead in Abidjan on September 6 because of the spread of Ebola which has killed more than 1,350 people in West Africa, said a federation spokesman. "The Ivorian government has informed us of its formal refusal to hold the match in Abidjan. Our authorities do not want to take any risk in the face of the Ebola epidemic," spokesman Eric Kacou told AFP.
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| Surf's up: Hurricane Marie sends big waves to Southern California Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:49 PM PDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Waves up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) high generated by a Pacific Ocean hurricane will hammer Southern California beaches in coming days, creating dangerous conditions for beachgoers and threatening coastal flooding, meteorologists said on Tuesday. Hurricane Marie, a Category 2 storm located about 550 miles southwest of Mexico's Baja California, will generate the big swells even though it is moving away from the U.S. West Coast, said National Weather Service weather specialist Stuart Ceto. ... |
| American fighting in IS ranks killed in Syria: reports Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:47 PM PDT  An American was killed last weekend in Syria, where he was fighting for the Islamic State, US media reported Tuesday, in an account only partially confirmed by US officials. Douglas McCain had joined the violent extremist group as a fighter, leaving his family "devastated" and "just as surprised as the country," his uncle Ken McCain told CNN. He had converted from Christianity to Islam several years ago, according to the uncle, who said the US State Department informed the family of his death on Monday. Former classmates recalled McCain as a "goofball" who liked to play basketball and aspired to become a rapper.
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| US transfers 2 Yemenis held in Bagram prison Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:38 PM PDT SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Two prisoners held at a U.S. military prison in Afghanistan were handed over to Yemen on Tuesday, Yemeni security officials said. |
| Al Ain to play Al Hilal in ACL semifinals Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:36 PM PDT JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Al Ain advanced to the semifinals of the Asian Champions League for the first time in nine years after the United Arab Emirates club beat Saudi Arabia's Al Ittihad 3-1 in a near-empty King Abdulaziz Sport City on Tuesday. |
| Man United humbled in League Cup by 3rd tier Dons Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:33 PM PDT  LONDON (AP) — In just his third match in charge of Manchester United, Louis van Gaal oversaw one of the most humiliating losses in the club's illustrious history on Tuesday.
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| Interfax: Ukraine cites support for peace plan Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:33 PM PDT  MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said early Wednesday that he has support for a peace plan from leaders who attended a summit meeting in Minsk, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Interfax news agency reported.
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| Libya air strikes show UAE willing to 'go it alone' Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:27 PM PDT  UAE air strikes on Libya aim to prevent Islamists from controlling the violence-stricken country and sends a message to Washington that it is capable of protecting its own interests, experts say. United States officials said that United Arab Emirates warplanes secretly bombed Islamist militia targets in Libya from bases in Egypt last week, but Abu Dhabi has not publicly acknowledged involvement. On Tuesday, Egypt denied any "direct" role in the raids. Libya has plunged into chaos since the overthrow in 2011 of long-time dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with deadly clashes between Islamist and nationalist militias.
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| Supermarket explosion kills 2 in Argentina Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:26 PM PDT BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — An explosion at a supermarket has killed at least two people and injured 12 others in Argentina, emergency services officials said Tuesday. |
| Federal appeals court hears cases in Guam Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:24 PM PDT HAGATNA, Guam (AP) — Guam is hosting the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for arguments for the first time in 12 years. |
| Everton signs striker Samuel Eto'o on 2-year deal Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:23 PM PDT  LIVERPOOL, England (AP) — Everton strengthened its attacking options by signing Samuel Eto'o on a two-year deal on Tuesday after the striker was released by Premier League rival Chelsea.
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| US teen Bellis, 15, stuns Cibulkova at US Open Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:23 PM PDT  NEW YORK (AP) — American teen CiCi Bellis became the youngest player to win a U.S. Open match since 1996 — almost three years before she was born — when she stunned Australian Open runner-up Dominika Cibulkova.
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| United land Di Maria in British-record deal Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:22 PM PDT  Manchester United announced on Tuesday that they have signed Argentina winger Angel di Maria from Real Madrid for a British-record transfer fee of £59.7 million ($98 million, 75 million euros). The 26-year-old's move, on a five-year contract, shatters the previous British-record fee of £50 million paid by Chelsea to sign Spain striker Fernando Torres from Liverpool in 2011. "Manchester United is delighted to announce that Angel di Maria has completed his transfer for a British-record fee of £59.7 million. Angel joins on a five-year contract," said a club statement.
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| Serial stabbing suspect sues to be sent to Israel Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:20 PM PDT  DETROIT (AP) — A man serving a life sentence for murder in a series of stabbings in Michigan is suing to try to be sent to Israel, his native country.
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| Inquiry reveals 1,400 children abused in British town Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:12 PM PDT  An inquiry revealed Tuesday some 1,400 minors were sexually abused in the British town of Rotherham over a 16-year period and blamed local authorities for failing to act. "No-one knows the true scale of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham over the years," said Professor Alexis Jay, the author of the report which had been commissioned by the council.
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| Report finds 1,400 children exploited in UK town Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:10 PM PDT  LONDON (AP) — About 1,400 children were sexually exploited in a northern England town, a report concluded Tuesday in a damning account of "collective failures" by authorities to prevent victims as young as 11 from being beaten, raped and trafficked over a 16-year period.
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| Obama says 'justice will be done' for Islamic State killers Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:07 PM PDT By Mark Felsenthal and Phil Stewart CHARLOTTE N.C./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama vowed "justice will be done" against the Islamic State killers of American journalist James Foley on Tuesday as the United States sought to identify targets for potential airstrikes in Syria. Obama's tough talk followed his decision to approve U.S. Justice will be done," Obama told veterans gathered at a convention of the American Legion in Charlotte, North Carolina. |
| Texas family to part ways with skeleton of mammoth found on its farm Posted: 26 Aug 2014 03:07 PM PDT  By Lisa Maria Garza DALLAS (Reuters) - A North Texas family, who discovered the skeleton of a 20,000- to 40,000-year-old mammoth while mining through sediment on their farm, is preparing to turn over the remains to a local museum. In May, Wayne McEwen and his family were gathering material from a gravel pit on their property, south of Dallas, when his son struck a 6-foot (1.8 meter) tusk while operating an excavator. The rest of the near-complete skeleton was unearthed by a team from a nearby community college, who determined it was a Columbian mammoth - a slightly larger, less hairy version of the more famous woolly mammoth. The family decided to donate the remains to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas.
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