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| U.S. intelligence estimate sees big rollbacks in Afghanistan: report Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 07:39 PM PST  A new U.S. intelligence estimate predicts that gains the United States and allies have made in the Afghanistan war in the past three years will be significantly rolled back by 2017, even if some U.S. troops remain, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing officials familiar with the report. The National Intelligence Estimate also predicts that Afghanistan will quickly fall into chaos if Washington and Kabul fail to sign a security pact to keep an international military contingent there beyond 2014, the newspaper said. The pact must be signed for the United States and its allies to provide billions more dollars in aid to the impoverished country. But the newspaper said some officials felt the report on the potential outcome of the longest war in U.S. history was overly pessimistic and did not take into account progress made by Afghanistan's security forces. Full Story | Top |
| Former Congressman Andrew Jacobs Jr. of Indiana dead at age 81 Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 07:28 PM PST (Reuters) - Former U.S. Representative Andrew Jacobs Jr., a Democrat from Indiana who fought in the Korean War and later became an early opponent of the Vietnam War, died on Saturday at his home in Indianapolis at age 81, said friend and former campaign manager Gary Taylor. Jacobs was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1964, but lost his seat in 1972 along with several other Democratic members of Congress in Republican President Richard Nixon's landslide re-election win. In 1974, months after the Watergate scandal forced Nixon's resignation, Jacobs regained his House seat and served until his retirement in 1997, representing a district in his native Indianapolis. He is survived by his wife, Kim Hood Jacobs, an Emmy Award-winning television reporter and documentary producer, and sons Andy and Steven Jacobs. Full Story | Top |
| NYPD's Ray Kelly oversaw transformative era in NY policing Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 03:13 PM PST  By Chris Francescani NEW YORK (Reuters) - In the final weeks of New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly's 12-year tenure, the spotlight has been focused on the city's falling crime rate and the NYPD's aggressive use of policing tactics like stop-and-frisk. Often overlooked in press reports about his legacy have been Kelly's efforts to transform policing in the country's biggest city through technological innovation and mass data-collection, which has been met with a mixture of praise and accusations of overreaching. Since taking charge of a force in 2002 that was "still using carbon paper and White Out," as Kelly has said, the New York City Police Department has become, by many policing experts' accounts, the most tech-savvy in the country, and crime has dropped by a third - twice the national average, according to some studies. Former commissioner Bill Bratton, who will succeed Kelly to the post, had in 1995 launched CompStat, a police performance management system that tracks and analyzes real-time crime data and holds precinct commanders accountable. Full Story | Top |
| Five decapitated bodies dumped in Michoacan capital Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 02:39 PM PST Five severed heads and their bodies were dumped in two spots Saturday morning around the capital of the western state of Michoacan that has been plagued by worsening drug gang violence this year. Michoacan's murder rate rose in 2013 compared to declines in most states. Last month, dozens of mutilated corpses were found buried in mass graves in an area on the border between the states of Michoacan and Jalisco. Violence spiked in Michoacan in recent years and masked groups of vigilantes took power in some rural communities in 2013, claiming the government was failing to stop gang extortion and violence. Full Story | Top |
| Kerry heads to Middle East next week for peace talks: U.S. official Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 02:38 PM PST  By Lesley Wroughton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry will return to Israel and the Palestinian territories for peace talks next week, the State Department said on Saturday, in a visit that will come days after Israel is due to free another group of Palestinian prisoners. Kerry will travel to Jerusalem and Ramallah on Wednesday for more talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, resuming his intensive shuttle diplomacy after a Christmas break. Full Story | Top |
| Hundreds try to flee C. African Republic on emergency flights Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 01:40 PM PST  By Paul-Marin Ngoupana BANGUI (Reuters) - Hundreds of people tried to flee inter-religious violence in Central African Republic on Saturday aboard emergency flights to neighboring Chad, while nearby countries appealed for help to rescue their citizens from the mounting humanitarian crisis. Tit-for-tat violence between Muslim Seleka rebels, who seized power in March, and Christian self-defense militias have killed more than 1,000 people this month in the riverside capital Bangui and displaced hundreds of thousands more. Fighting in the former French colony has surged in recent weeks despite the presence of 1,600 French peacekeepers and nearly 4,000 African Union troops deployed under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians. Bangui was calm on Saturday. Full Story | Top |
