| Syria ceasefire takes effect with Assad emboldened, opposition wary Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:29 PM PDT  By Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - A nationwide ceasefire in Syria brokered by the United States and Russia went into effect on Monday evening, the second attempt this year by Washington and Moscow to halt the five-year-old civil war. The Syrian army announced the truce at 7 p.m. (11.00 a.m. ET), the moment it took effect, saying the seven-day "regime of calm" would be applied across Syria. It reserved the right to respond with all forms of firepower to any violation by "armed groups". ...
|
| China says should maintain South China Sea peace with Vietnam Posted: 12 Sep 2016 05:24 PM PDT  China and Vietnam should work together to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea and manage and control disputes, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. China claims almost all of the South China Sea, where about $5 trillion worth of seaborne trade passes every year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims in the sea believed to have rich deposits of oil and gas.
|
| Pentagon confirms Islamic State leader was killed in Aug. 30 air strike Posted: 12 Sep 2016 02:54 PM PDT  The Pentagon confirmed on Monday that Islamic State leader Abu Muhammad al-Adnani was killed in a U.S. air strike on Aug. 30 in Syria. The United States had said on Aug. 30 that Adnani had been targeted in a strike, but it stopped short of confirming his death. Russia's Defense Ministry said on Aug. 31 that a Russian air strike had killed Adnani.
|
| Duterte says he wants U.S. special forces out of southern Philippines Posted: 12 Sep 2016 02:56 PM PDT  By Manuel Mogato MANILA (Reuters) - President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday called for the withdrawal of U.S. special forces troops from a group of islands in the southern Philippines, saying their presence could complicate offensives against Islamist militants notorious for beheading Westerners. Duterte, who was in the spotlight last week over a televised tirade against the United States and President Barack Obama, said the Americans still in Mindanao were high-value targets for the Islamic State-linked Abu Sayyaf militants as counter-insurgency operations intensify. "They have to go," Duterte said in a speech during an oath-taking ceremony for new officials.
|
| North Korea ready for another nuclear test any time: South Korea Posted: 12 Sep 2016 03:38 PM PDT  By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea is ready to conduct an additional nuclear test at any time, South Korea's Defence Ministry said on Monday, three days after Pyongyang's fifth test drew widespread condemnation. North Korea set off its most powerful nuclear blast to date on Friday, 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. "Assessment by South Korean and U.S. intelligence is that the North is always ready for an additional nuclear test in the Punggye-ri area," the site of all five nuclear explosions, South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told a news briefing.
|
| For refugees in Greece, long wait for asylum is 'like death' Posted: 12 Sep 2016 08:53 AM PDT  By Karolina Tagaris CHIOS, Greece (Reuters) - Life in Greece has become so difficult for Amir and Walaa, teachers from Syria, that they sometimes think about returning to the home they risked everything to flee. "I know in Syria we have war and bombs every day," says Amir, visibly exhausted. Every day is bad." For the past six months, home is a bleak tent on the Aegean island of Chios, pitched in a dusty medieval castle moat, where they wait without work or money for a verdict on their asylum claims.
|
| Asia stocks rise, dollar sags after Fed official's dovish comments Posted: 12 Sep 2016 05:29 PM PDT  TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian stocks rose early on Tuesday, boosted as Wall Street rallied overnight after Federal Reserve Board Governor Lael Brainard brought relief to risk asset markets by reducing prospects of a near-term interest rate hike.
|
| Western powers call on Libyan forces that seized ports to withdraw Posted: 12 Sep 2016 05:20 PM PDT  The United States and five European powers on Monday urged forces loyal to eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar to withdraw from several key oil ports seized from a rival force over the weekend. Fighters loyal to Haftar took control of the ports of Ras Lanuf, Es Sider, Zueitina and Brega, displacing a force allied to the United Nations-backed government in Tripoli. The seizure threatened to reignite conflict over Libya's oil resources and disrupt efforts by the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord to revive oil production and exports.
|
| Trio of Titans raised fists in protest after anthem ended Posted: 12 Sep 2016 05:05 PM PDT  NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A trio of Tennessee Titans say they raised their right fists in the air after the national anthem ended to honor the victims and heroes of 9/11, and to bring attention to the ongoing unequal treatment of African-Americans and other minorities.
|
| Former British PM Cameron quits politics Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:58 PM PDT  Britain's former prime minister David Cameron resigned his seat in the House of Commons on Monday, less than three months after losing an EU referendum in which he had campaigned to stay in the bloc. Cameron stepped down as prime minister in June, hours after Britain's dramatic vote to leave the European Union (EU), handing power to his successor Theresa May in July. "The circumstances of my resignation as prime minister and the realities of modern politics make it very difficult to continue (in parliament)... without the risk of becoming a diversion," Cameron said in a statement.
|
| Bad breakup still stings for one-time Rams fans in St. Louis Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:51 PM PDT  ST. LOUIS (AP) — If residents in the city of St. Louis are going to root for any team in the upcoming NFL season, it might be for whoever plays, and beats, the Rams — the Los Angeles Rams.
|
| Labour leader could lose seat in political shake-up Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:51 PM PDT  The embattled leader of Britain's Labour party could lose his parliamentary seat in a shake-up set to reduce the number of lawmakers, according to plans unveiled on Tuesday. The possible impact on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's political career comes as part of wider plans to redraw the maps of political constituencies. Proposals published by the Boundary Commission for England are intended to reduce the number of MPs to 600 from 650 and create a more balanced number of voters in each area.
|
| Argentina's ex-president called to testify in convent cash scandal Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:48 PM PDT  By Hugh Bronstein BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina's ex-president, Cristina Fernandez, has been subpoenaed to testify as part of an investigation into the awarding of public works contracts during her 2007-2015 administration, according to court papers filed on Monday. Corruption charges have long swirled around Fernandez and her husband and predecessor, the late Nestor Kirchner.
|
| Leader of Rousseff impeachment drive could lose own Brazil seat Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:43 PM PDT  Brasília (AFP) - Brazil's lower house debated Monday whether to unseat former speaker Eduardo Cunha, who spearheaded the drive to impeach president Dilma Rousseff and now faces his own graft-stained demise. Cunha, who is often compared to the dark, manipulative hero Frank Underwood of the hit Netflix series "House of Cards," used his position as speaker of the Chamber of Deputies to put Rousseff on an unstoppable path to impeachment. The 58-year-old conservative lawmaker, who is allied with Congress's Evangelical Christian wing, resigned from his position as speaker in July amid swirling accusations of corruption linked to the huge state oil company Petrobras.
|
| Three French women charged over terror plots Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:40 PM PDT  Three women arrested after a foiled plot to blow up a car packed with gas canisters near the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris were charged with terror offences on Monday and remanded in custody, the prosecutor's office said. The women were detained last week after the discovery of the vehicle near Notre Dame on September 4. Police believe they were planning other attacks including striking a train station in the Paris area or targeting police.
|
| AP Source: Hawks C Howard OK after brief hospitalization Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:30 PM PDT ATLANTA (AP) — A person familiar with the situation says Atlanta Hawks center Dwight Howard is recovering from a likely case of dehydration after becoming ill on a flight from China, leading to a brief hospitalization. |
| More than half of UK girls sexually harassed in school: report Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:30 PM PDT More than half of girls in British schools and colleges have faced sexual harassment, according to a new report on Tuesday that called for sex education to be provided for all children in primary and secondary school. A parliamentary committee report said sexual bullying had become an expected part of girls' everyday lives. "Surely no one who reads or hears these striking statistics today could now deny how serious ... this problem is," Katie Russell of Rape Crisis, a charity which works with survivors of sexual abuse, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. |
| Costa Rica withdraws UN chief candidacy Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:23 PM PDT  San José (AFP) - Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres said Monday she has withdrawn her candidacy for the top post at the United Nations, after failing to find sufficient support at the Security Council. "All of the (straw) polls at the Security Council indicate that my candidacy does not have much future," Figueres said at a press conference alongside Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez. Figueres expressed hope that the United Nations would choose a woman to replace Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has been in office since 2007 and whose second term ends December 31.
|
| Venezuela enters endgame of anti-Maduro referendum Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:20 PM PDT  The Venezuelan opposition's push for a referendum on removing embattled President Nicolas Maduro from power enters its endgame Tuesday when the authorities announce the dates for the final stage in the process. After months of political wrangling and street protests -- played out against a backdrop of food shortages, riots and looting -- the National Electoral Council (CNE) is due to announce when that three-day period will start. There are two possibilities here: Either they obey the law, or our only option will be to go out and protest forcefully," opposition spokesman Jesus Torrealba said Monday.
|
| Searchers find 2nd ship from doomed British expedition Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:18 PM PDT  TORONTO (AP) — The second of two British explorer ships that vanished in the Arctic nearly 170 years ago during a storied expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage has been found.
|
| Britain starts to spend new Churchill banknote Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:14 PM PDT  Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill will appear on a new plastic banknote which enters circulation on Tuesday, with greater durability and security features. The Bank of England will initially issue 440 million new £5 notes ($6.7, 5.9 euros) featuring Churchill, described by bank governor Mark Carney as "one of the greatest statesmen of all time". It also carries an image of the Houses of Parliament with its Big Ben clock tower at 3:00pm, the approximate time on May 13, 1940, that Churchill delivered his speech.
|
| Cuban dissident Coco Farinas ends hunger strike Posted: 12 Sep 2016 04:09 PM PDT HAVANA (AP) — A Cuban dissident says fellow activist Guillermo Farinas has ended a nearly two-month hunger strike in response to an apparently false report about the European Parliament taking up his case. |
| Swedish appeals court to rule on Assange detention Friday Posted: 12 Sep 2016 03:57 PM PDT STOCKHOLM (AP) — A Swedish appeals court said Monday that it would rule at week's end on whether to rescind the detention order against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. |
| Dominican Republic questions why US annulled diplomatic visa Posted: 12 Sep 2016 03:54 PM PDT SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Authorities in the Dominican Republic announced Monday that they will demand an explanation from the U.S. government for why it annulled the diplomatic and tourist visas of the Caribbean country's electoral commission president. |
| Kerry: US-Russia plan 'may be last chance to save Syria' Posted: 12 Sep 2016 03:39 PM PDT  US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday urged Syria's warring parties to observe a US-Russian brokered ceasefire and warned it could be the last chance to save the country. Just hours after the truce came into effect, Kerry said it must hold in order to salvage any hope of the political settlement he said was the only way to end the war. Kerry and his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Friday they had agreed on a plan to impose a cessation of hostilities across Syria, where more than 290,000 people have been killed since 2011.
|
| From bricks to smuggled wigs: China's border trade with North Korea Posted: 12 Sep 2016 03:38 PM PDT By Sue-Lin Wong DANDONG, China (Reuters) - China's main border post with reclusive North Korea was packed with trucks carrying everything from bricks to exhaust pipes on Monday, as it re-opened for business for the first time since Pyongyang angered the world with its fifth nuclear test. China, North Korea's most important diplomatic ally, condemned the test - the North's largest nuclear explosion to date - but has been ambivalent about whether it will support further sanctions against its impoverished neighbor. In Dandong, though which about three-quarters of the country's trade with North Korea flows, some truck drivers said routine checks had been stepped up since Friday's test, although others said it was pretty much business as usual. |
| Pentagon confirms Islamic State leader's death Posted: 12 Sep 2016 03:37 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is confirming that a key Islamic State mastermind was killed in an airstrike in Syria late last month. |
| Duterte orders US advisers out of southern Philippines Posted: 12 Sep 2016 03:21 PM PDT  President Rodrigo Duterte ratcheted up his feud with the United States on Monday, ordering all American special forces out of the southern Philippines where they have been advising local troops battling Muslim extremists. Duterte's order came a week after he called US President Barack Obama "a son of a whore", causing Obama to cancel their scheduled bilateral meeting at a summit in Laos. The Filipino leader, the first to hail from the south and who claims Muslim ancestry, has been stepping up efforts to bring peace to the southern Philippines, where decades-long insurgencies with Muslim and communist rebels have claimed more than 150,000 lives.
|
| Clinton, sidelined by pneumonia, eyes campaign return 'soon' Posted: 12 Sep 2016 03:06 PM PDT  Hillary Clinton sought to draw a line Monday under the health scare rocking her White House campaign, assuring supporters she will "soon" return to the fray as her team stated she has no medical ailments other than pneumonia. Facing intensifying scrutiny about her health, the Democrat will also make new disclosures of medical records and data, as her team acknowledged it stumbled when it failed to transparently alert the press and public about Clinton's condition at the weekend. Clinton, 68, fell ill at a 9/11 memorial event in New York and was seen wobbling as she was helped into her vehicle, forcing her campaign to disclose she had been diagnosed with the acute respiratory infection.
|
| Prisoners steal keys and riot at French prison Posted: 12 Sep 2016 03:03 PM PDT  Dozens of inmates at a prison in central France escaped and rioted on Monday after stealing the keys of a warden, prison sources said. "Two prisoners jostled a guard and managed to steal his keys, which allowed them to open all the cells," union official Emmanuel Giraud told AFP. The inmates of the Vivonne prison in the centre-west town of Poitiers then set fire to one of the prison buildings and "broke everything," added Giraud, who was unable to say whether they had any specific grievances or claims.
|
| US stocks up on dovish Fed comments; Europe, Asia down Posted: 12 Sep 2016 03:00 PM PDT  New York (AFP) - US stocks rallied Monday as a top Federal Reserve official argued against hiking interest rates quickly.
|
| Table tennis gave a once-homeless teen a path to Paralympics Posted: 12 Sep 2016 02:59 PM PDT  RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A few months before U.S. table tennis player Tahl Leibovitz left his home in Queens, N.Y., for the Rio Paralympic Games, his wife, Dawn, heard a bang late at night. They didn't identify the source of the noise until their neighbor told them her air conditioner had fallen onto their car.
|
| Prosecutor: Video shows ex-coach stalking boy who was slain Posted: 12 Sep 2016 02:58 PM PDT  CANTON, N.Y. (AP) — Surveillance videos show that a former college soccer coach stalked his ex-girlfriend's 12-year-old son just before the boy was killed in 2011, a prosecutor told a judge Monday.
|
| IS spokesman al-Adnani confirmed killed in US air strike: Pentagon Posted: 12 Sep 2016 02:54 PM PDT  The Pentagon on Monday confirmed that a US air strike killed Islamic State leader and spokesman Abu Mohamed al-Adnani in northern Syria last month. "The strike near Al Bab, Syria, removes from the battlefield ISIL's chief propagandist, recruiter and architect of external terrorist operations," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.
|
| 'Sully' soars above North American box office rivals Posted: 12 Sep 2016 02:52 PM PDT  Los Angeles (AFP) - "Sully," the real-life tale of how a US Airways pilot spectacularly landed a disabled passenger jet on New York's Hudson River, debuted atop North America's box office this weekend, industry data showed Monday.
|
| Lineker backs Premier League to end Spain's European dominance Posted: 12 Sep 2016 02:50 PM PDT  The leading English clubs can become "the Barcelonas and Real Madrids of tomorrow" according to BT Sport presenter Gary Lineker. The former England and Barcelona striker believes that the financial power of the Premier League will persuade the next generation of the world's leading players to follow top coaches such as Pep Guardiola to England. Spanish clubs have dominated the later stages of both the Champions League and the Europa League in recent seasons, with Chelsea the Premier League's lone winners of the senior competition in the past eight years.
|
| Top Asian News 9:47 p.m. GMT Posted: 12 Sep 2016 02:47 PM PDT SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea is capable of detonating another nuclear device at its main atomic test site any time it chooses, Seoul officials said Monday, as the United States reportedly planned to send two nuclear-capable supersonic bombers to the South in a show of force against Pyongyang. The speculation came three days after the North conducted its fifth atomic bomb explosion. Friday's test was the North's most powerful test to date, and its claim to have used "standardized" warheads has sparked worries it was making headway in its push to develop small and sophisticated warheads to be topped on missiles. |
| Philippine president wants US forces out of restive south Posted: 12 Sep 2016 02:46 PM PDT MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he wants U.S. forces out of his country's south and blamed America for inflaming Muslim insurgencies in the region, in his first public statement opposing the presence of American troops. |
