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| Lost Malaysian airliner may have run out of fuel over Indian Ocean: source Friday, Mar 14, 2014 07:34 PM PDT  By Niluksi Koswanage and Mark Hosenball KUALA LUMPUR/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Faint electronic signals sent to satellites from a missing Malaysian jetliner show it may have been flown thousands of miles off course before running out of fuel over the Indian Ocean, a source familiar with official U.S. assessments said. Analysis in Malaysia and the United States of military radar tracking and pulses detected by satellites are starting to piece together an extraordinary picture of what may have happened to the plane after it lost contact with civilian air traffic. The fate of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, and the 239 passengers and crew aboard, has been shrouded in mystery since it vanished off Malaysia's east coast less than an hour into a March 8 scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. A U.S. source familiar with the investigation said there was also discussion within the U.S. government that the plane's disappearance might have involved an act of piracy. Full Story | Top |
| West prepares sanctions as Russia presses on with Crimea takeover Friday, Mar 14, 2014 03:17 PM PDT  By Andrew Osborn and Lina Kushch SEVASTOPOL/DONETSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - Dozens of Russians linked to Russia's gradual takeover of Crimea could face U.S. and EU travel bans and asset freezes on Monday, after six hours of crisis talks between Washington and Moscow ended with both sides still far apart. Moscow shipped more troops and armor into Crimea on Friday and repeated its threat to invade other parts of Ukraine in response to violence in Donetsk on Thursday night despite Western demands to pull back. EU diplomats will choose from a long list of 120-130 possible Russian targets for sanctions on Sunday, as pro-Moscow authorities who have taken power in Crimea hold a vote to join Russia in the worst East-West confrontation since the Cold War. Full Story | Top |
| Fed nominee Fischer: policy decisions are best made early Friday, Mar 14, 2014 08:05 PM PDT  By Ann Saphir PALO ALTO, California (Reuters) - Stanley Fischer, U.S. President Barack Obama's pick for the No. 2 job at the Federal Reserve, said on Friday that decades of crisis-fighting have taught him the importance of making policy decisions quickly, even before all relevant data is in hand. "We tend to underestimate the lags in receiving information and the lags with which policy decisions affect the economy," he said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Stanford Institute on Economic Policy. "Those lags led me to try to make decisions as early as possible, even if that meant that there was more uncertainty about the correctness of the decision than would have been appropriate had the lags been absent." Fischer was in California to receive the institute's $100,000 prize one day after his nomination hearing in Washington, a session that shed little new light on his policy leanings but suggested he is largely supportive of the Fed's current super-easy monetary policy. That could be a critical insight into the thinking of a man likely soon to become the most influential U.S. central banker after Fed Chair Janet Yellen, just as the Fed faces the unprecedented task of unwinding its extraordinary stimulus measures launched in the depths of the last financial crisis. Full Story | Top |
| Lebanon to allow citizens to resist Israel: policy statement Friday, Mar 14, 2014 07:12 PM PDT  By Laila Bassam BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's new government agreed to a compromise policy statement on Friday that fell short of explicitly enshrining the militant group Hezbollah's role in confronting Israel but which would give all citizens the right to resist Israeli occupation or attacks. The agreement on the compromise language came after weeks of dispute brought the government to the verge of collapse, and now paves the way for Prime Minister Tammam Salam to put his government to a vote of confidence. Information Minister Ramzi Jreij told reporters that most ministers had agreed on a compromise statement that declares Lebanese citizens have the right to "resist Israeli occupation" and repel any Israeli attack. The deal was reached a few hours after Israel's army said it fired tank rounds and artillery into southern Lebanon in retaliation for a bomb that targeted its soldiers patrolling the border. Full Story | Top |
| El Salvador election runner-up appeals to top court for recount Friday, Mar 14, 2014 07:26 PM PDT  The runner-up in El Salvador's presidential election said he had requested the Supreme Court on Friday to order a recount of the weekend's tight contest. Norman Quijano, a former mayor of San Salvador and candidate of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) party, finished fewer than 7,000 votes behind Salvador Sanchez Ceren of the ruling leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front. Quijano, 67, told reporters he filed a request for an injunction with the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court. The electoral tribunal has said it could take until early next week to work through Quijano's legal challenge to the election and settle any remaining doubts. Full Story | Top |
