| After leaders' rhetoric, climate negotiators start work on deal Posted: 01 Dec 2015 10:38 AM PST  By Barbara Lewis and Bate Felix PARIS (Reuters) - With encouragement from 150 world leaders ringing in their ears, government negotiators in Paris sought on Tuesday to turn that rhetoric of unity into the text of a global deal to slow climate change. The biggest obstacle is money: how to come up with the billions of dollars developing nations need to shift from fossil fuels and adapt to the impacts of climate change. China's delegate Su Wei "noted with concern" what he called a lack of commitment by the rich to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and help developing nations with new finance to tackle global warming.
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| U.S. deploying new force to Iraq to boost fight against Islamic State Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:16 PM PST  By Phil Stewart and Yeganeh Torbati WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it was deploying a new force of special operations troops to Iraq to conduct raids against Islamic State there and in neighboring Syria, a ratcheting up of Washington's campaign against the group that met a cool reaction in Iraq. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the deployment of the new "specialized expeditionary targeting force" was being carried out in coordination with Iraq's government and would aid Iraqi government security forces and Kurdish peshmerga forces.
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| Indonesia says faulty part, crew action factors in AirAsia crash Posted: 01 Dec 2015 01:54 PM PST  By Kanupriya Kapoor and Fergus Jensen JAKARTA (Reuters) - Problems with a glitch-prone rudder component and the way pilots tried to respond were major factors in the crash of an Indonesian AirAsia jet last year that killed all 162 on board, investigators said on Tuesday. The Airbus A320 crashed into the Java Sea on Dec. 28, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. In their first public report, Indonesian investigators did not pinpoint a single underlying reason why flight QZ8501 disappeared from radar, but laid out a sequence involving the faulty component, maintenance and crew actions.
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| Pipe bomb explodes on overpass near Istanbul metro, five hurt: local mayor Posted: 01 Dec 2015 09:24 AM PST  By Asli Kandemir and Can Sezer ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Five people were injured when a pipe bomb exploded on an overpass near an Istanbul metro station on Tuesday, the district mayor said, halting some train operations and heightening security fears in Europe's biggest city. Turkey has been on high alert since more than 100 people were killed by two suicide bombers in the capital Ankara in October, three months after a similar attack at a town near the Syrian border in July left 33 dead. Tuesday's blast near the Bayrampasa metro station came at the height of the evening rush hour, district Mayor Atilla Aydiner told A Haber television.
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| Obama urges Turkey to reduce tensions with Russia Posted: 01 Dec 2015 07:40 AM PST  By Jeff Mason PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama urged Turkey on Tuesday to reduce tensions with Moscow after the downing of a Russian warplane and to seal its border with Syria to choke off the supply of money and fighters to Islamic State militants. Obama met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Paris, where they have been attending a climate summit, a week after Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane along the Syrian border.
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| Al Qaeda Syria wing frees Lebanese in return for jailed Islamists Posted: 01 Dec 2015 01:24 PM PST  By Tom Perry and Laila Bassam BEIRUT (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's Syrian wing freed 16 Lebanese soldiers and policemen on Tuesday in exchange for the release of jailed Islamists including the ex-wife of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Nusra Front seized the Lebanese 16 months ago during an attack on the Lebanese border town of Arsal, mounted together with the Islamic State jihadist group which is still believed to be holding nine soldiers captured in the incursion. The exchange was brokered by Qatar and cast new light on the Gulf state's channels to the Nusra Front, a powerful player in the Syrian war that has been designated a terrorist group by the United Nations and United States.
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| Climate deal needed if Bill's billions are to help poor nations Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:52 PM PST By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Heads of state and big-name billionaires opened the Paris climate summit with a bang on Monday, promising billions of dollars to develop new green technology to solve a key sticking point of the negotiations: financing a low-carbon future for developing nations like India. During the Paris talks, experts said, negotiators must map out ways for rich countries to provide funds poor countries need to prepare to receive new technology. |
| Mexico experts: passageway may lead to Aztec ruler Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:50 PM PST  MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican archaeologist said his team has found a tunnel-like passageway that apparently leads to two sealed chambers, the latest chapter in the search for the as-yet undiscovered tomb of an Aztec ruler.
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| British parliament set to vote for Syria air strikes Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:44 PM PST  Britain's parliament is set to vote on Wednesday to approve air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria after months of wrangling over whether enough opposition Labour lawmakers would back military action. Prime Minister David Cameron has said he believes British warplanes, which have been bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq for more than a year, should also be tackling the group in Syria rather than "sub-contract" UK security to other countries. The election of veteran anti-war campaigner Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in September complicated his plans.
