| Syria rebels guardedly agree on truce but battles persist Posted: 11 Sep 2016 03:30 PM PDT  By Angus McDowall and Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - Government troops and insurgents fought in several parts of Syria on Sunday, apparently seeking to strengthen their positions on the eve of a ceasefire that Free Syrian Army rebels said they would observe but with major reservations. The Free Syrian Army groups wrote to the United States on Sunday about the deal it agreed on with Russia, saying that while they would "cooperate positively" with the ceasefire, they were concerned it would benefit the government. The influential hardline Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham issued a statement late on Sunday attacking the ceasefire deal, but stopping short of explicitly saying it would not abide by its terms.
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| North Korea ready for another nuclear test: Yonhap Posted: 11 Sep 2016 04:32 PM PDT  North Korea has completed preparations for another nuclear test, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported on Monday, citing South Korean government sources who said the North may use a previously unused tunnel at its mountainous test site. Pyongyang on Friday set off its most powerful nuclear blast to date, saying it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile and ratcheting up a threat that its rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain. "Indications have been gathered that the North has completed preparations to conduct a nuclear test at any time in the third tunnel that has not been used previously," Yonhap quoted one of the government sources as saying.
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| With eye on West, Belarus holds slightly freer election Posted: 11 Sep 2016 04:52 PM PDT  By Andrei Makhovsky MINSK (Reuters) - Lawmakers loyal to hardline Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko retained power in an election on Sunday, but the opposition's win of a seat for the first time in 20 years could help the ex-Soviet nation further improve ties with the West. Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, has kept the country in a close strategic alliance with Moscow. Anna Konopatskaya, a member of opposition party United Civil Party, won a place in parliament, election results showed.
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| Ethnic tensions, Taliban attacks pose traps for Afghan leader Posted: 11 Sep 2016 04:29 PM PDT  By James Mackenzie KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban advances and a shootout between gunmen from rival ethnic groups in Kabul that carried echoes of Afghanistan's 1990s civil war have underlined the threats facing President Ashraf Ghani two years after he came to power. The skirmish earlier this month in the capital, sparked by a row over plans to re-bury a former Tajik king, was relatively minor by Afghan standards, but also a rare open display of hostility between ethnic groups that often simmers under the surface yet defines decades of conflict. At the same time, the Taliban have stepped up operations only weeks before a major conference of international donors to Afghanistan in Brussels.
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| France arrests 15-year-old boy for planning 'imminent' Paris attack: sources Posted: 11 Sep 2016 12:44 PM PDT A 15-year-old boy has been arrested in Paris suspected of preparing imminent "violent action", two judicial sources said, the second alleged plot with links to Islamic State discovered in France this week. Last Sunday, a car loaded with gas cylinders was found near Notre Dame cathedral and jerry cans of diesel, leading to the discovery of a plot to attack a Paris railway station under the direction of Islamic State. The boy had been under house arrest since France declared a state emergency after Nov. 13 attacks in Paris in which Islamic State militants killed 130 people, two sources said on condition of anonymity. |
| Turkey removes two dozen elected mayors in Kurdish militant crackdown Posted: 11 Sep 2016 06:51 AM PDT  Turkey appointed new administrators in two dozen Kurdish-run municipalities on Sunday after removing their elected mayors over suspected links to militants, triggering pockets of protest in its volatile southeastern region bordering Syria and Iraq. President Tayyip Erdogan said this week the campaign against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, who have waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, was now Turkey's largest ever. The 24 municipalities had been run by the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest in parliament, which denies direct links to the militants.
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| Asia shares, bonds spooked by central bank jitters Posted: 11 Sep 2016 05:42 PM PDT  Asian shares slipped on Monday with investors rattled by rising bond yields and talk the Federal Reserve might be serious about lifting U.S. interest rates as early as next week. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.1 percent and away from a 13-month peak. Reports that the Bank of Japan was considering ways to steepen the Japanese yield curve, along with speculation that central banks more generally were running short on fresh stimulus measures, slugged sovereign debt and risk appetite globally.
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| Wawrinka beats Djokovic in four sets to win U.S. Open Posted: 11 Sep 2016 05:40 PM PDT  By Larry Fine NEW YORK (Reuters) - Third seed Stan Wawrinka rose to the occasion once again to beat top-seeded defending champion Novak Djokovic 6-7(1) 6-4 7-5 6-3 and win the U.S. Open on Sunday for the third grand slam title of his career. The 31-year-old Swiss, who defeated Djokovic on his way to winning the 2014 Australian Open and 2015 French Open, denied the world number one a third grand slam title this year following the Serb's wins in Australia and France. Wawrinka trailed Djokovic 19-4 in their career head-to-head, but the hard-working Swiss saves his best for the big matches and he came through again with a superlative performance to win his 11th tour final in a row.
