Today's Reuters World News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
|
|
China's "small stick" approach to South China Sea
Tue,15 May 2012 07:33 PM PDT
Reuters - HONG KONG (Reuters) - In a month-long standoff between China and the Philippines over a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, Beijing has so far refrained from sending warships from its increasingly powerful and modern navy to enforce its territorial claims. Instead, China has deployed patrol vessels from its expanding fleet of paramilitary ships to Scarborough Shoal, known in Chinese as Huangyan Island. Naval experts say the intent is to minimize the risk of conflict and contain any regional backlash. ... Full Story | Top |
U.S., Pakistan on verge of reopening supply lines
Tue,15 May 2012 07:27 PM PDT
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistan and the United States appeared on the verge of clinching an agreement to reopen ground supply lines into Afghanistan, a U.S. official said, as Islamabad confirmed its president will attend a summit of NATO leaders this weekend in Chicago. Reopening the supply route would be a major breakthrough in ties between Washington and Islamabad. Strained relations have fuelled speculation Pakistan might be excluded from NATO talks on Afghanistan's future. ... Full Story | Top |
Hollande gets stormy welcome to power
Tue,15 May 2012 07:23 PM PDT
Reuters -  PARIS (Reuters) - Francois Hollande was greeted by a thunderstorm in Paris and storm clouds gathering over the euro zone as France's first Socialist president in 17 years was sworn in on Tuesday before flying to Berlin to plead his case for less austerity in Europe. Hollande's first day in power was marred by a downpour as he rode by open-top car through Paris to mark his investiture, and lightning that hit his presidential jet, forcing him to make a U-turn en route to Germany and switch to a smaller Falcon jet. ...
Full Story | Top |
U.S. nuclear expert: Iran official linked to past program
Tue,15 May 2012 04:58 PM PDT
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Communications from the 1990s suggest Iran's current foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, had knowledge of a program to procure goods for an alleged clandestine nuclear program when he was head of a university, a U.S. nuclear expert said on Tuesday. David Albright, founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), said among 1,600 telexes and other material he has obtained and is studying was a letter signed by Salehi as head of Sharif University in 1991. ... Full Story | Top |
Obama has assets in JPMorgan accounts: White House
Tue,15 May 2012 04:23 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has $500,001 to $1 million in a JPMorgan Chase private client asset management checking account, according to financial disclosures released by the White House on Tuesday. Obama said this week that JPMorgan was "one of the best managed banks there is" despite its $2 billion trading loss being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. "This is a checking account used by the president and the first lady," said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage. ...
Full Story | Top |
FBI launches JPMorgan probe, shareholders back Dimon
Tue,15 May 2012 04:18 PM PDT
Reuters -  TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - The FBI has opened an inquiry into the multibillion-dollar trading losses at JPMorgan Chase, stepping up pressure on the bank after key U.S. agencies said they were looking into high-risk trades that first drew regulators' attention last month. The news did little to spook investors, who sent the stock higher Tuesday, or shareholders, who backed embattled Chief Executive Jamie Dimon at the bank's annual shareholders meeting, with a vote rejecting a proposal to split the jobs of CEO and chairman. ...
Full Story | Top |
JPMorgan was warned risk management not up to task
Tue,15 May 2012 04:10 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK, May 15 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - CtW Investment Group, a labor-backed shareholder group, last year warned JPMorgan Chase & Co that its risk management committee was not up to the task and sought to remove one of its members, Ellen Futter, who had been a director at American International Group Inc (AIG) before its near-collapse in 2008. ... Full Story | Top |
JPMorgan trade on regulators' radar in April: source
Tue,15 May 2012 04:05 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - Regulators first raised concerns in April about trading positions that led to a $2 billion-plus loss at JPMorgan Chase & Co, and they posed questions to senior management at the bank, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday. The U.S. Federal Reserve - JPMorgan's primary regulator - as well as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the UK Financial Services Authority were all involved in monitoring the bank's portfolio that suffered the big derivatives trading loss, the source said. ... Full Story | Top |
Syria attack kills 21; rebels say protect U.N. monitors
Tue,15 May 2012 03:53 PM PDT
Reuters -  BEIRUT (Reuters) - At least 21 people were killed on Tuesday in an attack in northern Syria, activists said, and members of a team of U.N. monitors caught in the incident said they were in rebel hands "for their own protection." When Reuters asked one of the four monitors by phone if they were being held prisoner, he said: "We are safe with the (rebel) Free Army." A spokesman for the rebel military council said the rebels were working on a safe exit for the monitors. An internal U.N. ...
