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| Big power talks on Ukraine crisis make little progress Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 04:35 PM PST  By John Irish and Timothy Heritage PARIS/KIEV (Reuters) - High-level diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in Ukraine made little apparent headway at talks in Paris on Wednesday, with Moscow and Washington at odds and Russia's foreign minister refusing to recognize his Ukrainian counterpart. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said discussions would continue in the coming days in an attempt to stabilize the crisis and he expected to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov again in Rome on Thursday. We have a number of ideas on the table," he said after talks with ministers from Ukraine, Russia, Britain and France. Full Story | Top |
| In Ukraine's Crimea, a tense and surreal standoff Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 05:28 PM PST  By Alissa de Carbonnel KERCH, Ukraine (Reuters) - Holed up on their bases, Ukraine's besieged servicemen and the Russians surrounding them in Crimea are locked in a standoff that at times is tense and at others surreal. Almost a week after Russian forces began their swift and bloodless takeover of the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula, there is a standoff as the two sides dig in and play a waiting game. "Where it was possible they made a show of it ... They came and pushed the door in, but you can't come push our door," said Major Alexei Nikiforov, deputy commander of a Ukrainian marine battalion in Kerch, just across a narrow strait from Russia. Russian navy ships have blockaded the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, Ukrainian officials say, portraying it as part of efforts to seal off the Ukrainian servicemen and force them to surrender or change sides. Full Story | Top |
| Weather restrains U.S. private hiring, services sector growth Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 03:47 PM PST  By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. private employers added fewer workers than expected in February and services sector growth hit a four-year low, the latest signs of the economic toll severe weather is taking. They said the economy's fundamentals were still sound, and that a string of mostly weak data would not dissuade the Fed from continuing to dial back its monetary stimulus. Full Story | Top |
| Fed confirms weather-related drag on U.S. economy in early 2014 Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 12:40 PM PST  Severe weather across much of the United States took a toll on shopping and consumer spending in recent weeks, leading to slower economic growth or outright contraction in some areas of the country, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday. The Fed, in its anecdotal Beige Book report, said economic activity in January and February shrank slightly in two of its 12 districts, New York and Philadelphia, mostly due to "unusually severe weather." Growth slowed in Chicago and activity was stable in Kansas City. While the other eight districts reported growth, the Fed said it was characterized as "modest to moderate" in most cases, an overall downgrade from its last report on January 15, which showed "moderate" growth in nine regions. "The outlook among most districts remained optimistic," the Fed said. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. lawmakers divided on Russia sanctions, eye vote on Ukraine aid Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 04:27 PM PST  By Patricia Zengerle and Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers could vote within days on legislation to aid the government of Ukraine as it seeks to rebuild the country and struggles to halt Russian military incursions, but they are still undecided as to how Washington should best deal with Moscow. Republican leaders in the House of Representatives made a rare show of support for President Barack Obama earlier on Wednesday, saying they would work with the White House to address the crisis in Ukraine. Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the House would soon consider a $1 billion loan guarantee package for Ukraine, which the administration has called for, and look at measures to "put significant pressure on Russia to stop the flagrant aggression to its neighbor." "The world community should stand united against this invasion, America should be leading and we'll vote soon on legislation to aid the Ukrainian people," he told reporters. Full Story | Top |
| Chesapeake, Encana face criminal antitrust charges in Michigan Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 05:46 PM PST  By Joshua Schneyer, Brian Grow and Anna Driver (Reuters) - Oil and gas giants Chesapeake Energy and Encana Corp were charged on Wednesday with colluding to keep oil and gas lease prices artificially low in Michigan, state Attorney General Bill Schuette said. The criminal charges follow a lengthy investigation by Schuette's office into whether the firms -- the biggest land leasers during a speculative oil and gas leasing boom in Michigan's Collingwood Shale region during 2010 -- colluded to keep prices from rising as they acquired land leases from landowners. Michigan began looking into the companies' activities in 2012 after a Reuters investigation found that executives from the two firms discussed proposals to divide bidding responsibilities in the state for nine private landowners and counties in Michigan. Under Michigan law, an antitrust violation is considered a misdemeanor, which carries penalties that can include fines and prison terms of up to two years for individuals, and up to a $1 million fine for a corporation. Full Story | Top |
