Today's Reuters World News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
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Santorum shakes up unpredictable Iowa caucus
Mon,2 Jan 2012 05:45 PM PST
Reuters -  DES MOINES (Reuters) - Republican rivals took aim at the conservative credentials of a surging Rick Santorum on Monday in hopes of heading off a last-minute victory by the former senator a day before Iowa kicks off the 2012 presidential election season. Santorum, a second-tier candidate until a jump in the polls last week, claimed momentum as he and other Republican candidates barnstormed across Iowa, criticizing each other and trying to bolster turnout ahead of Tuesday's Iowa caucuses. ...
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Arab League says Syria monitors are helping
Mon,2 Jan 2012 03:57 PM PST
Reuters -  BEIRUT (Reuters) - The head of the Arab League has said its peace monitors are helping to ease a violent crackdown on anti-government protests in Syria, but urged President Bashar al-Assad's government to carry out a peace plan in full. Meanwhile army defectors whose armed insurgency has threatened to overshadow the peaceful popular uprising captured dozens of members of the security forces by seizing two checkpoints Monday, the opposition said. ...
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Santorum sends Iowa caucus rivals scrambling
Mon,2 Jan 2012 03:52 PM PST
Reuters -  DES MOINES (Reuters) - With time running out, rivals of surging Republican Rick Santorum raised doubts about his conservative record on Monday in hopes of heading off a last-minute victory by the former senator a day before Iowa kicks off the 2012 presidential election season. Santorum, a second-tier candidate until a jump in the polls last week, claimed the momentum as he and the other Republican candidates barnstormed across Iowa making final arguments and trying to bolster turnout ahead of Tuesday's Iowa caucuses. ...
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Israelis, Palestinians to meet but prospects bleak
Mon,2 Jan 2012 03:24 PM PST
Reuters -  AMMAN (Reuters) - Israeli and Palestinian negotiators meet in Jordan Tuesday alongside international mediators trying to revive their stalled peace talks, but neither side is raising hopes they can end more than a year of deadlock. Negotiations stalled in late 2010 after Israel refused to renew a partial freeze on Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, as demanded by Palestinians. The Palestinians say they cannot hold talks while Israel cements its hold on land it captured in a 1967 war and on which they intend to establish an independent state. ...
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Egyptians head to polls again in parliament vote
Mon,2 Jan 2012 03:17 PM PST
Reuters -  CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptians vote Tuesday in the third round of a parliamentary election that has so far handed Islamists the biggest share of seats in an assembly that will be central in the transition from army rule. Islamist groups came late to the uprising that unseated president Hosni Mubarak in February, but were well placed to seize the moment when Egyptians were handed the first chance in six decades to choose their representatives freely. ...
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U.S. hopes new Iran sanctions more scalpel than axe
Mon,2 Jan 2012 03:00 PM PST
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has armed itself with some of the toughest sanctions yet targeting Iran but must carefully assess how to avoid catching energy-importing allies such as Japan, South Korea and India in the crossfire. President Barack Obama signed the law on Saturday imposing sanctions on financial institutions that deal with Iran's central bank, the main clearinghouse through which OPEC's No. 2 oil exporter deals with clients around the world. The new U.S. ...
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Nigerian anger heats up as petrol prices rocket
Mon,2 Jan 2012 12:49 PM PST
Reuters - ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian motorists and unions vented their anger Monday at a sudden more than doubling of fuel prices, a day after government subsidies were removed in a sweeping economic reform that could trigger mass protests. Opposition leaders, unionists and local rights groups have condemned the move by the state's fuel regulator, which they say will hike the prices of goods at a time when many Nigerians, the majority of whom live on less than $2 per day, already find basic commodities too expensive. ... Full Story | Top |
Tens of thousands protest against Hungary government
Mon,2 Jan 2012 12:36 PM PST
Reuters -  BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Hungarians protested in Budapest on Monday against the government and its new Basic Law in a show of anxiety over what they see as the ruling Fidesz party's moves to weaken democratic institutions and cement its powers. Centre-right Fidesz, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, won a two-thirds majority in elections in 2010 and has rewritten a large body of law since, drawing accusations at home and abroad that it has undermined democratic checks and balances. ...