Full Story | Top |
Mladic goes on trial for atrocities in Bosnia
Tue,15 May 2012 03:41 PM PDT
Reuters -  AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic goes on trial for genocide on Wednesday, accused of leading the slaughter of 8,000 unarmed Muslim boys and men in Srebrenica in 1995, Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two. Mladic, now 70, is the last of the main protagonists in the Balkan wars of the 1990s to go on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. He is accused of orchestrating not only the week-long massacre in Srebrenica, at the time a U.N. ...
Full Story | Top |
Taylor to reject call for 80-year sentence
Tue,15 May 2012 03:37 PM PDT
Reuters -  AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Former Liberian President Charles Taylor will on Wednesday tell judges he bears no responsibility for atrocities during Sierra Leone's 11-year civil war, rejecting the prosecution's demand for an 80-year sentence in a maximum-security British jail. Taylor, convicted last month of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone's conflict, is the first head of state to be found guilty by an international tribunal since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg. ...
Full Story | Top |
Caretaker govt will take Greece to risky repeat vote
Tue,15 May 2012 03:35 PM PDT
Reuters -  ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek political leaders meet on Wednesday to form a caretaker government that will lead the country into its second election in just over a month, with Greece's euro membership at stake in a mounting crisis rocking world markets. Parties deeply divided over an unpopular EU-IMF rescue plan threw in the towel on Tuesday after nine days of failed attempts to put together a coalition, hitting heavyweight financial stocks as investors worried at the prospect that the euro zone weakling would remain in limbo for at least another month. ...
Full Story | Top |
One killed in grenade blast in Kenyan coastal city
Tue,15 May 2012 03:27 PM PDT
Reuters -  NAIROBI (Reuters) - Gunmen detonated grenades outside a night club in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa on Tuesday, killing one person and wounding several others in the latest attack since Kenya sent troops into Somalia to crush Islamist militants. Nairobi has said al Shabaab militants, who merged with al Qaeda earlier this year, are behind a surge in violence and kidnappings threatening tourism in east Africa's biggest economy. ...
Full Story | Top |
Obama, Monti agree Europe ought to "intensify" growth: White House
Tue,15 May 2012 03:25 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on Tuesday discussed the need for Europe to do more to boost growth, speaking ahead of a weekend meeting of Group of Eight (G8) leaders at Camp David, Maryland, the White House said. Obama and Monti "discussed the current economic situation in Europe and agreed on the need to intensify efforts to promote growth and job creation," the White House said in a readout of their telephone call. (Reporting By Alister Bull)
Full Story | Top |
No boost for Obama from gay marriage decision
Tue,15 May 2012 03:18 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's announcement of support for gay marriage has inflamed political passions but has not given him a bump in popularity, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Tuesday. Roughly a third of Americans view Obama more favorably and a third less favorably because of his announcement last week that he supports the right of gay and lesbian couples to wed. Obama said his backing of gay marriage was a personal decision, but the announcement set off a fierce political debate and speculation about whether it will help him in November's presidential election. ...
Full Story | Top |
Merkel, Hollande promise joint growth strategy
Tue,15 May 2012 03:15 PM PDT
Reuters -  BERLIN (Reuters) - New French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged differences on Tuesday over how to boost growth in recession-plagued Europe, but pledged to forge a joint approach in time for an EU summit next month. The Socialist Hollande jetted to Berlin only hours after being sworn in to meet Merkel, a conservative, for the first time, arriving over an hour late after his plane was hit by lightning and he was forced to return briefly to Paris. ...
Full Story | Top |
Facebook increases IPO range to raise $12.1 billion
Tue,15 May 2012 03:07 PM PDT
Reuters -  NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc increased the price range on its initial public offering an average of 14 percent to raise more than $12 billion, giving the world's No. 1 social network a valuation potentially exceeding $100 billion. The company, founded eight years ago by Mark Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm room, raised the target range to between $34 and $38 per share in response to strong demand, from $28 to $35, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. ...