| Venezuela's Chavez remembered with pomp and protests Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 04:27 PM PST  By Andrew Cawthorne and Girish Gupta CARACAS (Reuters) - Followers of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez flooded the streets of Venezuela on Wednesday for the anniversary of his death, an emotional but welcome distraction for his successor from violent protests raging for the last month. A year after Chavez succumbed to cancer, his self-proclaimed "son," President Nicolas Maduro, faces the biggest challenge to his rule from an explosion of anti-government demonstrations that have led to 18 deaths since February. A hard core of students are determined to maintain street barricades and militant opposition leaders organize daily rallies around Venezuela. There's not a single day I don't remember Hugo," Chavez's cousin, Guillermo Frias, 60, said from Los Rastrojos village in rural Barinas state, where the pair used to play baseball as kids. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. accuses Syria of stonewalling on chemical arms plants Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 04:38 PM PST  By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Syria is stonewalling members of the global chemical weapons watchdog and refusing to seriously negotiate on the destruction of its facilities used to produce poison gas, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Wednesday. The sharp criticism of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad came after the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague said Syria has shipped about a third of its chemical weapons stockpile, including mustard gas, for destruction abroad. "OPCW trying to reach agreement to destroy CW production facilities—#Syria refusing to seriously negotiate & is (about) to miss another deadline," U.S. Ambassador Samantha Powers said on her Twitter feed. Last year Syria had asked the OPCW for permission to convert for peaceful use some of the facilities declared under its weapons program, but Western diplomats said they were loath to accept such a plan as it could leave Syria with a residual chemical weapons capability. Full Story | Top |
| China's Xi ramps up military spending in face of worried region Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 01:11 PM PST  By Michael Martina and Greg Torode BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) - China announced its biggest rise in military spending in three years on Wednesday, a strong signal from President Xi Jinping that Beijing is not about to back away from its growing assertiveness in Asia, especially in disputed waters. The government said it would increase the defense budget by 12.2 percent this year to 808.23 billion yuan ($131.57 billion), as China seeks to develop more high-tech weapons and to beef up coastal and air defenses. "This is worrying news for China's neighbors, particularly for Japan," said Rory Medcalf, a regional security analyst at the independent Lowy Institute in Sydney. The 2014 defense budget is the first for Xi, a so-called princeling - or a son of a late Communist Party elder - and the increase in spending appears to reflect his desire to build what he calls a strong, rejuvenated China. Full Story | Top |
| Nine-month-old baby may have been cured of HIV, U.S. scientists say Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 03:46 PM PST A 9-month-old baby who was born in California with the HIV virus that leads to AIDS may have been cured as a result of treatments that doctors began just four hours after her birth, medical researchers said on Wednesday. That child is the second case, following an earlier instance in Mississippi, in which doctors may have brought HIV in a newborn into remission by administering antiretroviral drugs in the first hours of life, said Dr. Deborah Persaud, a pediatrics specialist with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, at a medical conference in Boston. "The child ... has become HIV-negative," Persaud said, referring to the 9-month-old baby born outside Los Angeles, who is being treated at Miller Children's Hospital. That child is still receiving a three-drug cocktail of anti-AIDS treatments, while the child born in Mississippi, now 3-1/2 years old, ceased receiving antiretroviral treatments two years ago. Full Story | Top |
| Chesapeake, Encana face criminal antitrust charges in Michigan Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 03:42 PM PST  By Joshua Schneyer, Brian Grow and Anna Driver (Reuters) - Oil and gas giants Chesapeake Energy and Encana Corp. were charged on Wednesday with colluding to keep oil and gas lease prices artificially low in the state of Michigan, the state Attorney General Bill Schuette said. The announcement follows a lengthy investigation by Schuette's office into whether the firms -- the biggest land leasers during a speculative oil and gas leasing boom in Michigan's Collingwood Shale region during 2010 -- colluded to avoid prices from rising as they acquired land leases from landowners. Michigan began looking into the companies' activities in 2012 after a Reuters investigation found that executives from the two firms discussed proposals to divide bidding responsibilities in the state for nine private landowners and counties in Michigan. Full Story | Top |
| Israel seizes arms shipment Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 11:34 AM PST  By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli navy seized a ship in the Red Sea on Wednesday that was carrying dozens of advanced Iranian-supplied rockets made in Syria and intended for Palestinian guerrillas in the Gaza Strip, the military said. The disclosure came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the United States to press his case for tougher international action against Iran over its disputed nuclear program and support for Islamist guerrilla groups. The Panamanian-flagged cargo vessel Klos C was boarded in international waters without resistance from its 17-strong crew in a "complex, covert operation," military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner told reporters. Lerner said dozens of M302 rockets were found aboard the Klos C, a weapon which could have struck deep into Israel from Gaza and would have significantly enhanced the firepower of the Palestinian enclave's Hamas rulers and other armed factions. Full Story | Top |
| Putin: military force would be 'last resort' in Ukraine Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 01:56 PM PST  By John Irish and Timothy Heritage PARIS/KIEV (Reuters) - High-level diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in Ukraine made little apparent headway at talks in Paris on Wednesday with Moscow and Washington at odds and Russia's foreign minister refusing to recognize his Ukrainian counterpart. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said discussions would continue in the coming days in an attempt to stabilize the crisis and he expected to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov again in Rome on Thursday. "Don't assume that we did not have serious conversations which produced creative and appropriate ideas on how to resolve this, we have a number of ideas on the table," he said after talks with ministers from Ukraine, Russia, Britain and France. Russia had earlier rebuffed Western demands that its forces that have seized control of Ukraine's Crimea region should return to their bases. Full Story | Top |