| As hope withers, Palestinian president heads to Washington Friday, Mar 14, 2014 05:31 PM PDT  By Crispian Balmer JERUSALEM (Reuters) - With pessimism growing by the day over the future of Middle East peace talks, U.S. President Barack Obama will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Washington on Monday to try to break the stalemate. The deadline for the negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, aimed at ending their entrenched conflict, expires next month and Washington is eager to persuade the two sides to prolong their discussions within a new framework. After eight months of initial talks, and at least 10 trips to the region, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sounded unusually gloomy during a Congressional hearing on March 12, indicating that little progress had been made so far. Obama's direct involvement is aimed at providing much needed additional impetus: he saw Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month, and is now meeting Abbas. Full Story | Top |
| Lawsuit kicks off class action claims against GM Friday, Mar 14, 2014 05:48 PM PDT  By Jessica Dye NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Motors was hit on Friday with what appeared to be the first lawsuit related to the recall of 1.6 million cars, as customers claimed their vehicles lost value because of ignition problems blamed for a series of fatal crashes. The proposed class action, filed in federal court in Texas, said GM knew about the problem since 2004, but failed to fix it, creating "unreasonably dangerous" conditions for drivers of the affected models. "GM's mishandling of the ignition switch defect....has adversely affected the company's reputation as a manufacturer of safe, reliable vehicles with high resale value," the lawsuit said. The recall has led to government criminal and civil investigations, an internal probe by GM, and preparations for hearings by Congress. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. regulator sues 16 banks for rigging Libor rate Friday, Mar 14, 2014 02:11 PM PDT  By Nate Raymond and Aruna Viswanatha NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp sued 16 of the world's largest banks on Friday, accusing them of cheating dozens of other now defunct banks by manipulating the Libor interest rate. The global financial institutions broke certain swaps contracts they had entered into with the now-closed banks, by separately colluding to rig the Libor rate to which the contracts were tied, the FDIC said. Some of the banks accused in the lawsuit, including Barclays Plc and UBS, have already paid some $6 billion to resolve charges from U.S. and European authorities that they worked to manipulate benchmark interest rates. A federal judge last March dismissed many of those claims that were based on antitrust law, but has yet to rule on cases that rely on the "breach of contract" theory used by the FDIC. Full Story | Top |
| Starbucks gives up exclusive license to high-end Keurig pods Friday, Mar 14, 2014 04:15 PM PDT  Starbucks Corp will get a wider selection of Keurig Green Mountain Inc's single-serve K-Cup coffee packs, in exchange for giving up the exclusive license for Keurig's highest-end coffee pods, the companies said on Friday. Keurig Green Mountain shares rose 8 percent on Friday to $114.71 on speculation changes to the agreement will open the door for it to secure licenses with other leading coffee brands with which it does not already have such arrangements. "We think the amended agreement allows Green Mountain to pursue a relationship with Peet's, the largest unlicensed super-premium not currently on the Keurig system," Stifel Nicolaus analyst Mark Astrachan said in a research note. The new terms to the Starbucks-Keurig deal are changes to the five-year agreement the two companies reached last year that tripled the number of Starbucks drinks sold in K-Cups, adding Seattle's Best and Torrefazione Italia coffees, Teavana teas and Starbucks cocoa. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. rests its case against bin Laden son-in-law Friday, Mar 14, 2014 04:15 PM PDT  By Bernard Vaughan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Prosecutors in New York on Friday rested their case in the trial of Suleiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden who is accused of conspiring to kill Americans when he acted as a spokesman for al Qaeda after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Abu Ghaith's lawyers are expected to present their case next week. But they will ask presiding U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan over the weekend for an order permitting them to introduce evidence from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which would require a slight delay, according to Stanley Cohen, one of the lawyers. The judge previously said he was "deeply skeptical" the lawyers have a right to access Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, who is being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Full Story | Top |