Full Story | Top |
Strauss-Kahn countersues NY hotel maid for $1 million
Tue,15 May 2012 03:02 PM PDT
Reuters -  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has filed a $1 million countersuit against the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault, costing him his job and any chance of being elected president of France. New York police arrested Strauss-Kahn a year ago when hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo accused him of forcible oral sex and trying to rape her in his luxury suite at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan. Strauss-Kahn denied the allegations, saying the sexual encounter with Diallo was consensual. Prosecutors later dropped the charges after losing confidence in Diallo's credibility. ...
Full Story | Top |
U.N. and Iran agree to keep talking on nuclear
Tue,15 May 2012 02:48 PM PDT
Reuters -  VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog ended two days of talks on Tuesday by agreeing to meet again next week, just two days before Tehran resumes negotiations with world powers concerned it may be seeking to develop atomic bomb capability. While both sides were upbeat about the discussions, which will continue on Monday, there was no word on whether the U.N. agency had made progress towards one of its main aims - to secure access to a suspect military site near Tehran. ...
Full Story | Top |
Iran criticizes Saudi-Bahrain union plan
Tue,15 May 2012 02:48 PM PDT
Reuters - DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran criticized on Tuesday plans by Gulf Arab leaders to form a closer political, economic and military union to counter Shi'ite Muslim discontent in Bahrain, warning such move would "deepen the wounds" in the island state. Gulf Arab countries held a summit in Riyadh on Monday to establish closer union between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, which sent troops in March last year to help squash the uprising in Manama, but failed to agree on further integration. ... Full Story | Top |
Canada says job data good, recovery will be lumpy
Tue,15 May 2012 02:38 PM PDT
Reuters -  OTTAWA (Reuters) - A recent Canadian jobs report was promising but the country's economic recovery is set to be uneven, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Tuesday. Canada added 58,200 new jobs in April after a big gain of 82,300 in March, according to Statistics Canada. "The job numbers are encouraging. I'm always cautious about monthly job numbers. It's been two good months but we know that we're likely to have a lumpy recovery," Flaherty told the Canadian Senate's banking committee. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson)
Full Story | Top |
TSX sinks to 7-month low on Greece fears
Tue,15 May 2012 02:36 PM PDT
Reuters -  TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian stocks sank to a seven-month low on Tuesday as resource shares continued their May sell-off after Greece said it would hold new elections, heightening concern about its possible exit from the euro zone and the spillover effect on global markets. Greece's president said the country will hold new elections after politicians again failed to agree on a new government, sparking fears that left-wing politicians opposed to Greece's international bailout terms could win the June elections. ...
Full Story | Top |
Bomb targeting former Colombian minister kills two
Tue,15 May 2012 02:35 PM PDT
Reuters -  BOGOTA (Reuters) - In a rare attack in Colombia's capital, a bomb targeting a former interior minister tore through his car near the city's financial district on Tuesday, killing the driver and a police escort. The Andean country has battled left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups and drug lords for decades, but a campaign against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the demobilization of paramilitaries fighting them has reduced violence in recent years. ...
Full Story | Top |
Sudan's Bashir says no South Sudan oil exports without security
Tue,15 May 2012 02:23 PM PDT
Reuters -  KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan will not allow South Sudan to export any oil through its territory unless the two states settle all disputes over border security, President Omar al-Bashir said on Tuesday. Oil, security and frontier disputes ignited border clashes last month and for a while raised fears of full-blown war in one of Africa's most significant oil regions. South Sudan took three quarters of Sudan's oil production when it became independent in July under a 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of civil war with Khartoum. ...