| Street fighting as India heads for April-May election Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 11:18 AM PST  By Frank Jack Daniel NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Street clashes erupted in India after an announcement on Wednesday that parliamentary elections will start on April 7 in a race that pits Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi against the unpopular Nehru-Gandhi family's ruling party. In Delhi and a regional city, supporters of a young anti-corruption party battled members of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Small groups of supporters gathered outside BJP offices to protest his detention. We shouted slogans: 'Have shame Narendra Modi'," said AAP activist Shazia Ilmi. Full Story | Top |
| Venezuela's Chavez remembered with pomp and protests Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 02:31 PM PST By Andrew Cawthorne and Girish Gupta CARACAS (Reuters) - Followers of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez flooded the streets of Venezuela on Wednesday for the anniversary of his death, an emotional but welcome distraction for his successor from violent protests raging for the last month. A year after Chavez succumbed to cancer, his self-proclaimed "son," President Nicolas Maduro, faces the biggest challenge to his rule from an explosion of anti-government demonstrations that have led to 18 deaths since February. A hard core of students are determined to maintain street barricades and militant opposition leaders organize daily rallies around Venezuela. There's not a single day I don't remember Hugo," Chavez's cousin, Guillermo Frias, 60, said from Los Rastrojos village in rural Barinas state, where the pair used to play baseball as kids. Full Story | Top |
| Egypt panel mostly blames Mursi supporters for deaths in protest break-up Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 09:59 AM PST  By Maggie Fick and Shadia Nasralla CAIRO (Reuters) - A government-appointed panel said on Wednesday that the deaths of hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters at a protest camp in Cairo last August was mostly the fault of demonstrators who had provoked the security forces into opening fire. It found that 632 people were killed, 624 of them civilians in one of the bloodiest days in Egypt's modern history. But the protesters had brought it upon themselves as armed men within their ranks had shot first at the security forces and also used civilians as human shields, it said. But in an unusual move, the panel also placed some responsibility for the bloodshed on the security forces and said they had used disproptionate force. Full Story | Top |
| West presses Iran to address suspected atomic bomb research Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 06:58 AM PST  By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA (Reuters) - Western powers pressed Iran on Wednesday to tackle suspicions that it may have worked on designing an atomic bomb and the United States said the issue would be central to the success of talks on a final settlement over Tehran's nuclear program. At a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Washington and the European Union underlined their support for the U.N. watchdog's efforts to investigate long-running allegations of possible nuclear arms research by Iran. The IAEA inquiry is separate from but complementary to higher-level political talks between Iran and six world powers aimed at a deal on the overall scope of Tehran's nuclear energy program to ensure it cannot be diverted into bombmaking. Full Story | Top |
| Three Gulf Arab states recall envoys in rift with Qatar Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 11:03 AM PST  By Angus McDowall and Amena Bakr RIYADH/DOHA (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar on Wednesday in an unprecedented public split between Gulf Arab allies who have fallen out over the role of Islamists in a region in turmoil. Qatar's cabinet voiced "regret and surprise" at the decision by the fellow-members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, but said Doha would not pull out its own envoys and that it remained committed to GCC security and stability. The Saudi-led trio said they had acted because Qatar failed to honor a GCC agreement signed on November 23 not to back "anyone threatening the security and stability of the GCC whether as groups or individuals - via direct security work or through political influence, and not to support hostile media". Saudi Arabia and the UAE are fuming especially over Qatar's support for the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement whose political ideology challenges the principle of dynastic rule. Full Story | Top |
| World powers responsible for failing to stop Syria war crimes: U.N. Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 07:56 AM PST  By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - All sides in Syria's civil war are using shelling and siege tactics to punish and starve civilians and big powers bear responsibility for allowing such war crimes to persist, U.N. human rights investigators said on Wednesday. The independent investigators, presenting their latest report documenting atrocities in Syria, called again on the U.N. Security Council to refer grave violations of the rules of war to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution. "The Security Council bears responsibility for not addressing accountability and allowing the warring parties to violate these rules with total impunity," Paulo Pinheiro, who leads the U.N. commission of inquiry, told a news conference. "One of most stark trends we have documented is the use of siege warfare, the denial of humanitarian aid, food and basic necessities such as medical care and clean water have forced people to choose between surrender and starvation." More than 140,000 have been killed in the conflict, which enters its fourth year next week, 2.5 million refugees have fled abroad and 6.5 million people are uprooted within Syria. Full Story | Top |