| Obama faces smattering of protests on Hawaiian vacation Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 01:25 PM PST  The serenity of President Barack Obama's Hawaiian vacation was rattled a little on Saturday when demonstrators aired grievances against unmanned aircraft and other issues in a small protest zone near the first family's upscale rented house. Returning from an early morning gym visit at nearby Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Obama's motorcade passed a few dozen protesters holding signs with slogans including "Drones: Unethical and Illegal," "U.S. Bases Out" and "Close Guantanamo Now." Others expressed their opposition to genetically modified foods. It marked a second day of peaceful protest surrounding Obama, who is spending a two-week vacation in Kailua with wife Michelle, daughters Malia and Sasha, the first lady's mother, Marian Robinson, and the family's Portuguese Water Dogs, Bo and Sunny. "Other than a friendly 'shaka sign' from the president as he drove by in his motorcade, we have not received a formal response from the White House," said Mike Hasselle of the MoveOn Honolulu Council, one of the organizers of the action. Full Story | Top |
| Bahraini authorities question opposition leader Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 01:21 PM PST  Sheikh Ali Salman's al-Wefaq Islamic Association said after his release that he would be subject to a travel ban preventing him from leaving Bahrain. Bahrain's interior ministry said earlier in a Twitter message that Sheikh Salman had "incited hatred" of the government and "promoted rioting and vandalism". The questioning came nearly two months after the tiny Gulf kingdom, which is ruled by the Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa dynasty, charged Sheikh Salman with insulting the interior ministry. In his Friday sermon, Sheikh Salman urged his followers to react peacefully to what he described as "state violence". Full Story | Top |
| Iraq troops arrest leading Sunni MP in violent raid Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 12:47 PM PST  By Kamal Namaa RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces arrested a prominent Sunni Muslim lawmaker and supporter of anti-government protests in a raid on his home in the western province of Anbar, sparking clashes in which at least five people were killed, police sources said. The violent arrest of Ahmed al-Alwani is likely to inflame tensions in Sunni-dominated Anbar, where protesters have been demonstrating against what they see as marginalization of their sect by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government. Alwani belongs to the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc and has been a strong critic of Maliki and an influential figure in the protest movement. Police sources said a two-hour firefight broke out on Saturday when bodyguards and members of Alwani's tribe resisted police and soldiers who went to arrest Alwani on charges of "terrorism" from his house in the centre of the city of Ramadi. Full Story | Top |
| China's Xi shows common touch with visit to bun restaurant Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 12:00 PM PST Chinese President Xi Jinping showed off the common touch on Saturday with a surprise visit to a steamed bun restaurant in Beijing where he paid for his food and happily chatted to surprised customers. In pictures widely shared on China's Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, and confirmed by state media, Xi could be seen lining up for his food and posing for photographs, apparently not surrounded by the high security which normally accompanies visits by top leaders. While such interactions are considered run-of-the-mill in Western countries, they are highly unusual for senior Chinese officials, more used as they are to scenarios carefully stage-managed by the Communist Party's propaganda arm. State media said that Xi's meal of steamed buns, fried liver and stir-fired greens cost 21 yuan ($3.46), a far cry from the expensive banquets Chinese officials are better known for. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. military personnel freed after brief detention in Libya Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 11:01 AM PST By Ayman al-Sahli and Lesley Wroughton SABRATHA, Libya/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four American military personnel were briefly detained in western Libya on Friday after part of their convoy failed to stop at a checkpoint and was found to be carrying weapons, Libyan officials said. U.S. and other Western embassies have beefed up security at their missions in Libya, which is still in turmoil two and a half years after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Full Story | Top |
| ETA convicts say recognize Spanish justice, eye sentence changes Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 10:18 AM PST Jailed members of Basque separatist group ETA said on Saturday they would recognize Spain's criminal justice system and acknowledged the pain caused by four decades of violence, in a highly symbolic move that could strengthen the peace process. ETA convicts have argued that they are political prisoners and have long rejected the terms of their imprisonment. "We recognize, in all sincerity, the suffering and damage caused to all parties," representatives of Basque prisoner collective EPPK, which includes ETA convicts, said in a statement sent to regional newspaper Gara. About 600 ETA members are in prison in Spain. Full Story | Top |
| One killed as Islamist students and police clash in Cairo Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 10:13 AM PST By Maggie Fick CAIRO (Reuters) - A student was killed on Saturday and scores were arrested when supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood clashed with Egyptian police at the Cairo campus of Al-Azhar University, state media reported. Shaimaa Mounir, a student activist, told Reuters the dead student was Khaled El-Haddad, a supporter of the Islamist movement which has continued daily protests after the government designated it a terrorist organisation this week. State-run newspaper Al-Ahram said security forces fired teargas to disperse pro-Brotherhood students who were preventing their classmates from entering university buildings to take exams. Police arrested 101 students for possession of makeshift weapons including petrol bombs, the state news agency reported. Full Story | Top |