Full Story | Top |
Greece to hold new election, jolts euro markets
Tue,15 May 2012 02:01 PM PDT
Reuters - ATHENS/BERLIN (Reuters) - Attempts to form a government in Greece collapsed on Tuesday, jolting financial markets at the prospect that leftists opposed to the terms of an EU bailout could sweep to victory in a June election and tip the euro zone deeper into crisis. The turmoil in Athens sent shock waves around other troubled members of the 17-nation European single currency area. The euro slipped below $1.28, world stocks slid and Spanish and Italian bond yields rose above the danger level of 6 percent as investors scurried for shelter in safe haven German Bunds. ... Full Story | Top |
Hollande gets stormy welcome to power
Tue,15 May 2012 02:01 PM PDT
Reuters -  PARIS (Reuters) - Francois Hollande was greeted by a thunderstorm in Paris and storm clouds gathering over the euro zone as France's first Socialist president in 17 years was sworn in on Tuesday before flying to Berlin to plead his case for less austerity in Europe. Hollande's first day in power was marred by a downpour as he rode by open-top car through Paris to mark his investiture, and lightning that hit his presidential jet, forcing him to make a U-turn en route to Germany and switch to a smaller Falcon jet. ...
Full Story | Top |
Putin praised by leaders of ex-Soviet states
Tue,15 May 2012 01:40 PM PDT
Reuters -  MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin won praise from leaders of former Soviet republics on Tuesday and called for closer integration among the now-independent states once ruled by Moscow. He pointedly decided to snub a G8 summit in the United States this weekend and instead made the one-day conference of post-Soviet leaders the first meeting with foreign heads of state of his new presidential term. ...
Full Story | Top |
Paul hopes to influence Republican agenda at convention
Tue,15 May 2012 01:22 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ron Paul knows he cannot win the Republican presidential nomination so he's looking for the next best thing from the national convention in Tampa: to put his small-government stamp on the party platform. One day after Paul announced he would stop active campaigning, his chief strategist Jesse Benton said on Tuesday said the focus would move to state conventions. By flooding those events with Paul's fervent supporters, the campaign hopes to win in at least five states to raise the number of Paul supporter delegates attending the convention in August. ...
Full Story | Top |
Burning man tries to break into Breivik trial
Tue,15 May 2012 01:21 PM PDT
Reuters -  OSLO (Reuters) - A man set himself on fire and tried to force his way into the Norwegian courthouse where far-right mass killer Anders Behring Breivik is on trial for massacring 77 people last July, police said on Tuesday. The man, who appeared to be a white Norwegian in his 50s, doused himself with liquid and set himself on fire before shouting at police officers and rushing toward a gate in the security perimeter, witnesses and police said. There was no indication of a motive. ...
Full Story | Top |
Support for Mexico ruling party candidate at new low: poll
Tue,15 May 2012 01:18 PM PDT
Reuters -  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Support for Mexican presidential hopeful Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate of the ruling National Action Party (PAN), has fallen to its lowest level since the campaign began at the end of March, a poll showed on Tuesday. The latest voter survey by pollster Consulta Mitofsky showed Vazquez Mota slipping 0.6 percentage points to 20.8 percent, nearly 18 points behind front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. ...
Full Story | Top |
Bush says U.S. must stand by reformists in Arab spring
Tue,15 May 2012 01:07 PM PDT
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States must stand by reformists in the Middle East and North Africa as the euphoria of revolution gives way to the tough work of building democratic societies, former U.S. President George W. Bush said on Tuesday. Bush, who launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq that deposed Saddam Hussein, called the Arab Spring "the broadest challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse of Soviet communism." However, he warned that the difficult path to democracy would test those societies and their supporters. ... Full Story | Top |
CP Rail still seeks turnaround as proxy battle ends
Tue,15 May 2012 01:02 PM PDT
Reuters -  TORONTO/VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Storied Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd faces tough challenges as a grueling proxy battle nears its end, and a likely new boss must meet investors' high expectations as well as keeping staff and employees happy after a four-month battle for control. With sweeping board changes all but inevitable, current chief executive, Fred Green, appears to be headed for an embarrassing defeat at the hands of William Ackman and his Pershing Square Capital Management, CP's biggest shareholder with a 14.1 percent stake. ...
Full Story | Top |
At least 44 killed in offensive on Yemen militants
Tue,15 May 2012 12:37 PM PDT
Reuters -  ADEN, Yemen (Reuters) - At least 44 people including 30 Islamist militants were killed overnight in Yemen, officials and residents said on Tuesday, as the government pressed ahead with a new U.S.-backed offensive against insurgents in the south. The Islamist rebellion is of serious concern to the United States and to Yemen's much bigger neighbor Saudi Arabia, which both fear that instability could give al Qaeda's Yemen-based regional wing a bigger foothold near oil shipping routes through the Red Sea. ...
