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| Syrian opposition struggles for unity as battle rages Saturday, May 25, 2013 06:29 PM PDT  By Khaled Yacoub Oweis ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Syria's opposition resumed talks on Saturday aimed at closing their fractious ranks, as government forces launched a fierce onslaught on a rebel-held border town to try to gain the upper hand in the civil war. A failure of the opposition to unite could weaken the hand of Russia and the United States, co-sponsors of a proposed peace conference on the war, which has killed 80,000 and threatens to spill over borders and whip up wider sectarian violence. The U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
| British police arrest 3 over soldier's killing Saturday, May 25, 2013 03:39 PM PDT  British counter-terrorism police on Saturday arrested three people suspected of involvement in the killing of a soldier hacked to death in a London street by two men shouting Islamist slogans. The killing of the soldier in what the government said appeared to be a terrorist attack has led to angry protests against radical Islam and fears of a possible anti-Muslim backlash. Michael Adebolajo, 28 and Michael Adebowale, 22, are under armed guard in hospital after being shot and arrested by police on suspicion of murder on Wednesday. ... Full Story | Top |
| Kerry presses Egypt on economic reform, says aid depends on it Saturday, May 25, 2013 02:35 PM PDT  By Arshad Mohammed ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry urged Egypt to act swiftly on economic reforms to secure a $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan, saying the measures were needed to get further aid from the U.S. Congress, an American official said. Kerry met Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi for about an hour on the sidelines of an African Union summit on Saturday, discussing Syria's civil war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, human rights in Egypt and the country's faltering economy, the official said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Will immigration reform get killed in Republican-led House? Saturday, May 25, 2013 07:26 PM PDT  By Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The biggest overhaul of U.S. immigration laws in a generation won bipartisan approval from a powerful U.S. Senate committee last week, but there is a strong chance that Republicans in the House of Representatives will end up killing it. The problem: House Republicans are far from convinced by arguments from party leaders that passage of the bill would help Republicans draw support from Hispanic voters. Many also believe any kind of amnesty for the estimated 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally is just plain wrong. ... Full Story | Top |
| Two killed as heavy rains flood San Antonio streets Saturday, May 25, 2013 06:24 PM PDT By Jim Forsyth SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Two women were killed on Saturday as drenching rains in San Antonio triggered floodwaters so strong they swept cars and a city bus off the street and forced the rescue of some 130 people, officials said. The flooding, which followed torrential rains that brought flash-flood warnings across South Texas, inundated a number of major thoroughfares in San Antonio and collapsed the roof of an apartment complex. ... Full Story | Top |
| French soldier stabbed while on patrol near Paris Saturday, May 25, 2013 01:06 PM PDT By Nicolas Bertin PARIS (Reuters) - A French soldier patrolling a business neighborhood west of Paris was stabbed in the neck and injured on Saturday by a man who fled the scene and is being sought by police, President Francois Hollande said. The 23-year-old was patrolling in uniform with two other soldiers as part of France's Vigipirate anti-terror surveillance plan when he was approached from behind around 6 p.m. and attacked with a knife or a box-cutter. ... Full Story | Top |
| Sexual assault is a 'scourge' on U.S. military: Hagel Saturday, May 25, 2013 11:45 AM PDT  (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called sexual assault a "scourge" on Saturday as he addressed graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where a sergeant stands accused of videotaping female cadets in the showers. "Sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military are a profound betrayal - a profound betrayal - of sacred oaths and sacred trusts," Hagel said. "This scourge must be stamped out." His comments came a day after President Barack Obama delivered a similar message to graduates at the U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
| Hezbollah, Syrian government forces advance in border town Saturday, May 25, 2013 11:11 AM PDT  By Erika Solomon BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government forces and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah launched a fierce campaign to seize more rebel territory in the border town of Qusair on Saturday, sources on both sides of the conflict said. Rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad said additional tanks and artillery had been deployed around opposition-held territory in Qusair, a Syrian town close to the Lebanese border. "I've never seen a day like this since the battle started," said Malek Ammar, an activist speaking from the town by Skype. ... Full Story | Top |
| As border tightens, some U.S.-Mexico neighbors reach across the fence Saturday, May 25, 2013 12:32 PM PDT  By Tim Gaynor NACO, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexican activist Maria Elena Borquez takes up a paintbrush and daubs a bright splotch of color on the rusted steel fence separating the small Mexican town of Naco from a neighboring town in the United States. "The wall projects hostility," she said, paint pot in hand and surrounded by youngsters from both the United States and Mexico. "The idea is to transform it with art, friendship, colors and life ... into something that unites us," said Borquez, who is director of the local museum. ... Full Story | Top |
| Two freight trains collide in Missouri, bringing down overpass Saturday, May 25, 2013 01:23 PM PDT  By Tim Bross ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - Two freight trains collided at a rail intersection in rural Missouri on Saturday, triggering the collapse of a highway overpass when at least a dozen rail cars derailed and struck a support pillar, authorities said. None of the seven people hurt in the fiery crash - two train workers and five people who had been in two cars on the overpass - suffered life-threatening injuries, Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter said in a statement. ... Full Story | Top |