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| Top Asian News 12:40 a.m. GMT Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:40 PM PST A rudder control system problem that had occurred nearly two dozen times in the previous 12 months coupled with the pilots' response led to last year's crash of an AirAsia plane in Indonesia that killed all 162 people on board, investigators said Tuesday. In releasing their report, the country's National Transportation Safety Committee said an analysis of Flight 8501's data recorder showed the rudder control system had sent repeated warnings to the pilots during the Dec. 28 flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. Aircraft maintenance records for the Airbus A320 showed that similar problems with the rudder system had occurred 23 times during the year prior to the crash, including nine times in December. |
| Divided Belgium fails to agree climate targets Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:38 PM PST  When the Belgian government said recently it was hoping for a climate deal it wasn't talking about the UN talks in Paris -- it was talking about its own troubles. Arguments between the French and Flemish speaking regions of an increasingly divided country meant Prime Minister Charles Michel went to Paris without any agreement. "This doesn't give a good image of Belgium," deputy prime minister Kris Peeters, a Flemish lawmaker, told VRT radio on Tuesday.
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| LA Angels sign Venezuelan minor league OF Rafael Ortega Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:37 PM PST ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Outfielder Rafael Ortega has agreed to a one-year contract with the Los Angeles Angels. |
| Obama tells Russia, Turkey to focus on IS Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:34 PM PST  US President Barack Obama led calls Tuesday for Turkey and Russia to end their dispute over the downing of a Russian fighter jet and focus instead on the real enemy -- Islamic State jihadists. It came as Obama's Pentagon chief said the US would increasingly rely on special operations forces to battle IS fighters in Iraq and Syria, where the extremists have seized huge swathes of territory including oil fields used to fund their activities. The US president said he was sure that Russia would soon change tack in Syria and back a political solution to the bloody conflict after years of supporting long-time ally President Bashar al-Assad, who Washington insists must step down.
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| UN experts: Up to 3,000 Islamic State fighters in Libya Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:25 PM PST UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Islamic State group has between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters in Libya and has demonstrated its intention to control more territory in the strategically located North African country — but it is only one player among multiple warring factions, United Nations experts said in a report Tuesday. |
| West Indies win toss, bats first in tour match against CA XI Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:12 PM PST BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — West Indies captain Jason Holder won the toss and elected to bat first in the opening four-day tour match against a Cricket Australia XI at Allan Border Field on Wednesday. |
| US House blocks carbon emission rules, Obama to veto Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:12 PM PST  US House Republicans voted Tuesday to block President Barack Obama's regulations on reducing greenhouse gas emissions -- a move certain to spark his veto -- as negotiators work on a global climate deal in Paris. The two measures, rolling back the Environmental Protection Agency's new emission rules for power plants, passed the chamber largely along party lines. The so-called disapproval resolutions, which already passed the Republican-controlled Senate, dealt a largely symbolic yet blunt rebuke to Obama, who attended the start of a major UN climate summit in the French capital.
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| Protecting forests must become the norm in supply chains: Prince Charles Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:11 PM PST By Barbara Lewis and Megan Rowling PARIS (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Business leaders, environment ministers and even royalty urged companies to eschew raw materials that destroy forests, at the U.N. climate summit in Paris on Tuesday. The CEO of Marks and Spencer, Britain's high-street retail giant, said $150 billion per year of value was at stake, in terms of the resources forests provide for business, including palm oil, soy and timber. Marc Bolland took to the podium on the sidelines of the climate summit, alongside representatives of indigenous Amazon dwellers and Peru's environment minister, while on a separate stage Britain's Prince Charles and Brazilian officials also called for the protection of forests. |
| Anti-war protesters march in London on eve of Syria strikes vote Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:09 PM PST  Thousands of protesters gathered in central London on Tuesday in an effort to stop Britain joining air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria, a day before a parliamentary vote on the move. A crowd of around 4,000 marched from parliament to the headquarters of the ruling Conservative party and main opposition Labour party nearby, in the second major London protest on the issue in four days. "We're here to say one simple thing: 'Don't bomb Syria.