| Tens of thousands protest against Niger government Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 10:02 AM PST  Tens of thousands of opposition supporters staged a protest rally on Saturday against what they said was the failure of President Mahamadou Issoufou to improve living standards in Niger, one of the world's poorest countries. The rally, in the capital Niamey, was the largest in Niger since pro-democracy protests against then-President Mamadou Tandja that helped to block his bid to serve a third term and ushered in a military coup that toppled him in February 2010. It was the first public show of strength by the Alliance for the Republic, Democracy and Reconciliation in Niger (ARDR), a coalition of 15 opposition parties formed in October. Last month, a court lifted a government ban on opposition marches. Full Story | Top |
| UK power firm boosts compensation for Christmas blackouts Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 10:02 AM PST  One of Britain's biggest power distributors pledged on Saturday to almost triple compensation to households left without power over Christmas after the first of two fierce winter storms battered the country. UK Power Networks, a distribution network owned by Hong Kong's Cheung Kong Group that covers London, the southeast and east of England, said it would almost triple its compensation to those affected by long-term power cuts. About 4,000 households across Britain remained without power on Saturday with many without electricity since Christmas Eve when a storm packing winds of more than 100 mph caused flooding and travel chaos for thousands of people. Full Story | Top |
| Monte Paschi shareholders delay cash call, top executives may quit Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 09:58 AM PST  By Silvia Aloisi SIENA, Italy (Reuters) - Italy's third-biggest bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena was forced to delay a vital 3 billion euro ($4.1 billion) share sale to raise capital until mid-2014 because of shareholder opposition, plunging its turnaround plan into uncertainty. The bank's chairman and its chief executive may now resign after their plan to launch the cash call in January was defeated at an extraordinary shareholder meeting on Saturday due to the vote of Monte Paschi's top shareholder. The unprecedented clash between the lender's executives and its main shareholder - a charitable banking foundation with close links to Siena politicians - casts a pall over a tough restructuring meant to revive its fortunes. Chairman Alessandro Profumo, a strong-willed and internationally respected banker who was formerly the chief of UniCredit, said he and CEO Fabrizio Viola would decide in January whether to step down. Full Story | Top |
| Removal of chemical weapons from Syria delayed: watchdog Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 09:37 AM PST  By Georgina Prodhan VIENNA (Reuters) - The removal of deadly toxins from Syria under an international effort to rid the nation of its chemical arsenal will likely miss a December 31 deadline, the global chemical arms watchdog said. Bad weather and shifting battlefronts in Syria's civil war have delayed the delivery of essential supplies to sites where the toxins are being prepared to be sent to Latakia port, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said. "A delay will probably occur," Franz Krawinkler, the OPCW's logistics head told Austrian ORF state television on Saturday. "Because of various external influences, including the weather... certain logistical supplies that are needed for this transport, could not be delivered in time." Syria has agreed to abandon its chemical weapons by next June under a deal proposed by Russia and hashed out with the United States, after an August 21 sarin gas attack that Western nations blamed on President Bashar al-Assad's government. Full Story | Top |
| Syria's Assad sends message to Pope Francis, Vatican says Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 09:37 AM PST Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has sent Pope Francis a private message, the Vatican said on Saturday, without disclosing its contents. It was the first known time Assad has sent a direct message to the pontiff since the start of Syria's civil war in 2011. Pope Francis has made numerous appeals for an end to the conflict, the latest on Christmas Day. Vatican sources said the message likely included the Syrian government's position ahead of peace talks due to start on January 22 under U.N. auspices in Geneva. Full Story | Top |
| Libya says U.S. personnel were held for failing to stop at checkpoint Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 09:18 AM PST Libya on Saturday defended its brief detention of four U.S. military personnel, saying their convoy had failed to stop at a checkpoint and had been carrying weapons. U.S. officials said earlier the Libyan government had held the men for several hours before they were released. In the first Libyan comment, police and military officials told Reuters security forces had stopped three cars at a checkpoint near al-Ajailat in western Libya. Full Story | Top |
| Killer of Mississippi policeman may have robbed Georgia bank: FBI Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 08:41 AM PST (Reuters) - A bank robbery suspect who shot two police officers in Mississippi, killing one, has been linked to another attempted robbery two states away in Georgia, the FBI said on Saturday. The search for the unidentified male suspect has expanded across the southeastern United States and a reward of $100,000 has been offered for information leading to his arrest, said Deborah Madden, a spokeswoman for the Jackson, Mississippi, FBI field office. The suspect robbed a bank in the northeastern Mississippi town of Tupelo on Monday, opening fire on two officers as he fled the scene, the FBI said. Officer Gale Stauffer, 38, was shot at close range and died from his wounds, the FBI and local authorities said. Full Story | Top |
| Qatar signs aid deal worth $1.25 billion for Morocco Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 07:56 AM PST  Qatar and Morocco have signed an aid deal worth $1.25 billion, part of a five-year package of financial assistance extended by wealthy Gulf states to the North African kingdom to help it weather 'Arab Spring' protests. Four Gulf states - Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates - agreed in 2012 to provide aid worth a total $5 billion to Morocco in the period 2012-2017 to build up its infrastructure, strengthen its economy and foster tourism. Each of the four countries has committed $1.25 billion to Morocco for the whole five year period. The aid is very welcome to King Mohamed - who signed the accord late on Friday with the visiting emir of Qatar - as he seeks to quell the kind of social discontent that helped to oust rulers elsewhere in North Africa, including Tunisia and Egypt. Full Story | Top |
| South Sudan says will attack rebel stronghold if ceasefire rejected Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 07:46 AM PST  By Aaron Maasho JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan troops will attack the main stronghold of rebel forces loyal to former vice president Riek Machar if the government's offer of a ceasefire is rejected, a senior minister said on Saturday. Refugees sheltering in U.N. camps spoke of atrocities committed by both main ethnic groups. President Salva Kiir's government offered an olive branch to the rebels on Friday, proposing a ceasefire and saying it would release eight of 11 senior politicians, widely seen to be Machar allies, arrested over an alleged coup plot against Kiir. "Until mechanisms for monitoring are established, when one says there is a unilateral ceasefire, there is no way the other person would be confident this is a commitment," Machar said. Full Story | Top |
| Zimbabwe ambassador to Australia seeks asylum: media Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 07:11 AM PST By Morag MacKinnon PERTH, Australia (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's ambassador to Australia has asked for political asylum just days before her term ends saying she fears for her safety if she goes home, media reported on Saturday. Jacqueline Zwambila, who is a member of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was appointed to Australia to renew ties between the countries after a unity government was formed in Zimbabwe in 2009. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai shared power with veteran leader Robert Mugabe in the unity government until a July 31 election which Mugabe won. Full Story | Top |
| ECB'S Draghi sees no urgent need to cut rates further: report Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 06:54 AM PST  European Central Bank President Mario Draghi sees no urgent need to cut the euro zone's main interest rate further and no signs of deflation, he said in an interview published on Saturday. Asked about any further cuts to interest rates after the ECB cut its main refinancing rate to a record low of 0.25 percent in November, Draghi said: "at the moment we don't see a need for any urgent action." The 66-year-old Italian who has led the ECB since 2011, said it was not "normal or healthy" for real interest rates, the rate savers receive after allowing for inflation, to be negative however. "We are not seeing any deflation at present... but we must take care that we don't have inflation stuck permanently below one percent and thereby slip into the danger zone." In Europe, markets expect inflation to rise to the ECB's target level of close to but below 2 percent, he added. Full Story | Top |
| Syrian forces kill 25 in Aleppo barrel-bomb attack: activists Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 06:03 AM PST  A Syrian army air strike on a vegetable market in the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 25 people on Saturday, a monitoring group said, continuing a campaign of improvised "barrel bombs" that has drawn international condemnation. A video posted on the Internet by local activist group Insaan Rights Watch showed residents pulling mangled corpses out of scorched and twisted car frames. Hundreds of people have been killed by air raids around the city of Aleppo in recent weeks, scores of them women and children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group based in Britain. On Saturday, the Observatory said 25 people, at least four of them children, were killed by barrel bombing that also destroyed part of a hospital. Full Story | Top |
| Taking power in New Delhi, 'common man' leader talks of revolution Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 04:23 AM PST  By Devidutta Tripathy and John Chalmers NEW DELHI (Reuters) - There was no motorcade, and none of the traditional trappings of power: the leader of India's upstart "common man party" arrived on a crowded metro train on Saturday to be sworn in as chief minister of Delhi, India's capital. Tens of thousands of jubilant supporters watched as Arvind Kejriwal, a mild-mannered former tax official, was anointed after a stunning electoral debut that has jolted the country's two main parties just months before a general election. The emergence of Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party, or AAP, as a force to be reckoned with barely a year since it was created on the back of an anti-corruption movement could give it a springboard to challenge the mainstream parties in other urban areas in the election due by next May. That could be a threat to the front-runner for prime minister, Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who is counting on strong support from urban, middle-class voters. Full Story | Top |
