Today's Reuters World News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
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Colombia rebels set to release French reporter: Red Cross
Sun,13 May 2012 07:52 PM PDT
Reuters - BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's FARC guerrilla group has decided to free a French reporter they kidnapped two weeks ago, although they have not given a date for his release, a Red Cross official said on Sunday citing a statement from the rebels. Heavily armed members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia kidnapped Romeo Langlois, a reporter for France 24, during a firefight with troops carrying out an anti-drug raid in Caqueta, a rebel-stronghold in the south. ... Full Story | Top |
Saudi and Bahrain expected to seek union: minister
Sun,13 May 2012 07:41 PM PDT
Reuters -  DUBAI/RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are expected to announce closer political union at a meeting of Gulf Arab leaders on Monday, a Bahraini minister said, a move dismissed by the opposition as a ruse to avoid political reform. The decision is part of a strategy to increase integration within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as the organization's six nations fret about Iran's power in the region and the presence of al Qaeda after the Arab uprisings. ...
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Leftist Mexican presidential candidate rises in poll
Sun,13 May 2012 05:59 PM PDT
Reuters -  Leftist Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has moved up into a second-place tie in the latest voter survey by pollster BGC, but front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto maintains a large lead. With seven weeks to go until the July 1 election, Lopez Obrador, the 2006 runner-up, rose 3 percentage points to 26 percent, according to the poll for Monday's edition of newspaper Excelsior, which BGC published on its website on Sunday. Josefina Vazquez Mota, of President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party (PAN), slipped 2 points to 26 percent. ...
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Forty-nine headless corpses found in northern Mexico
Sun,13 May 2012 04:50 PM PDT
Reuters -  CADEREYTA JIMENEZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Suspected drug gang killers dumped 49 headless bodies on a highway near Mexico's northern city of Monterrey in one of the country's worst atrocities in recent years. The mutilated corpses of 43 men and 6 women, whose hands and feet had also been cut off, were found in a pile on a highway in the municipality of Cadereyta Jimenez in the early hours of Sunday, officials from the state of Nuevo Leon said. ...
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Leftist Mexican presidential candidate rises in poll
Sun,13 May 2012 04:28 PM PDT
Reuters - MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Leftist Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has moved up into a second-place tie in the latest voter survey by pollster BGC, but front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto maintains a large lead. With seven weeks to go until the July 1 election, Lopez Obrador, the 2006 runner-up, rose 3 percentage points to 26 percent, according to the poll for Monday's edition of newspaper Excelsior, which BGC published on its website on Sunday. ...
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Senior Afghan peace negotiator shot dead in Kabul
Sun,13 May 2012 04:18 PM PDT
Reuters -  Gunmen shot dead a top Afghan peace negotiator in the capital Kabul on Sunday, police said, dealing another blow to the country's attempts to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban. Maulvi Arsala Rahmani was one of the most senior members on Afghanistan's High Peace Council, set up by President Hamid Karzai two years ago to liaise with insurgents. "He (Rahmani) was stuck in heavy traffic when another car beside him opened fire," said General Mohammad Zahir, head of the investigations unit for Kabul police. ...
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Saudi and Bahrain expected to seek union: minister
Sun,13 May 2012 03:55 PM PDT
Reuters - DUBAI/RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are expected to announce closer political union at a meeting of Gulf Arab leaders on Monday, a Bahraini minister said, a move dismissed by the opposition as a ruse to avoid political reform. The decision is part of a strategy to increase integration within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as the organization's six nations fret about Iran's power in the region and the presence of al Qaeda after the Arab uprisings. ... Full Story | Top |
Syrian forces kill 7 civilians in rural attack: activists
Sun,13 May 2012 02:26 PM PDT
Reuters -  AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian troops backed by tanks shot dead seven civilians when they overran a rebellious Sunni Muslim village west of the city of Hama on Sunday, activists' organizations said, in a crackdown on the rural epicenter of the 14-month anti-government revolt. In neighboring Lebanon, three people were killed when fighting erupted in the city of Tripoli between members of the Alawite minority loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and members of the Sunni majority. ...