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Jewish friend who influenced Pope John Paul dies
Mon,2 Jan 2012 12:08 PM PST
Reuters - ROME (Reuters) - Jerzy Kluger, the Polish Jewish boyhood friend of the late Pope John Paul who had a major influence on the pontiff's revolutionary relations with Jews, has died, friends said on Monday. Kluger, who was 92, died in a Rome hospital on new year's eve of complications from bronchitis and was buried on Monday in Rome's Jewish cemetery. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease and had been living in a home for the elderly east of the Italian capital. ... Full Story | Top |
Ex-warlord warns of south Nigeria backlash at Boko Haram
Mon,2 Jan 2012 12:06 PM PST
Reuters -  PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) - Southern Nigerians could take up arms to fight northern Boko Haram Islamists, and are holding back only out of respect for the president, a former militant leader from the oil-rich Niger Delta said on Monday. Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a Muslim who led a rebellion in the delta until a peace deal with the government in 2004, said bomb attacks by Boko Haram could provoke retaliation by mostly Christian southerners, including those living in the delta. ...
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"Father Christmas" stabbed to death in Tajikistan
Mon,2 Jan 2012 11:08 AM PST
Reuters - DUSHANBE (Reuters) - A young man dressed as "Father Frost" - the Russian equivalent of Father Christmas - was stabbed to death in Tajikistan on Monday in an attack police believe was motivated by religious hatred, two police sources said. A crowd attacked 24-year-old Parviz Davlatbekov and stabbed him with a knife as he visited relatives in the early hours of Monday dressed as Father Frost, who by tradition brings Russian children presents at New Year. Russian cultural influence remains strong in Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic. ... Full Story | Top |
Deadly Turkish strike felt by Kurdish refugees in Iraq
Mon,2 Jan 2012 11:06 AM PST
Reuters -  MAKHMOUR, Iraq (Reuters) - Seventeen years away from their homes in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast have done little to diminish their longing to return, but for a group of refugees in Iraq, the killing of 35 relatives by Turkish jets last week showed why it was not safe to go back. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has promised a full investigation into the air strikes close to the Iraqi border that killed 35 mostly teenage smugglers. ...
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Tunisia seeks guarantee to extradite Libyan ex-PM
Mon,2 Jan 2012 11:04 AM PST
Reuters -  TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki told Libya on Monday that his country would extradite former Libyan prime minister Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi to Tripoli to face charges of abuse of office if Libya guaranteed him a fair trial. Mahmoudi, who had been prime minister since 2006, fled across the border to Tunisia soon after Muammar Gaddafi's rule collapsed in August. ...
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Analysis: Blocs pursue short-term fixes for Iraq political crisis
Mon,2 Jan 2012 09:51 AM PST
Reuters -  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Looking to step back from the brink, Iraq's fractious political blocs are working on short-term solutions to cool a crisis that threatened a slide back into sectarian strife, but fundamental differences may be left to smolder. Political leaders from Sunni Muslim, Shi'ite Muslim and Kurdish factions are looking to a national conference this month and the courts to defuse hostilities triggered when Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called for the arrest of Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi after the last U.S. troops left. "People are talking about dialogue. ...
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Bahrain says to review some verdicts over unrest
Mon,2 Jan 2012 09:30 AM PST
Reuters -  DUBAI (Reuters) - Bahrain said on Monday it would create a judicial panel to review some verdicts a military court issued over anti-government demonstrations mounted last year by the country's Shi'ite Muslim majority and crushed by the Sunni-led kingdom. A statement carried by the official news agency BNA said the move was a response to recommendations of an inquiry into the turmoil commissioned by the Bahraini government. ...
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Up to 50,000 flee South Sudan violence: U.N.
Mon,2 Jan 2012 08:08 AM PST
Reuters - KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Up to 50,000 people have fled violence in a remote border area of South Sudan, the United Nations said on Monday, after days of clashes between two tribes. South Sudan became independent in July last year under a 2005 peace deal with Khartoum to end decades of civil war. But the new nation is struggling to build state institutions and stop rebel and tribal bloodshed that has killed thousands. On Monday, some 6,000 armed members of the Lou Nuer tribe attacked the remote town of Pibor in Jonglei state bordering north Sudan after days of clashes with the rival Murle tribe, U. ... Full Story | Top |
American awaits verdict after Iran spy trial: report
Mon,2 Jan 2012 08:00 AM PST
Reuters - TEHRAN (Reuters) - The trial in Iran of an American who confessed in detention to being a CIA spy has ended and he is awaiting the verdict, the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted a judicial official as saying on Monday. Amir Mirza Hekmati, a 28-year-old of Iranian descent, could face the death penalty if found guilty of cooperating with a hostile government and spying for the CIA. He was arrested in December. Iran's Intelligence Ministry accused Hekmati of receiving training at U.S. bases in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq. ... Full Story | Top |
Libyans linked to Gaddafi can't run in election: draft
Mon,2 Jan 2012 07:46 AM PST
Reuters -  TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyans with ties to ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi will be banned from running in elections under a bill drafted by the country's new rulers. Academics who wrote about Gaddafi's "Green Book," containing his musings on politics, economics and everyday life, will also be barred from running under the draft law, published online by the National Transitional Council (NTC) on Sunday night. ...