| Blackstone notifies Cohen's SAC it intends to pull money: pension consultant Saturday, May 25, 2013 10:10 AM PDT  By Matthew Goldstein (Reuters) - Billionaire hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen is losing the financial support of Blackstone Group Inc, the largest outside investor in his embattled SAC Capital Advisors, which is yanking much of its client money, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters. A pension consultant, in a May 21 letter to clients, said Blackstone has notified Cohen that it intends to "fully redeem" a significant portion of the roughly $550 million the investment firm has invested with the $15 billion hedge fund. ... Full Story | Top |
| Syrian opposition struggles for unity as battle rages Saturday, May 25, 2013 02:02 PM PDT  By Khaled Yacoub Oweis ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Syria's opposition resumed talks on Saturday aimed at closing their fractious ranks, as government forces launched a fierce onslaught on a rebel-held border town to try to gain the upper hand in the civil war. A failure of the opposition to unite could weaken the hand of Russia and the United States, co-sponsors of a proposed peace conference on the war, which has killed 80,000 and threatens to spill over borders and whip up wider sectarian violence. The U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
| Two believed dead as heavy rains flood San Antonio streets Saturday, May 25, 2013 04:26 PM PDT By Jim Forsyth SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - One woman died when her car was washed off a bridge and a second was believed to have drowned on Saturday as drenching rains in San Antonio triggered floodwaters so strong they swept a city bus off the street and forced the rescue of some 130 people, officials said. The flooding, which followed torrential rains that brought flash-flood warnings across South Texas, inundated a number of major thoroughfares in San Antonio and collapsed the roof of an apartment complex. ... Full Story | Top |
| Sixth night of violence in Sweden, but police say capital calmer Saturday, May 25, 2013 06:24 AM PDT  By Mia Shanley STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Community patrols and a beefed-up police presence helped to calm violence around Stockholm overnight on Saturday but 20 to 30 cars were still torched in poor immigrant suburbs and serious incidents were reported outside the capital for the first time. The rioting in Stockholm abated after a week of masked youths vandalizing schools and police stations, setting cars alight and hurling stones at firefighters, police said. "It was much calmer - rocks weren't being thrown at police or firefighters - and that's a sign that it's calmer. ... Full Story | Top |
| What Detroit crisis? Pension fund trustees hang out in Hawaii Saturday, May 25, 2013 05:08 AM PDT  By Malia Mattoch McManus HONOLULU (Reuters) - The city of Detroit may be facing a deepening financial crisis but that hasn't stopped four trustees of its public pension funds from spending $22,000 of retirement system funds to attend a conference in Hawaii this week. The trip 4,500 miles west to a four-star resort on the world-famous Waikiki Beach in Honolulu doesn't sit well with the top officials now running Detroit's finances under an emergency order from the state of Michigan. ... Full Story | Top |
| Suicide car bombing in Russia's Dagestan injures 11 Saturday, May 25, 2013 04:30 AM PDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew herself up in car near a police building in Russia's Dagestan region on Saturday, injuring 11 policemen and passers-by, Russian media reported. Dagestan, an ethnically mixed, mostly Muslim region between Chechnya and the Caspian Sea, has become the most violent province in the North Caucasus, where insurgents say they are fighting to carve out an Islamic state out of southern Russia. ... Full Story | Top |
| Pakistan school bus explosion and blaze kill 17 children: media Saturday, May 25, 2013 03:53 AM PDT  ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Seventeen Pakistani children burnt to death on Saturday when a gas cylinder on the bus taking them to school exploded, media said. Ten children were injured in the blaze on the outskirts of Gujrat, 100 miles southeast of Islamabad, DawnNews said. Many vehicles in energy-starved Pakistan are powered by relatively cheap compressed natural gas and cylinder blasts are common. (Reporting by Nick Macfie; Editing by Ron Popeski) Full Story | Top |
| In Syria's shadow, Iraq violence presents new test for U.S. Friday, May 24, 2013 10:05 PM PDT  By Warren Strobel WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saddled with Middle East problems ranging from Iran to Syria and beyond, President Barack Obama now faces one that is both old and new: Iraq. Unresolved sectarian tensions, inflamed by the raging civil war in neighboring Syria, have combined to send violence in Iraq to its highest level since Obama withdrew the last U.S. troops in December 2011, U.S. officials and Middle East analysts say. A Sunni Muslim insurgency against the Shi'ite-led Baghdad government has also been reawakened. ... Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine's first gay march held under police protection Saturday, May 25, 2013 05:03 AM PDT  KIEV (Reuters) - About 100 Ukrainian gay rights activists held the country's first gay rally on Saturday, helped by police who arrested 13 people for trying to break up the march. The activists walked for about 250 meters (yards) along Victory Avenue in the capital Kiev while Orthodox Christian activists nearby chanted slogans denouncing them. "Ukraine is not America. Kiev is not Sodom,' shouted one anti-gay demonstrator over a loudspeaker. ... Full Story | Top |
| Taliban attack international compound in Afghan capital Saturday, May 25, 2013 05:00 AM PDT  By Amie Ferris-Rotman and Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban militants launched a large-scale attack involving the United Nations in the center of the Afghan capital Kabul on Friday, sparking a five-hour battle with security forces. A plume of smoke hung over Kabul after the attack was launched, with the sound of .50 caliber heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire clearly audible throughout the city center as night fell. An Afghan police officer was killed and 10 other people were wounded during the attack, which began at 4 p.m. ... Full Story | Top |
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