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| Wawrinka tops Djokovic for 1st US Open title, 3rd Grand Slam Posted: 11 Sep 2016 05:26 PM PDT  NEW YORK (AP) — Pointing to his temple after winning the biggest of points, Stan Wawrinka wore Novak Djokovic down and beat the defending champion 6-7 (1), 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 on Sunday for his first U.S. Open title and third Grand Slam trophy overall.
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| The Latest: Wawrinka tops Djokovic at US Open for 3rd major Posted: 11 Sep 2016 05:23 PM PDT  NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. Open (all times local):
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| Sweden's Rickard Rakell remains hospitalized with illness Posted: 11 Sep 2016 05:22 PM PDT ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Rickard Rakell remains in a hospital in Sweden with an unspecified illness, putting his availability for the World Cup of Hockey in doubt. |
| Amnesty condemns detention of Yazidi woman in Iraqi Kurdistan Posted: 11 Sep 2016 05:19 PM PDT Rights group Amnesty International called on Monday for the release of a Yazidi woman detained by Iraqi Kurdish authorities for nearly two years following her escape from Islamic State enslavement. Bassema Darwish, a 34-year-old mother, has been held without trial since October 2014 on charges of cooperating with Islamic State in the killing of three Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who stormed a house in northern Iraq where she was being held captive, Amnesty said in a report. Kurdish forces backed by U.S. air strikes seized the nearby town of Sinjar, home to the Yazidi minority, from Islamic State about a year later. |
| Johnson polishes off a dominant victory Posted: 11 Sep 2016 05:03 PM PDT  CARMEL, Ind. (AP) — Dustin Johnson knows as well as anyone that no matter how good he is and how well he plays, something can always go wrong in golf.
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| DeChambeau wraps up PGA Tour card with Web.com Finals win Posted: 11 Sep 2016 04:58 PM PDT BEACHWOOD, Ohio (AP) — Bryson DeChambeau won the Web.com Tour Finals-opening DAP Championship on Sunday to wrap up a PGA Tour card for next season. |
| Diagnosed with pneumonia, Clinton falls ill at 9/11 memorial Posted: 11 Sep 2016 04:55 PM PDT  By Amanda Becker NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton's personal doctor on Sunday said she was suffering from pneumonia after the Democratic presidential candidate fell ill at a Sept. 11 memorial, in an episode that renewed focus on her health less than two months before the general election. Clinton was diagnosed on Friday, but her condition only came to light several hours after a video on social media appeared to show her swaying and her knees buckling before she is helped into a motorcade as she left the memorial early Sunday. Clinton had a medical examination when she got back to her home in Chappaqua, New York, according to a campaign aide.
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| Conservatives take lead in Croatia election Posted: 11 Sep 2016 04:45 PM PDT  By Igor Ilic and Ivana Sekularac ZAGREB (Reuters) - The conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) was on track to win the most seats in Sunday's parliamentary elections but the country looked set for lengthy coalition horsetrading after voters once again declined to return a clear governing majority. With 60 percent of votes counted, the HDZ had 61 seats, pushing the Social Democrats into second place with 54, but were still short of a majority in the 151-seat parliament even with the support of Most ("Bridge"), the likely kingmaker party. The HDZ seems best placed to form a government, but it could be difficult for any party to build a coalition with a clear mandate for carrying out the painful public administration reforms being urged on the country of 4.3 million.
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| Exclusive: Hungry for power, Myanmar bets on hydro in new energy plan Posted: 11 Sep 2016 04:22 PM PDT  By Shwe Yee Saw Myint and Antoni Slodkowski YANGON (Reuters) - Electricity-starved Myanmar is looking to overhaul its long-term power strategy, aiming to hike the planned share of hydropower in its energy mix at the cost of polluting coal as it tries to attract foreign investment. The new democratically-elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi has made job creation one of its top priorities in what is Asia's sixth-poorest country. Myanmar's initial plan was to boost coal's share to a third by the end of the next decade from just 3 percent now and to slash the contribution of hydro to 38 percent from 63 percent, according to the plan shown to Reuters by officials at the Ministry of Electricity and Energy.
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| Initial results of Croatia vote show conservatives' lead Posted: 11 Sep 2016 04:11 PM PDT  ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — Initial results of Croatia's early elections have shown that the conservatives were leading the vote, but won't be able to rule on their own, paving the way for another coalition government in the European Union's newest member state.
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| Costa's acrobatics earn Chelsea 2-2 draw at Swansea Posted: 11 Sep 2016 03:57 PM PDT  SWANSEA, Wales (AP) — Two goals, a yellow card, accused of diving, and repeatedly kicked, shoved and goaded.
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| Morgan, Hales won't tour Bangladesh over security concerns Posted: 11 Sep 2016 03:45 PM PDT  LONDON (AP) — Eoin Morgan and Alex Hales made themselves unavailable for England's upcoming cricket tour of Bangladesh because of their security concerns.
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| Air strikes kill more Syria civilians ahead of truce Posted: 11 Sep 2016 03:24 PM PDT  Air strikes on Syria's battleground city of Aleppo killed six civilians on Sunday just 24 hours before a truce brokered by Russia and the United States was due to begin. The ceasefire, announced after marathon talks by the Russian and US foreign ministers, has been billed as the best chance yet to end Syria's five-year civil war estimated to have killed more than 290,000 people. As the clock ticked towards sunset on Monday when the ceasefire is expected to start, rebels battling the Syrian regime and the political opposition were still weighing whether to take part in the truce.
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| Benin landfill explosion toll rises to eight: mayor Posted: 11 Sep 2016 03:22 PM PDT  Eight people have now died after an explosion at a rubbish dump outside Cotonou in Benin, the local mayor said on Sunday. "Our tally is eight dead, six of them in hospital and two at home, and 87 injured," the mayor of Tori, Robert Tolegbon, told state television. The authorities had initially reported two people killed and 61 injured in the blast, which happened in the Avame district of Tori, around 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Cotonou, on Thursday evening.
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| Powerful Syrian Islamist group attacks ceasefire deal Posted: 11 Sep 2016 03:18 PM PDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - The powerful Syrian hardline Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham on Sunday attacked the terms of a ceasefire agreed by the United States and Russia in a video message, but stopped short of saying it would not abide by the agreement. The ceasefire, supposed to come into effect on Monday at sundown, "does not realize the minimum goals of its revolutionary people" and would only increase the suffering of the Syrian people, an official for the group identified as Ali al-Omar was shown saying. ... |
| Clinton diagnosed with pneumonia, 'dehydrated' at 9/11 event Posted: 11 Sep 2016 03:18 PM PDT  Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is suffering from pneumonia and was overheated and dehydrated when she quickly left a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York on Sunday, her doctor said. The incident at Ground Zero, in which the 68-year-old Clinton seemed to lose her footing as she was helped into her vehicle, sparked new questions about her health -- and offered Donald Trump a new opening to attack his White House rival. Clinton had been seeking to bounce back from a campaign blunder Friday, when she told donors that half of Trump's supporters belonged in a "basket of deplorables" -- so Sunday's episode was certainly ill-timed.
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| Drones keep watch as pilgrims move to haj's final stages Posted: 11 Sep 2016 02:57 PM PDT  By Dahlia Nehme MUZDALIFAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi authorities deployed drones to watch over nearly 2 million pilgrims as they descended Mount Arafat on Sunday and entered the haj's final stages, part of stepped-up efforts to avoid a repeat of last year's crush amid an escalating war of words with Iran. Last year, in one of the deadliest disasters to befall the annual Muslim rite in decades, the crush killed nearly 800 pilgrims, according to Riyadh, although counts by countries of repatriated bodies showed over 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them Iranians. There they collected pebbles in the dark before retreating for the night into Mina, the narrow city of air-conditioned white tents where last year's crush occurred as pilgrims moved to throw their pebbles in a ceremonial stoning of the devil.
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| Hollywood is dead, festivals more needed than ever: Kidman Posted: 11 Sep 2016 02:47 PM PDT  Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman warned Sunday that Hollywood was facing new challenges in the era of online streaming, and needed festivals more than ever to get films noticed. "I don't think there is a Hollywood anymore," the Aussie star told a press conference in Toronto following the world premiere of "Lion" by director Garth Davis. "We're all scattered around the world and we make films all around the world and Hollywood is of some bygone era now, which is sad in a way," she said.