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| Groups ask Mexico to pull Coca-Cola ad on indigenous Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:05 PM PST MEXICO CITY (AP) — It looks like many Coca-Cola ads with long-haired, do-gooder hipsters teaching the world to sing or sharing a Coke and a smile. |
| U.S. says wants to keep up momentum in Syria peace talks Posted: 01 Dec 2015 04:01 PM PST  By Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday voiced the hope that momentum in talks aimed at hammering out a peace plan to end Syria's nearly five-year civil war could continue, and said the next meeting of major world powers could take place this month in New York. "There is significant enthusiasm to keep the momentum going, particularly with regard to thinking through whether local ceasefires might be possible on an expedited basis," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told reporters. The first two rounds of talks on Syria among major Western and Middle Eastern powers were held in Vienna.
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| Iowa lawmaker supports executing some felons in US illegally Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:59 PM PST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa state senator and congressional candidate was criticized by Republicans and Democrats on Tuesday after he said he supports executing immigrant felons who seek to re-enter the U.S. illegally after being deported. |
| US says Kagame should go when term ends in 2017 Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:55 PM PST  Rwandan President Paul Kagame must set an example for his region and step down at the end of his term in 2017, the US ambassador to the United Nations said Tuesday. Samantha Power spoke after Rwanda's senate last month passed a constitutional amendment that would allow Kagame to run for a third term in 2017, and potentially remain in power for the next two decades. "President Kagame has an opportunity to set an example for a region in which leaders seem too tempted to view themselves as indispensable to their own countries' trajectories," Power told a news conference.
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| Turkey: adversary or ally of IS? Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:49 PM PST  For Ankara, the Islamic State (IS) group is an officially-listed terrorist organisation which poses an immediate threat to Turkish territory. The criticism against Turkey is now led by Russian President Vladimir Putin who has made a string of angry allegations about Ankara's alleged collusion with IS in the wake of the shooting-down of a Russian warplane on the Syrian border by Turkey on November 24. Has Turkey ever backed IS?
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| Syrians using stolen passports freed on bail in Honduras Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:38 PM PST  Tegucigalpa (AFP) - Five Syrian men jailed in Honduras for arriving with stolen Greek passports were freed on bail by a judge Tuesday after authorities deemed them migrants and not security risks.
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| 200 US special forces to fight IS jihadists in Iraq, Syria Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:34 PM PST  The United States will increasingly rely on special operations troops to battle Islamic State jihadists in Iraq and Syria, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday, while calling on international powers to beef up their own efforts. Speaking to lawmakers in the House Armed Services Committee, the Pentagon chief said he was deploying a "specialized expeditionary targeting force" to Iraq to work alongside local Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga forces battling the IS group. The jihadists captured vast areas of territory and several key cities across Iraq and Syria last year, and the United States and its allies have been struggling to defeat them ever since.
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| Ex-Auschwitz medic, 95, fit to stand trial: German court Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:34 PM PST  A 95-year-old former medic at the Auschwitz death camp is fit to stand trial for at least 3,681 counts of accessory to murder, a German appeals court ruled Tuesday, overturning an earlier verdict. Hubert Z. was a medical orderly at the camp from August 15, 1944 to September 14, 1945, when 14 trains carrying prisoners -- including the teenage diarist Anne Frank -- arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau where many would eventually be killed in the gas chambers. Prosecutors say Z. was both "aware of the purpose of the Birkenau camp as an extermination camp" as well as of its structure.
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| U.S. to reduce non-emergency embassy staff in Mali Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:26 PM PST The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had authorized the voluntary departure from Mali of eligible family members and non-emergency personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Bamako, following an attack on a hotel in the capital last month. It said in a statement that the U.S. Embassy in Mali will provide only emergency consular services to U.S. citizens for the foreseeable future. Nineteen people were killed, including one American, in an attack on Nov. 20 on a luxury hotel in Bamako claimed by two jihadist groups. |
| Chicago police chief out, review launched over black teen's death Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:25 PM PST  By Mary Wisniewski CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago's police chief was ousted on Tuesday after days of protest over a white officer's shooting of a black teenager 16 times and the department's refusal to release a video of the killing for more than a year. Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced during a news conference that he had asked Garry McCarthy, police superintendent since May 2011, to resign. The mayor also said he was creating a new police accountability task force.
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| Four decades on, victims of Argentine 'Dirty War' reunite Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:25 PM PST  Mario Bravo and the mother he never knew, from whom he was snatched at birth in a jail by Argentina's military, hugged, laughed and wept on Tuesday, together at last. During the junta regime, from 1976 to 1983, the Argentine military plucked people off the streets and detained leftists and even suspected leftists, and gave away the babies born to mothers they were holding in jail. While Bravo said he suspected something was strange about his identity as a child, it was after his adoptive mother died that he started searching in earnest, registering with a DNA database of families with missing and abducted children.
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| Five Syrians caught in Honduras heading for U.S. freed from jail Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:24 PM PST  Five Syrian men caught in Honduras trying to reach the United States last month on fake Greek passports were freed from jail on Tuesday, after they agreed to pay a fine in exchange for the charges against them being dropped, a court spokeswoman said. Caught in Tegucigalpa's Toncontin airport in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, the Syrians had aroused fears in the United States of the possibility of Islamic State fighters entering through the country's southern border with Mexico. Court spokeswoman Barbara Castillo said the men had each agreed to pay a fine of 10,000 Lempiras ($450) for the charges of falsification of documents to be dropped.
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| U.S. bombing wider Islamic State oil supply chain: Obama nominee Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:21 PM PST By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has stepped up the bombing of the Islamic State militant group's oil operations including drilling and trucking to go beyond hitting mostly mobile refineries, President Barack Obama's nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for energy said on Tuesday. "What you've seen over the last few weeks is a stepped up approach that is not only more bombings, but a different kind of bombing," Amos Hochstein, currently energy envoy at the department, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. About 43 percent of Islamic State's oil revenue has been affected by U.S.-led strikes over the past month, U.S. General Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in testimony to a separate congressional panel. |
| S.African charity gets new video of two hostages held in Mali Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:21 PM PST  A South African charity said Tuesday it had obtained fresh video footage of a South African and a Swede who were kidnapped in Mali four years ago and are being held by Al-Qaeda. Gift of the Givers, a disaster relief charity, earlier this year got involved in negotiations for the release of Stephen McGowan, a South African citizen and Johan Gustafsson, a Swedish national.
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| Casey looking forward to a team uniform _ in the Olympics Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:20 PM PST NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) — Paul Casey would love nothing better than to wear a uniform and play for the flag in 2016. |
| Paris attackers -- what we know so far Posted: 01 Dec 2015 03:16 PM PST  French police made another arrest Tuesday in connection with the Paris attacks, which left 130 people dead, as the international manhunt for two suspects went on. Mystery surrounds the fate of key suspect Salah Abdeslam, the 26-year-old brother of one of the suicide bombers in the Paris attacks, who investigators think played a vital logistical role and may have been supposed to blow himself up as well. CNN on Monday said Abdeslam, who is Belgian, had managed to slip out of Europe and into Syria since the November 13 atrocity, though investigators believe he may still be in Europe.
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| US says Guantanamo prisoner was low-level fighter after all Posted: 01 Dec 2015 02:57 PM PST MIAMI (AP) — A Yemeni prisoner at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay appears to have been the victim of mistaken identity, suspected of being a significant member of al-Qaida and not just a low-level Islamic fighter, officials said in documents released Tuesday. |
| US appeals court reconsiders decision on ex-bin Laden aide Posted: 01 Dec 2015 02:54 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court is reconsidering the legality of the only remaining conviction of a Guantanamo Bay detainee who once served as Osama bin Laden's personal assistant and media relations secretary.
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| Hurricane season shatters records Posted: 01 Dec 2015 02:45 PM PST  The 2015 hurricane season smashed records because of an unusually strong El Nino warming pattern, including the most powerful hurricane ever, US forecasters said Tuesday. During the season, which ended Monday, scientists also recorded the biggest number of major Pacific hurricanes in a single season in 40 years and three hurricanes spinning over the ocean simultaneously for the first time. "El Nino produces a see-saw effect, suppressing the Atlantic season while strengthening the eastern and central Pacific hurricane seasons," said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center.
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| El Nino helps Mexico duck a potentially bad hurricane season Posted: 01 Dec 2015 02:37 PM PST  MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico weathered a record eastern Pacific hurricane season with almost no deaths and relatively little damage, given the intensity of this year's storms.
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| No government for Spain's Catalonia until end of year Posted: 01 Dec 2015 02:31 PM PST  A far-left Catalan separatist party said Tuesday it would decide on December 27 whether to back the re-election of the regional government's leader. The move leaves the economically powerful region without a government until the end of the year. Two pro-independence parties won a majority of seats in the 135-seat Catalan parliament for the first time in a local election on September 27 but remain deeply divided over the formation of a new government.
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