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Iran says pressures may damage nuclear talks
Sun,13 May 2012 01:47 PM PDT
Reuters -  DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran warned Western powers on Sunday that applying pressure on Tehran could jeopardize talks on its nuclear program, state television reported. "The era of a pressure strategy is ended. Any strategic miscalculations would endanger success at the Baghdad negotiations," said Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, quoted by state television. Jalili was speaking with French former prime minister Michel Rocard who visited Iran ahead of the talks on May 23 in Baghdad with the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany. ...
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Greek president to continue coalition talks Monday: official
Sun,13 May 2012 01:35 PM PDT
Reuters - ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's president will continue talks with the country's political leaders on Monday evening to try to form a government, a senior presidency official said. "The meetings will continue tomorrow at 7:30 pm (1630 GMT)," the official told reporters after President Karolos Papoulias concluded a fruitless first round of meetings with the leaders of all seven parties that made it into parliament in an inconclusive election on May 6. (Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas; Writing by Karolina Tagaris; Editing by Peter Graff) Full Story | Top |
Coalition talks stall, Greece faces "moment of truth"
Sun,13 May 2012 01:35 PM PDT
Reuters -  ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek political leaders on Sunday ignored a final plea from the president to form a coalition government to avert a repeat election, pushing the debt-stricken nation closer to bankruptcy and a possible exit from the euro zone. Leaders of the three biggest parties met at the presidential mansion for a final attempt to bridge their differences, but the talks quickly hit an impasse as they traded accusations on a deeply unpopular bailout package tied to harsh spending cuts. ...
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Monti warns of tears in Italy's social fabric
Sun,13 May 2012 11:56 AM PDT
Reuters -  ROME (Reuters) - Italy's social fabric is being torn by recession and tensions are growing among its citizens, Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Sunday. Speaking to a group of students in the central Italian town of Arezzo, Monti urged Italians to stick together and "not give up" in the face of a shrinking economy and rising unemployment. Monti's technocrat government has imposed painful austerity measures since taking office last year, and in recent days ministers have responded to calls from politicians and the media to show more compassion for the plight of ordinary Italians. ...
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Austerity blow for Merkel in German state election
Sun,13 May 2012 11:40 AM PDT
Reuters -  DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives suffered a crushing defeat on Sunday in an election in Germany's most populous state, a result which could embolden the left opposition to step up attacks on her European austerity policies. The election in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), a western German state with a bigger population than the Netherlands and an economy the size of Turkey, was held 18 months before a national vote in which Merkel will be fighting for a third term. ...
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Obama aide in Yemen in anti-al Qaeda drive
Sun,13 May 2012 11:32 AM PDT
Reuters -  SANAA (Reuters) - A senior aide to President Barack Obama flew to Yemen on Sunday to meet the leader of a country battling with al Qaeda insurgents that Washington believes has also targeted the United States, U.S. and Yemeni officials said. The visit by John Brennan, Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, comes as Yemen is on a new offensive against Islamist rebels and after Washington said it had foiled an airliner bomb plot linked to al Qaeda's Yemen-based affiliate. ...
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Al Qaeda bomb maker is top threat, must be killed: U.S. senator
Sun,13 May 2012 11:26 AM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is the top security threat to the United States and the bomb maker thought to have created at least two non-metallic explosive devices must be killed to safeguard U.S. national security, a top senator said on Sunday. "I am hopeful that we will be able to, candidly, kill this bomb maker and kill some of these other associates, because there is a dangerous process in play at the present time," Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told "Fox News Sunday. ...
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Spaniards keep up anniversary rally against crisis
Sun,13 May 2012 10:34 AM PDT
Reuters - MADRID (Reuters) - Spaniards kept up protests against politicians' handling of the economic crisis in Madrid's Puerta del Sol on Sunday after police evicted people from the central square in the pre-dawn hours and made 18 arrests. As civic activists lamented Spain's worsening economy, authorities sought on the first anniversary of the grassroots "Indignados" movement to pre-empt a repeat of last year's encampment in the square that went on for a month. Police arrested 18 people in Puerta del Sol overnight for resisting an order to leave. ... Full Story | Top |
Hollande's camp sharpens tone before Merkel meet
Sun,13 May 2012 09:49 AM PDT
Reuters - PARIS (Reuters) - French Socialists said on Sunday that austerity was pushing the European Union toward economic ruin and warned Germany to accept changes to a budgetary treaty, raising tensions days before president-elect Francois Hollande takes a maiden trip to Berlin. Hollande, who will be sworn in as president on May 15, is due to take off shortly after the ceremony to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in his first trip abroad designed to highlight the continuity of Franco-German relations. ... Full Story | Top |
Merkel's party routed in big German state
Sun,13 May 2012 09:33 AM PDT
Reuters -  DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives suffered a crushing defeat on Sunday in an election in Germany's most populous state, a result which could embolden the left opposition to step up its criticism of her European austerity policies. The election in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), a western German state with a bigger population than the Netherlands and an economy the size of Turkey, was held 18 months before a national election in which Merkel is expected to fight for a third term. ...