| Witness: Pistorius asked friend to 'take blame' for restaurant gunshot Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 10:06 AM PST  By Siphiwe Sibeko PRETORIA (Reuters) - "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius told a friend to take the blame for him accidentally firing a pistol under the table in a packed Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013, a month before he killed his girlfriend, his murder trial heard on Wednesday. Testifying at the trial of the South African Olympic and Paralympic track star, professional boxer Kevin Lerena described how he, Pistorius and two others had been having dinner at Tashas restaurant when the gun went off. The charge of firing a gun in a public place is part of prosecution attempts to portray the 27-year-old athlete, who shot dead model Reeva Steenkamp on February 14 last year, as a firearms-obsessed hot-head. Lerena, who goes by the ring name "The KO Kid", said one of the group at the table in Tashas, Darren Fresco, passed his pistol under the table to Pistorius during the lunch, telling him there was "one up", indicating a round was in the chamber. Full Story | Top |
| China signals focus on reforms and leaner, cleaner growth Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 03:32 AM PST  By Kevin Yao and Xiaoyi Shao BEIJING (Reuters) - China sent its strongest signal yet that its days of chasing breakneck economic growth were over, promising to wage a "war" on pollution and reduce the pace of investment to a decade-low as it pursues more sustainable expansion. In a State of the Union style address to an annual parliament meeting that began on Wednesday, Premier Li Keqiang said China aimed to expand its economy by 7.5 percent this year, the highest among the world's major powers, although he stressed that growth would not get in the way of reforms. In carefully crafted language that suggested Beijing had thought hard about leaving the forecast unchanged from last year, Li said the world's second-largest economy will pursue reforms stretching from finance to the environment, even as it seeks to create jobs and wealth. After 30 years of red-hot double-digit growth that has lifted millions out of poverty but also polluted the country's air and water and saddled the nation with ominous debt levels, China wants to change tack and rebalance its economy. Full Story | Top |
| Roadside bomb kills six Pakistani soldiers as violence spirals Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 04:48 AM PST A roadside bomb killed at least six soldiers on Wednesday as militant violence spiraled across Pakistan amid the government's increasingly futile efforts to engage the Pakistani Taliban in peace negotiations. Security officials said the six soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb near the northwestern town of Hangu. The Pakistani Taliban, who have declared a month-long ceasefire to pursue peace talks with the government, have tried to distance themselves from recent attacks, but persistent violence shows they are not fully in control of its various factions. The Pakistani Taliban, an alliance of militant groups, is fighting to overthrow the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and replace it with a state ruled under strict Islamic law. Full Story | Top |
| Thai anti-government protesters on the move, farmers still unhappy Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 01:46 AM PST  By Panarat Thepgumpanat BANGKOK (Reuters) - A few hundred Thai anti-government protesters marched on the headquarters of the ruling party on Wednesday, while rice farmers remained camped in another part of the capital demanding money owed by the state. The political movement aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is in its fifth month, but leader Suthep Thaugsuban closed several big protest sites at the weekend as his number of supporters dwindled. The government is also grappling with action by farmers, normally its staunchest supporters, in protest at a rice subsidy scheme that has gone badly wrong, leaving hundreds of thousands of them unpaid and causing huge losses to the budget. "That 30 billion baht is very small compared to the total 130 billion baht the government should have paid us since October," said Kittisak Waraha, one of the farmers' leaders, referring to a sum cited by officials earlier this year. Full Story | Top |
| Japan may tax bitcoin deals, stop banks, brokerages from handling Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 01:23 AM PST  By Noriyuki Hirata and Takaya Yamaguchi TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will this week set out rules on how to handle bitcoins, the first sign that the government is taking action on regulating the virtual currency after the collapse last week of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, once the world's dominant bitcoin exchange. Japan has struggled to define its approach to bitcoin since the collapse of Mt. Gox, which filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo on Friday, saying it had lost bitcoins and cash worth some half a billion dollars due to hacker attacks on what it said was its lax computer system security. Full Story | Top |
| Turkey's Erdogan rallies popular support in power struggle Wednesday, Mar 05, 2014 03:58 AM PST  Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan, shaken by a graft scandal he says is concocted by a former ally, is fighting to secure his political future in the run up to March polls. But more than that, he sees at stake the legacy of an 11-year drive to reshape Turkey, breaking the hold of a secular, urban elite. Speaking amid a sea of orange and blue AK Party flags in the western town of Denizli, the Prime Minister moved between anger and sarcasm as he decried a campaign including anonymous online audio-tapes accusing him and members of his family of graft. Leeches suck dirty blood, while they suck clean blood and hold sessions cursing me, my wife, my children, my administration," he boomed, referring to followers of estranged ally, U.S. based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Full Story | Top |
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