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Saudi Arabia seeks arrest of 23 Shi'ites for unrest
Mon,2 Jan 2012 07:23 AM PST
Reuters - RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has ordered the arrest of 23 Shi'ite Muslims in the kingdom's Eastern Province who it says were responsible for unrest that has led to shootings and protests in recent weeks, the Interior Ministry said on Monday. The Sunni-ruled kingdom accused the wanted men of serving the agenda of a foreign power, usually a reference to its Shi'ite rival Iran which Riyadh sees as fomenting sectarian unrest to destabilize the region. "We do have evidence of a relationship with somebody else abroad," Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Mansour Turki told a news ... Full Story | Top |
Syrian rebels capture troops in north: activists
Mon,2 Jan 2012 07:11 AM PST
Reuters - BEIRUT (Reuters) - Armed Syrian rebels captured dozens of members of the security forces by seizing two military checkpoints in the northern province of Idlib on Monday, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It said the army deserters also clashed with security forces at a third checkpoint, killing and wounding an unspecified number of troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. Rami Abdelrahman, director of the British-based Observatory, said Monday's operation took place in the Jabal al-Zawiyah region of Idlib. ... Full Story | Top |
South Korea's Lee calls on North to end nuclear activities
Mon,2 Jan 2012 06:17 AM PST
Reuters -  SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called on North Korea's new leader to seize the opportunity and return to dialogue, saying he was prepared to offer help to revive the North's shattered economy if it suspends nuclear activities. Two days after a state funeral for Kim Jong-il, North Korea sounded a bellicose note against the South on Friday, assailing Lee's government for lacking the decency to mourn the death of a compatriot leader and vowing to continue a hardline policy. ...
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Spain public deficit may top 8 percent: minister
Mon,2 Jan 2012 05:38 AM PST
Reuters -  MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's public deficit for 2011 may be higher than the 8 percent of GDP forecast by the new government, the economy minister said Monday, fuelling fears the country faces a prolonged period of tight budgets and economic contraction. Spain had originally targeted a 2011 deficit of 6 percent of gross domestic product, but the newly elected conservatives said Friday the deficit would be 8 percent. ...
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India complains to Beijing over treatment of diplomat
Mon,2 Jan 2012 05:13 AM PST
Reuters - NEW DELHI (Reuters) - China has agreed to look into a complaint by India's foreign ministry that a diplomat was prevented from treating his severe diabetes and collapsed while offering consular assistance to two Indian citizens on trial in China's Yiwu city. S. Balachandran from the Indian consulate in Shanghai, had to be hospitalized after attending a court hearing that lasted five hours without being able to treat his condition, said an Indian government source who declined to be named. ... Full Story | Top |
Prosecutors to take stage Tuesday in Mubarak trial
Mon,2 Jan 2012 04:44 AM PST
Reuters -  CAIRO (Reuters) - The trial of Egypt's ousted President Hosni Mubarak will resume in earnest Tuesday when judges begin hearing arguments from prosecutors, who say Mubarak and his co-defendants are to blame for the deaths of hundreds of protesters. Lawyers demanded Monday that the head of Egypt's ruling military council, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, be summoned back to the court to give fresh testimony. They also asked for Tantawi's deputy General Sami Anan to give evidence. ...
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Iraqi civilian deaths climb in 2011: study
Mon,2 Jan 2012 04:00 AM PST
Reuters -  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The number of civilians killed in violence in Iraq rose slightly in 2011 from the previous year, as daily bombings and attacks continued to claim victims almost nine years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, a study showed on Monday. A total of 4,059 civilians were killed in violent incidents in Iraq in 2011, compared to 3,976 in 2010, rights group Iraq Body Count said in its annual study. That took the number of civilian deaths recorded since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam and unleashed a sectarian conflict to more than 114,000. ...
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Hackers target emails of UK's Gordon Brown: report
Mon,2 Jan 2012 03:51 AM PST
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - British police have found evidence that private investigators working for newspapers hacked into the email account of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown while he was finance minister, The Independent newspaper reported on Monday. Hundreds of other people may have also had their emails intercepted, perhaps as many as were caught up in the phone hacking scandal at News International's now defunct News of the World tabloid, the paper said. Detectives were looking at evidence from about 20 computers seized from private investigators, the newspaper reported. ...
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Factbox: Dos Santos one of Africa's longest-ruling leaders
Mon,2 Jan 2012 03:39 AM PST
Reuters - (Reuters) - Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who is at the center of a succession enigma in Africa's No. 2 oil producer, is the continent's second longest-serving ruler. Here are details of the top five longest-serving African leaders: * EQUATORIAL GUINEA - President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (69) 32 YEARS 5 MONTHS - Obiang came to power in an August 1979 palace coup. The new constitution in theory ushered in multi-party politics in 1991. Human Rights Watch reported flaws in the latest presidential polls in 2009, in which Obiang scored 95.4 percent of votes. ... Full Story | Top |
More than 20 feared dead in Kenyan boat crash
Mon,2 Jan 2012 03:12 AM PST
Reuters - LAMU, Kenya (Reuters) - More than 20 people were feared dead after a Kenyan ferry carrying more than 80 passengers capsized on Sunday night following a collision with a cargo boat off the island of Lamu, a popular tourist destination. Survivors confirmed earlier suggestions that the small ferry was overloaded when the two vessels collided in the dark at about 9 p.m. (1800 GMT). The Kenya Red Cross said of the 82 passengers, seven were confirmed dead as of Sunday night, 25 had been rescued and 23 managed to swim to shore. Fifteen people pulled from the water were admitted to hospital. ... Full Story | Top |
Angola's Dos Santos keeps succession open
Mon,2 Jan 2012 02:59 AM PST
Reuters -  LISBON (Reuters) - Long-serving Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos is keeping his country and the world guessing about whether he will bid for re-election in 2012 in Africa's No. 2 oil producer. Apparently unfazed by unprecedented youth protests against his rule last year inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings, the soft-spoken 69-year-old leader has promised that elections due in September will be transparent and fair, while keeping his own options open. ...
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Egypt's army hastens end of parliamentary election
Mon,2 Jan 2012 02:15 AM PST
Reuters - CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's army rulers issued a decree on Sunday to hasten the conclusion of parliamentary elections after deadly clashes in Cairo last month raised pressure for a quicker handover to civilian control. Final run-offs to the assembly's upper house will end on February 22 instead of March 12 as previously planned, the ruling military council said in a statement, and the house will hold its first sitting on February 28. Fifty-nine people were killed in confrontations in late November and December between security forces and protesters demanding the military leave power sooner. ... Full Story | Top |
North Korea calls for "human shields" to protect new leader
Mon,2 Jan 2012 12:19 AM PST
Reuters -  SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea called on its people to rally behind new leader Kim Jong-un and protect him as "human shields" while working to solve the "burning issue" of food shortages by upholding the policies of his late father, Kim Jong-il. The North's three main state newspapers said in a policy-setting editorial traditionally published on New Year's Day that Kim Jong-un has legitimacy to carry on the revolutionary battle initiated by his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, and developed by his father, the iron-fisted ruler who died two weeks ago. ...
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Pope Benedict XVI to visit Cuba March 26-28
Sun,1 Jan 2012 07:45 PM PST
Reuters -  HAVANA (Reuters) - Pope Benedict XVI will visit Cuba on March 26-28 and perform two open-air masses on the communist island as part of his upcoming trip to Mexico and Cuba, Roman Catholic Church officials said on Sunday. The 84-year-old pontiff was to fly from Mexico and arrive in the eastern city of Santiago, where he will be met by President Raul Castro, and then go on to Havana on March 27. ...
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China dissident-lawyer Gao jailed in far west: brother
Sun,1 Jan 2012 07:30 PM PST
Reuters -  BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities have jailed the prominent dissident-lawyer Gao Zhisheng in the remote far west, his brother said Monday, the first confirmation of Gao's whereabouts in nearly two years in a case that has fanned criticism about secretive detentions. Gao has been imprisoned in the Shaya County Prison in Xinjiang region on charges of "inciting subversion of state power," his brother, Gao Zhiyi, told Reuters by telephone from his home in Shaanxi province, citing a court notice. ...
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Colombian police kill leader of powerful drug gang
Sun,1 Jan 2012 07:10 PM PST
Reuters - BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian police killed the leader of a powerful drug cartel that supplied tons of cocaine to Mexican gangs, the government said on Sunday. Police killed Juan de Dios Usuga, the head of the Urabenos criminal gang in the northwestern department of Choco, near the border with Panama. Usuga had a bounty on his head of $2.5 million and was wanted by the United States for drug trafficking. "The police put down in Choco alias Usuga, head of the Urabenos and captured various of his accomplices. ... Full Story | Top |
Fiji to lift emergency laws: military ruler
Sun,1 Jan 2012 04:27 PM PST
Reuters - SUVA (Reuters) - Fiji's military ruler Commodore Frank Bainimarama has announced that emergency laws in place since a 2009 political crisis will be lifted this week, government officials said on Monday. In a New Year speech, Bainimarama also said consultations would start in February on a new constitution to replace one annulled in 2009, at the height of a political crisis over his rule. Government officials in Suva confirmed the content of the speech to Reuters by telephone. ... Full Story | Top |
Syria bloodshed defies Arab monitor mission
Sun,1 Jan 2012 03:43 PM PST
Reuters -  AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian security forces killed eight more protesters and an Arab League organization urged Arab monitors to leave Syria, saying unrelenting bloodshed made a mockery of their mission. President Bashar al-Assad's forces, keen to prevent huge protest rallies under the monitors' eyes, have killed at least 286 people since December 23, the day before the mission's leader arrived in Syria, according to activists who tally casualties. Some of Sunday's eight deaths occurred when security forces fired on protesters in the Damascus suburb of Daria, they said. ...
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Egypt's army hastens end of parliamentary election
Sun,1 Jan 2012 02:23 PM PST
Reuters - CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's army rulers issued a decree on Sunday to hasten the conclusion of parliamentary elections after deadly clashes in Cairo last month raised pressure for a quicker handover to civilian control. Final run-offs to the assembly's upper house will end on February 22 instead of March 12 as previously planned, the ruling military council said in a statement, and the house will hold its first sitting on February 28. Fifty-nine people were killed in confrontations in late November and December between security forces and protesters demanding the military leave power sooner. ... Full Story | Top |
Egypt denies trying to stifle human rights movement
Sun,1 Jan 2012 02:23 PM PST
Reuters - CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's government on Sunday denied accusations from human rights groups that it was trying to smother some of the ruling military council's most vocal opponents when it raided the offices of 17 non-governmental organisations last week. Angered by the swoops, Washington called on Egyptian authorities to halt "harassment" of staff of the groups involved, which included the U.S.-funded National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute. The U.S. government also hinted it could review the $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Cairo if the raids continued. ... Full Story | Top |
Libya's al-Sedr oil port resumes operations: official
Sun,1 Jan 2012 02:16 PM PST
Reuters - TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya's al-Sedr oil port has resumed operations and will see the first oil shipment sail on Tuesday or earlier, an official from Waha Oil Co said, months after the terminal stopped running during a civil war that ended Muammar Gaddafi's rule. "The port was damaged by the Gaddafi regime and the facilities are now operational," the official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters on Sunday night. Waha Oil, which manages the port, is owned by Libya's National Oil Corporation in a joint venture with U.S. firms ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Amerada Hess. ... Full Story | Top |
Boat capsizes off Lamu in Kenya, at least 7 dead
Sun,1 Jan 2012 01:49 PM PST
Reuters - NAIROBI (Reuters) - At least seven people died and many more were feared missing after a boat carrying dozens of passengers hit another vessel and capsized off the Kenyan island of Lamu on Sunday evening, the Kenya Red Cross said. Nelly Muluka-Oluoch, a Kenya Red Cross spokeswoman, said 20 survivors had been found so far and the boat may have been carrying up to 80 passengers. She said rescue teams were searching for more survivors into the night. The boat was taking people from Lamu Island to the nearby mainland when it hit the other vessel. ... Full Story | Top |
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