Full Story | Top |
In breakthrough, Pakistan leader to attend NATO summit
Tue,15 May 2012 12:37 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will attend a summit of NATO leaders in Chicago this weekend, the Pakistan Embassy in Washington said on Tuesday, ending speculation Islamabad might be excluded from the high-level talks on Afghanistan's future. Nadeem Hotiana, an embassy spokesman, confirmed Zardari's attendance at the May 20-21 summit, a sign Washington and Islamabad may finally be able to significantly improve ties following the NATO air strike in November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and prompted Pakistan to shut NATO supply routes into Afghanistan. ...
Full Story | Top |
EU studying impact of Iran ship insurance ban: UK
Tue,15 May 2012 12:35 PM PDT
Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - Britain and France are studying a proposed European Union ban on insuring tankers carrying Iranian oil to see how severe an impact it would have on trade with non-EU countries, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Tuesday. Asked in parliament about a May 8 Reuters report that Britain was seeking to persuade fellow EU members to postpone a ban on insurance for cargoes of Iranian oil, Hague confirmed EU countries were discussing whether the insurance ban should apply from July 1, or later. ... Full Story | Top |
Canada's Wind Mobile growth slows sharply
Tue,15 May 2012 12:33 PM PDT
Reuters - TORONTO (Reuters) - Globalive's Wind Mobile, one of Canada's more recent wireless entrants, grew at a much slower pace in the first quarter than a year earlier, suggesting established operators are managing to blunt the threat posed by newcomers offering lower rates. The slowdown comes as Wind, facing stiff competition on the lower end of the market, pushes to sell more expensive phones and data plans. ... Full Story | Top |
Annan urges Syria to accept terms for U.N. aid delivery
Tue,15 May 2012 12:32 PM PDT
Reuters - UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N.-Arab League mediator Kofi Annan is urging Syria's government to accept U.N. conditions for expanding the distribution of humanitarian aid to roughly 1 million Syrians in need of assistance, the United Nations said on Tuesday. The aid is necessary because of the desperate situation many Syrians find themselves in after 14 months of a Syrian government assault on an opposition that is increasingly determined to oust President Bashar al-Assad. ... Full Story | Top |
Lightning, rain buffet Hollande's presidential debut
Tue,15 May 2012 12:28 PM PDT
Reuters - PARIS (Reuters) - A mid-air lightning strike forced Francois Hollande's French presidential jet to turn around and land on Tuesday and he was repeatedly drenched to the skin by torrential downpours as freak weather gave him a punishing first day in the job. Hollande, who paints himself as a man who leads an everyday life, had to change suits twice after he was first soaked by a summer rainstorm while standing in an open-topped car for an inaugural parade in Paris then again a few hours later when the heavens again opened during an outdoor ceremony. ... Full Story | Top |
Libyan Islamist militia leader to run in June poll
Tue,15 May 2012 12:26 PM PDT
Reuters -  TRIPOLI (Reuters) - One of Libya's most powerful militia leaders said on Tuesday he had registered his newly founded party for June's election for a transitional national assembly, swapping his post for a run at public office. Abdel Hakim Belhadj, a former Islamist militant who helped topple Muammar Gaddafi in last year's revolt, has considerable resources and a well-organized network of followers. His party could do well in the election on June 19 and give the 200-seat assembly, which will draft a constitution, a strong Islamist flavor. ...
Full Story | Top |
Bomb targeting former Colombian minister kills two
Tue,15 May 2012 11:45 AM PDT
Reuters -  BOGOTA (Reuters) - In a rare attack in the Colombian capital Bogota, a bomb targeting a former interior minister on Tuesday killed his driver and a police officer, President Juan Manuel Santos said. The Andean country has battled left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups and drug lords for decades, but a campaign since 2002 against cocaine traffickers and rebels coupled with the demobilization of paramilitaries has sharply reduced violence. "We condemn this attack ... this government will not be thrown off course by these terrorist attacks. ...
Full Story | Top |
| |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment