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| Indian PM Singh to visit White House in late September Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 09:06 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is due to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on September 27, the White House said on Tuesday. Singh has come under fire in India for quietly trying to restart peace talks with arch-rival Pakistan. Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called for better relations with India after weeks of mounting tensions along the border the two countries share in mountainous Kashmir. ... Full Story | Top |
| Mexico's Pemex says ammonia gas pipeline leak kills at least three Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 08:47 PM PDT  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - At least three people were killed by an ammonia gas leak from a pipeline owned by state oil monopoly Pemex in southern Mexico on Tuesday and 1,500 people were evacuated from the area and taken to shelters, the company said. Mexican media put the death toll at four and said some 40 others were poisoned by the leak in the southern state of Oaxaca. Pemex said the leak was caused when the pipeline was damaged by heavy machinery operated by a private company doing road work. Pemex has had a poor safety record in recent years. ... Full Story | Top |
| Japan to issue gravest Fukushima nuclear warning in two years: agency Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 08:29 PM PDT  By Kentaro Hamada and James Topham TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will dramatically raise its warning about the severity of a toxic water leak at the Fukushima nuclear plant, its nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday, its most serious action since the plant was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The deepening crisis at the Fukushima plant will be upgraded from a level 1 "anomaly" to a level three "serious incident" on an international scale for radiological releases, a spokesman for Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Bankruptcy court approves Patriot Coal labor deal Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 06:50 PM PDT By Bernard Vaughan NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. court approved a labor deal between bankrupt Patriot Coal Corp and its miners' union on Tuesday, putting the company on track to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of the year. A deal this month for new collective bargaining agreements and retiree healthcare benefits with the United Mine Workers of America helped avoid more drastic cutbacks Patriot was authorized to impose earlier this year. Bankruptcy Judge Kathy Surratt-States, who is overseeing the company's restructuring in St. ... Full Story | Top |
| NASA adds more space launch platforms for sale to private firms Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 04:11 PM PDT By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - While NASA considers competing bids to take over a shuttle launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, it added three mobile launch platforms to its list of excess equipment available to private industry, officials said on Tuesday. Ideally, NASA wants a commercial launch company to take over one or more of the massive steel platforms, which were originally built in 1967 to support the Apollo moon program's Saturn rockets. The 25-foot (7.6-meter) tall platforms were later modified for the space shuttles, which flew from 1981 until 2011. ... Full Story | Top |
| Analysis: Foes of Obama climate policy prepare battle over cost of carbon Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 02:51 PM PDT  By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three months ago, the Obama administration made a little-noticed but potentially pivotal move in the stepped-up fight against climate change: it boosted the U.S. government's official estimate of the future economic damage caused by carbon pollution. After its first review, a panel of technical experts from 11 government agencies raised the so-called "social cost of carbon," known as SCC. The measure is used by many arms of the U.S. government to determine the financial benefits of new regulations since 2010. ... Full Story | Top |
| Fire put out on Oklahoma natural gas pipeline after blast Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 12:32 PM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - A fire on Tuesday caused by an explosion at a natural gas pipeline owned by Enable Midstream Partners near Kiowa, Oklahoma, has been extinguished, an Enable spokeswoman said. The cause of the blast was unknown and there were no injuries reported. The incident occurred on a small gathering pipeline in a rural area about 60 miles southeast of Oklahoma City. The affected section of the pipe was isolated and the remaining gas emptied from that portion of the line. ... Full Story | Top |
| BHP delays $14 billion Canada potash push as profit drops Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 11:54 AM PDT  By Sonali Paul and Clara Ferreira-Marques MELBOURNE/LONDON (Reuters) - Miner BHP Billiton mapped out a cautious approach to expanding into potash on Tuesday, keeping a $14 billion Canadian project alive but delaying production at the giant deposit until at least 2020. In its first set of results under new Chief Executive Andrew Mackenzie, BHP outlined its plan to keep options open alongside a 15 percent drop in half-year profit. The world's largest miner missed forecasts largely due to Australian mining tax adjustments and other non-operational items. ... Full Story | Top |
| Libyan interior minister resigns over "interference" Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 08:10 AM PDT TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya's Interior Minister Mohammed Khalifa al-Sheikh stepped down on Sunday in protest against what he saw as interference in his work by the prime minister and parliament, a lawmaker said. The ministry has come under increasing pressure to deal with violence that has persisted since the 2011 war that toppled Muammar Gaddafi. The oil-producing state is still awash with weapons and militias who have clashed with security forces. Al-Sharif al-Wafi, a member of the Libyan General National Congress, told Reuters Sheikh had submitted his resignation to the cabinet. ... Full Story | Top |
| Wrecked Fukushima storage tank leaking highly radioactive water Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 07:26 AM PDT By Yoko Kubota and Yuka Obayashi TOKYO (Reuters) - Contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the most serious setback to the cleanup of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. The storage tank breach of about 300 metric tons of water is separate from contaminated water leaks reported in recent weeks, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Tuesday. ... Full Story | Top |
| Wood Group held back by Canadian oil uncertainty Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 05:59 AM PDT By Andrew Callus LONDON (Reuters) - Energy services company John Wood Group expects weakening Canadian demand to restrict earnings growth for its oil and gas engineering division this year and into 2014. The British company has been a strong performer in the European oil services sector while others have suffered from project delays this year. But delivering first-half profit growth broadly in line with analysts' expectations, Chief Executive Bob Keiller said it was "not immune" to that trend. "We have seen some reduction in western Canada ... ... Full Story | Top |
| Russia's former 'grey cardinal' denies new Kremlin role Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 05:39 AM PDT  MOSCOW (Reuters) - The architect of Russia's tightly controlled political system denied on Tuesday he had accepted an offer to return to the Kremlin, according to a friend, a move that would strengthen liberals in President Vladimir Putin's inner circle. A report by pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia that former political aide Vladislav Surkov, 48, would soon be appointed Putin's adviser on business innovation fuelled speculation that he is about to be brought in from the cold. ... Full Story | Top |
| Cairn reassures on new exploration planned for Africa, Ireland Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 05:17 AM PDT By Sarah Young LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Cairn Energy said new exploration in northwest Africa and Ireland, with drilling due to start in weeks, is more likely to succeed than in Greenland, where it has spent $1.2 billion without finding oil. After its primary focus on Greenland in 2010 and 2011, the company has spent the past 18 months building up a portfolio of exploration licences in Africa and Ireland. ... Full Story | Top |
| China oil imports to overtake U.S. by 2017: WoodMac Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 03:34 AM PDT  LONDON (Reuters) - China will overtake the United States as the world's biggest crude oil importer by 2017 as Chinese motorists drive domestic oil demand higher, consultancy Wood Mackenzie said on Tuesday. China is on track to spend $500 billion on crude oil imports by 2020, far outstripping the peak cost ever incurred by the United States on crude imports of $335 billion, Wood Mackenzie said in a report. It forecasts the U.S. crude oil import bill will fall to around $160 billion by 2020 as U.S. tight oil output from shale resources replaces imports from the Middle East and Africa. ... Full Story | Top |
| Novartis muscle wasting drug gets 'breakthrough' status Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013 01:56 AM PDT  ZURICH (Reuters) - Novartis said on Tuesday U.S. regulators have granted breakthrough therapy status for its investigational compound bimagrumab for the potential treatment of patients with sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) created the "breakthrough therapy" designation earlier this year for medicines deemed likely to demonstrate "substantial improvement" over existing drugs. sIBM is a rare yet potentially life-threatening muscle-wasting condition. Patients suffering from the disease can gradually lose the ability to walk. ... Full Story | Top |
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