| First state-licensed marijuana retailers to open Jan. 1 in Colorado Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 04:19 AM PST  By Keith Coffman DENVER (Reuters) - The world's first state-licensed marijuana retailers, catering to Colorado's newly legal recreational market for pot, are stocking their shelves ahead of a New Year's grand opening that supporters and detractors alike see as a turning point in America's drug culture. Possession, cultivation and private personal consumption of marijuana by adults for the sake of just getting high has already been legal in Colorado for more than year under a state constitutional amendment approved by voters. But starting January 1, cannabis will be legally sold and taxed at specially regulated retailers in a system modeled after a regime many states have in place for alcohol sales - but which exists for marijuana nowhere outside of Colorado. For the novelty factor alone, operators of the first eight marijuana retailers slated to open on Wednesday morning in Denver and a handful of establishments in other locations are anticipating a surge in demand for store-bought weed. Full Story | Top |
| One killed as Islamist students clash with police in Cairo Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 04:11 AM PST  By Maggie Fick CAIRO (Reuters) - One student was killed on Saturday when supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood fought with Egyptian police at the Cairo campus of Al-Azhar University, state media reported. Shaimaa Mounir, a student activist, told Reuters that the dead student was Khaled El-Haddad, a supporter of the Brotherhood that was designated this week as a terrorist organisation by the state. Full Story | Top |
| Yemeni tribesmen blow up pipeline in south: local official Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 03:47 AM PST Yemeni tribesmen blew up a pipeline in the eastern Hadramout province on Saturday, disrupting oil flow two days after they seized an Oil Ministry building in the region, a local government official said. The authorities face regular challenges from tribesmen who attack oil pipelines and power lines for reasons including demands for more employment and the release of jailed relatives. Tribal sources said on Thursday that the Oil Ministry attack was in response to the killing of a tribal leader this month at an army checkpoint after his bodyguards refused to hand over their weapons to soldiers. Yemen, one of the Arab world's poorest countries, is struggling to restore state authority after long-serving President Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to step down in 2011. Full Story | Top |
| Lawmakers in Chinese city resign in mass bribery case Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 03:40 AM PST More than 500 lawmakers in a Chinese city have resigned after being implicated in a bribery scandal, while another 56 provincial legislators have been sacked, state media said on Saturday, as the government steps up its war on graft. The official Xinhua news agency said the 512 lawmakers in Hengyang city in the poor, landlocked southern province of Hunan resigned after they took bribes from 56 members of the provincial assembly. China does not have fully democratic one-man, one-vote elections but has experimented with a selection process at the grassroots for local legislatures, even if most candidates are Communist Party members and there is rarely more than a single candidate for each position available. "It must be seriously dealt with in accordance with the law." The National People's Congress is China's parliament. Full Story | Top |
| Thai protester killed as election tensions rise Saturday, Dec 28, 2013 02:53 AM PST  By Sinthana Kosolpradit BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai protester was killed and four wounded on Saturday, an emergency official said, when an unidentified gunman opened fire on demonstrators whose efforts to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra have flared into violence in recent days. The shooting came 48 hours after clashes between police and the protesters, who are determined to disrupt a snap February 2 election called by Yingluck, outside a voting registration center in which two people were killed and scores wounded. The violence is the latest in years of rivalry between Bangkok's middle class and royalist establishment and the mostly poor, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist former premier who was ousted in a military coup in 2006 and lives in self-imposed exile. Petphong Kamjonkitkarn, director of the Erawan Emergency Centre in the capital, Bangkok, told Reuters one man in his 30s had been shot dead. Full Story | Top |
| China court jails four security officials over watermelon vendor's death: Xinhua Friday, Dec 27, 2013 10:20 PM PST  A Chinese court jailed four security officials for up to 11 years over the death of a watermelon vendor, the official Xinhua news agency reported, an incident that triggered public outcry over perceived abuses of power by city patrols. Deng Zhengjia, 56, died after a fight with the security officials in the south-central province of Hunan in July. A court in Hunan found the four men guilty of intentionally assaulting Deng and sentenced them to jail terms ranging from three-and-a-half to 11 years, the report late on Friday said. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. military personnel released after being held by Libya government Friday, Dec 27, 2013 10:18 PM PST Four American military personnel were detained by the Libyan government on Friday and held in custody for several hours before being released, U.S. officials said. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said President Barack Obama's administration was looking into the incident, but confirmed that "all four U.S. military personnel being held in Libyan government custody have been released." A U.S. defense official said the Americans appeared to have been checking possible evacuation routes for the U.S. embassy in Tripoli. Psaki said the United States, which backed the 2011 uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, valued its relationship with "the new Libya." "We have a strategic partnership based on shared interests and our strong support for Libya's historic democratic transition," she said. Full Story | Top |
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