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| Syrian rebels Ahrar al-Sham reject truce: group Posted: 11 Sep 2016 02:46 PM PDT  An influential Syrian rebel group, the hardline Islamist Ahrar al-Sham, on Sunday rejected the truce deal brokered by Russia and the United States hours before it was due to begin. A high-ranking member of the group, which works closely with former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, said in a statement on YouTube that the deal would only serve to "reinforce" the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and "increase the suffering" of civilians. "The people cannot accept half-solutions," the group's deputy leader Ali al-Omar said in the YouTube video to mark the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha on Monday, when the truce is due to come into force.
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| Braga stays unbeaten, near top in Portugal Posted: 11 Sep 2016 02:44 PM PDT LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Braga stayed undefeated this season after beating Boavista 3-0 at home on Sunday in the Portuguese league. |
| Striker Mario Balotelli scores twice on his Nice debut Posted: 11 Sep 2016 02:32 PM PDT PARIS (AP) — Striker Mario Balotelli will grab headlines for the right reasons after scoring with a penalty and a header on his Nice debut in an entertaining 3-2 home win against Marseille on Sunday. |
| Skirmishes in Indian Kashmir leave police officer, seven militants dead Posted: 11 Sep 2016 02:21 PM PDT By Fayaz Bukhari SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Indian security forces killed seven militants in two gunbattles that also left a police officer dead in Kashmir on Sunday, as tensions in the region ratcheted higher and street protests against Indian rule grew. Three of the militants were killed after they tried to storm the government secretariat in Poonch, near the de-facto border with Pakistan, which lays claims to the Himalayan region. "One policeman was killed, while another police officer and civilian were injured as militants tried to storm the building. |
| Paralympian Vervoort prepared to take own life _ but not yet Posted: 11 Sep 2016 02:17 PM PDT  RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Marieke Vervoort lives with nearly unbroken pain. The Belgian has an incurable, degenerative spinal disease, sleeps only 10 minutes some nights, and in 2008 she signed euthanasia papers so she can decide when to end her own life.
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| Day withdraws from BMW Championship with back pain Posted: 11 Sep 2016 02:03 PM PDT  CARMEL, Ind. (AP) — Jason Day withdrew from the BMW Championship after eight holes on Sunday with back pain, making him ineligible for the Vardon Trophy.
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| Quintana wins Spanish Vuelta ahead of Froome Posted: 11 Sep 2016 02:03 PM PDT  MADRID (AP) — Movistar rider Nairo Quintana won the Spanish Vuelta on Sunday, adding the title to the 2014 Giro d'Italia on his Grand Tour list of honors.
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| Mexicans march for gay marriage, day after opponents rally Posted: 11 Sep 2016 01:56 PM PDT  MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hundreds of gay and lesbian rights supporters marched to Mexico City's Metropolitan Cathedral to support same-sex marriage Sunday, one day after thousands marched against it.
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| Syrian Rebels leery of cease-fire plan Posted: 11 Sep 2016 01:53 PM PDT  BEIRUT (AP) — Rebel factions in Syria expressed deep reservations on Sunday about the terms of a U.S.-Russian deal that seeks to restart the peace process for the war-torn country, with the leader of at least one U.S.-backed rebel faction publicly calling the offer a "trap."
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| Joe Hart has an Italian debut to forget with Torino Posted: 11 Sep 2016 01:49 PM PDT  ROME (AP) — Joe Hart's Torino debut was a day to forget for the England goalkeeper.
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| Real Betis veterans earn club rare league win at Valencia Posted: 11 Sep 2016 01:42 PM PDT BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Valencia's tough start to the Spanish league season hit a new low Sunday after Real Betis' pair of 35-year-old veterans ended the club's three-decade wait for a win at Mestalla Stadium. |
| Libya oil terminals seized in blow to unity govt Posted: 11 Sep 2016 01:36 PM PDT  Libya's internationally backed government urged its forces Sunday to act after two oil terminals fell to rival troops, raising fears of further violence in a country already gripped by turmoil. The two Mediterranean ports are in Libya's "oil crescent", and seen as a vital source of income for the GNA which is struggling to assert its authority. Previously controlled by guards allied to the GNA, the ports of Al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf were seized by forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar.
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| Body cameras, clocks among ideas in play for tennis's future Posted: 11 Sep 2016 01:35 PM PDT  NEW YORK (AP) — What if they put tiny cameras on players to get more dramatic TV angles? What if serves that dribbled over the net were fair game? What if servers were on a 20-second clock to start points? And how about scrapping the pre-match warmup so matches actually start on time?
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