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Syrian forces kill seven civilians in rural attack: activists
Sun,13 May 2012 09:16 AM PDT
Reuters - AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian troops backed by tanks shot dead seven civilians when they overran a rebellious Sunni Muslim village west of the city of Hama on Sunday, activists' organizations said, in a crackdown on the rural epicenter of the 14-month anti-government revolt. In neighboring Lebanon, three people were killed when fighting erupted in the city of Tripoli between members of the Alawite minority loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and members of the Sunni majority. ... Full Story | Top |
Alawite-Sunni fighting erupts in Lebanon, 3 killed
Sun,13 May 2012 09:12 AM PDT
Reuters -  TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - Three people were killed when fighting erupted overnight in the Lebanese city of Tripoli between members of the Alawite minority loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and members of the Sunni majority, witnesses and security officials said. Rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles were used in the fighting in an Alawite enclave and surrounding Sunni neighborhoods in the port city, 70 km (45 miles) north of Beirut. "The clashes peaked at dawn. The sound of gunfire is still echoing in the city," a Lebanese security official said. ...
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Protesters in mass "stroll" to test Putin's police
Sun,13 May 2012 08:57 AM PDT
Reuters - MOSCOW (Reuters) - About 10,000 people staged a mass "stroll" through central Moscow on Sunday to test the state's tolerance a week after police beat and scattered demonstrators upset over Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency. With few police in evidence, demonstrators gathered at a statue of revered poet Alexander Pushkin and walked down Moscow's Boulevard Ring to the site of an Occupy-style, 24-hour protest two km (1.25 miles) away. Police took no action. ... Full Story | Top |
Insight: India's "Queen of Democrazy" at the crossroads of change
Sun,13 May 2012 08:31 AM PDT
Reuters -  KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Kolkata's red-brick secretariat was built more than 200 years ago for Britain's East India Company, which used trade in opium, cloth and tea to colonize the subcontinent. Distrust of foreign merchants lingers still. For the past year, the sprawling building has been occupied by Mamata Banerjee, the diminutive chief minister of West Bengal state who is perhaps the largest obstacle to economic reforms that would allow 21st-century traders free access to India's consumer markets. ...
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Dalai Lama: China may have plotted to poison me
Sun,13 May 2012 08:22 AM PDT
Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - Tibet's Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, fears China may have plotted to kill him by training female agents with poison in their hair and on their clothing, he told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper. China has ruled Tibet since 1950, and the Chinese government has repeatedly accused exiled Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, of stoking dissent against its rule. The spiritual leader fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising. Last year he was warned that Chinese agents had trained Tibetan women to kill him, the Sunday Telegraph reported. ... Full Story | Top |
Merkel faces rout in state vote over austerity
Sun,13 May 2012 08:13 AM PDT
Reuters -  DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - Angela Merkel's conservatives looked set for a heavy election loss in Germany's most populous state on Sunday that could give the left momentum before next year's federal election and fuel criticism of the chancellor's European austerity drive. North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), an industrial state in western Germany with an economy and population roughly the size of the Netherlands, has a history of influencing national politics. ...
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Uganda captures Lord's Resistance Army commander
Sun,13 May 2012 08:11 AM PDT
Reuters -  RIVER VOVODO, Central African Republic (Reuters) - Uganda has captured one of the top five members of the Lord's Resistance Army, bringing it a step closer to catching Joseph Kony, the notorious rebel leader accused of war crimes, the military said on Sunday. The Ugandan army said it caught Caesar Achellam, a major general in Kony's outfit of about 200 fighters, in an ambush along the banks of the River Mbou in Central African Republic (CAR) on Saturday. Achellam was armed with just an AK-47 rifle and eight rounds of ammunition, a spokesman for the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF), said. ...
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Factbox: Nigeria's $6.8 billion fuel subsidy scam
Sun,13 May 2012 07:56 AM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - A $6.8 billion fuel subsidy fraud scandal is heaping pressure on Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to prosecute top officials or face protests, but many of those implicated are allies he is unlikely to go after if wants to keep his power base intact. A string of investigations, audits and committees were set-up to investigate the fuel subsidy scheme. The first major report was produced by the lower house of parliament and is shortly going to be delivered to Jonathan and his government. ... Full Story | Top |
Analysis: Nigeria president unlikely to risk oil graft crackdown
Sun,13 May 2012 07:51 AM PDT
Reuters - ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is coming under pressure to prosecute top officials implicated in a $6.8 billion fuel subsidy fraud, but many of the suspects are allies he is unlikely to go after if wants to keep his power base intact. It has been three weeks since parliament produced a report detailing massive corruption in a state subsidized petrol import scheme and Jonathan has yet to indicate how he intends to respond. ... Full Story | Top |
Influential German magazine calls for Greek exit from euro
Sun,13 May 2012 06:59 AM PDT
Reuters - BERLIN (Reuters) - "Acropolis, Adieu! Why Greece must leave the euro," reads the front-page headline of Germany's most influential magazine Der Spiegel, joining a chorus of voices in Europe's paymaster country suggesting an exit may now be the best option. In a sign Germany is coming to terms with a possible Greek departure, senior players in both business and political communities said this week the euro zone could survive without Greece because the bloc is now more resilient to shocks. ... Full Story | Top |
Hollande's DS ride foreshadows auto industry test
Sun,13 May 2012 06:57 AM PDT
Reuters - PARIS (Reuters) - Francois Hollande will arrive at his first appearance as French president in one of Citroen's flagship cars, handing the struggling company some welcome television exposure. Hollande has picked out a hybrid from PSA Peugeot Citroen's upscale DS line for the ride to his inauguration on Tuesday - a seemingly auspicious start to relations between France's biggest automaker and its new Socialist head of state. Few doubt they are bound to degenerate fast. ... Full Story | Top |
Syrian rebels swap officer for comrades' bodies
Sun,13 May 2012 06:54 AM PDT
Reuters - AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces have released the bodies of seven young men killed in a military raid on a conservative Sunni district of Damascus in exchange for an army officer abducted by rebels, opposition sources in the capital said on Sunday. The army had refused until Friday to release the bodies of the seven, who were killed on May 5 in a sweep of the Barzeh neighborhood, prompting the rebels to abduct the officer, Youssef Zaghbour, days later, they said. The area in the north of the capital has been the scene of regular street demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad's rule. ... Full Story | Top |
Gunmen toss grenade at home of Yemen info minister
Sun,13 May 2012 05:50 AM PDT
Reuters - SANAA (Reuters) - Unidentified assailants hurled a hand grenade at the house of Yemen's Information Minister Ali al-Amrani in Sanaa, injuring one person when they opened fire as they fled the scene, the minister's office said on Sunday. Abdel-Basset al-Qaedi, a member of the minister's staff, said two men on a motorcycle threw the grenade at a wing of the building housing the minister's bodyguards late on Saturday, causing no casualties. A bystander was injured in the foot during a shoot-out as the men escaped, he added. ... Full Story | Top |
Suicide bomber, car bombs hit Iraq security forces
Sun,13 May 2012 05:31 AM PDT
Reuters - BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber targeting a police checkpoint in Baghdad killed at least three people while car bombs hit army and police patrols in two other cities, killing three others, police and hospital sources said on Sunday. The attacks were the first serious violence since mid-April when a wave of bombings killed 36 people across the country, including an attack involving three car bombs and a suicide bomber in which 15 people died in Baghdad. ... Full Story | Top |
Two die in mine blast crossing from Egypt to Libya
Sun,13 May 2012 04:27 AM PDT
Reuters - CAIRO (Reuters) - Two men were killed on Sunday and 29 other people were injured after their convoy that was illegally crossing from Egypt into Libya entered a minefield, a medical source said. Mahmoud Zahran, a Health Ministry official in the northern Egyptian city of Marsa Matrouh, said an Egyptian and a Sudanese man died when their vehicle, which was travelling in a convoy with two others, hit landmines inside Libya. Health officials and Egypt's state news agency said all the injured were Egyptians, except for two Sudanese. Reports had earlier said the two dead were both Egyptian. ... Full Story | Top |
Talks between Greek leaders hit impasse: Socialists
Sun,13 May 2012 04:25 AM PDT
Reuters - ATHENS (Reuters) - Talks between Greece's three biggest political parties have hit an impasse, but there is still hope a government can be formed, Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos said after a meeting of political leaders on Sunday. "Even now, despite the impasse at the meeting we had with the president, I hold on to some limited optimism that a government can be formed," Venizelos told party members after the meeting of the three political leaders and the country's president. (Reporting by Harry Papachristou) Full Story | Top |
Greek political leaders end meeting with president
Sun,13 May 2012 03:37 AM PDT
Reuters - ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's parties will continue consultations to form a government, conservative party leader Antonis Samaras told reporters on Sunday after political leaders met the country's president. "Consultations will continue," Samaras said after the meeting between President Karolos Papoulias and the leaders of the country's three biggest political parties. (Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas) Full Story | Top |
Drowned Libya oil chief feared going home
Sun,13 May 2012 03:35 AM PDT
Reuters - VIENNA (Reuters) - Spat at in public by a fellow Libyan who called him a thief, watching his back on long walks through Vienna, eating poorly; Muammar Gaddafi's fugitive oil supremo was a troubled man in the months before he was found drowned in the Danube two weeks ago. Just whom, or what, Shokri Ghanem feared may hold a key to his mysterious sudden death, just as he was under mounting pressure to reveal what he knew of suspect deals with foreign oil buyers that made billionaires of the late dictator's family. ... Full Story | Top |
Afghan police kill two UK soldiers: Defense Ministry
Sun,13 May 2012 02:57 AM PDT
Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - Two members of the Afghan police opened fire on British soldiers who were mentoring them in the south of the country, killing two, Britain's Defense Ministry said on Sunday. The shooting on Saturday in Lashkar Gah in southern Helmand province was the latest in a string of attacks by members of Afghanistan's security services on foreign troops and their mentors, heaping pressure on some NATO countries to withdraw. "Serving as part of an advisory team, the servicemen were providing security for a meeting with local officials ... ... Full Story | Top |
Gulf leaders expected to announce unity plan
Sun,13 May 2012 02:13 AM PDT
Reuters - DUBAI/RIYADH (Reuters) - Gulf Arab leaders meeting on Monday are expected to announce closer political union, starting with two or three countries including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, a government minister in Bahrain said. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain might initially seek closer union, local newspapers have reported, as both countries have accused Shi'ite giant Iran of fomenting discontent among Shi'ite Muslims against the Sunni dynasties that rule in both nations. Tehran denies the charges. "I expect there will be an announcement of two or three countries. ... Full Story | Top |
Italy mulls using army to stem political violence
Sun,13 May 2012 02:08 AM PDT
Reuters - MILAN (Reuters) - Italy is considering using the army to protect the defense conglomerate Finmeccanica and the tax collection agency Equitalia, the targets of a series of attacks that are raising concerns about political violence, the interior minister said. Although protests against Italy's austerity program have been largely peaceful, last week a well-known anarchist group claimed responsibility for an attack in which a Finmeccanica executive was shot in the leg. "Investigators tell me this is a credible claim. ... Full Story | Top |
Mubarak's tainted legacy hangs over Egyptian vote
Sun,13 May 2012 01:27 AM PDT
Reuters -  CAIRO/LONDON (Reuters) - Military police idly guard the gates of Egypt's presidential palace in Heliopolis, built as a 400-room luxury hotel in 1910 and vacant since a popular uprising deposed Hosni Mubarak 15 months ago. Egyptians, who never stormed in to gawk and plunder their fallen leader's home as Tunisians and Libyans did last year, vote on May 23 and 24 for a new president, the latest stage of an uncertain transition guided bumpily by the military. ...
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