| Suspected Uighurs rescued from Thai trafficking camp Friday, Mar 14, 2014 04:13 PM PDT  By Andrew R.C. Marshall HAT YAI, Thailand (Reuters) - Police rescued about 200 people believed to be Muslim Uighurs from a human smuggling camp in southern Thailand, police sources said on Friday, in the latest crackdown on a burgeoning trafficking network in Southeast Asia. The latest trafficking victims, possibly from China's troubled far-western region of Xinjiang, brings the total number of people freed from human traffickers to well over 800 since Reuters exposed the whereabouts of the illegal camps in a December 5 investigation. The raid is further evidence that human smugglers in southern Thailand - already a notorious trafficking hub for Rohingya boat people from Myanmar - are exploiting well-oiled networks to transport other nationalities in large numbers, despite an ongoing crackdown by Thai police. "The human smugglers are expanding their product range," said Police Major General Thatchai Pitaneelaboot, who has launched a series of raids on trafficking camps in southern Thailand, including the 200 rescued on Wednesday. Full Story | Top |
| Investigators focus on foul play behind missing Malaysia plane: sources Friday, Mar 14, 2014 04:48 PM PDT By Niluksi Koswanage and Siva Govindasamy KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - An investigation into a missing Malaysian jetliner, now into its second week, is focusing more on the possibility of foul play as evidence suggests it was deliberately flown hundreds of miles off course, sources familiar with the Malaysian probe said. Two sources told Reuters that military radar data showed an unidentified aircraft that investigators suspect was Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 following a commonly used navigational route toward the Middle East and Europe when it was last spotted early on March 8, northwest of Malaysia. That course - headed into the Andaman Sea and towards the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean - could only have been set deliberately, either by flying the Boeing 777-200ER jet manually or by programming the auto-pilot. A third source familiar with the investigation said inquiries were focusing more on the theory that someone with knowledge of navigational waypoints - used by airlines to track established commercial flight paths - had diverted the flight off its scheduled course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Full Story | Top |
| Syrian presidential election law excludes most opposition leaders Friday, Mar 14, 2014 04:19 PM PDT  By Stephen Kalin BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's parliament has set residency rules for presidential candidates, state media said on Friday, a move that would bar many of President Bashar al-Assad's foes who live in exile as the uprising in the major Arab state enters its fourth year. Assad has not yet announced whether he will stand for a third term in defiance of rebels fighting to overthrow him and Western leaders who have demanded he go to help end Syria's civil war and make way for a democratic transition. U.N.-Arab League peace mediator Lakhdar Brahimi warned ON Thursday that the Syrian opposition will probably not be interested in pursuing any peace talks with the government if it goes ahead with an election highly likely to secure a new term for Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for 44 years. Full Story | Top |
| Venezuela's foreign minister calls Kerry 'murderer' Friday, Mar 14, 2014 01:17 PM PDT  By Andrew Cawthorne CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's foreign minister lambasted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday as a "murderer" fomenting unrest that has killed 28 people in the South American OPEC member nation. Since street demonstrations began against President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government in early February, Venezuelan officials have been accusing Washington of stirring the country's worst political troubles in a decade. U.S. officials say Venezuela is using them as a scapegoat, inventing accusations to distract from internal economic and political problems. In the sternest words during the crisis from Washington, Kerry said on Thursday the Venezuela government was using a "terror campaign" to repress its own citizens. Full Story | Top |
| Lawsuit says GM hid ignition defect in recalled cars Friday, Mar 14, 2014 02:53 PM PDT By Jessica Dye NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Motors was hit with a lawsuit on Friday from customers who said their vehicles lost value because of ignition problems that prompted a recall of 1.6 million cars. The proposed class action, filed in federal court in Texas, said GM knew about the problem since 2004, but failed to fix it, creating "unreasonably dangerous" conditions for drivers of the affected models. "GM's mishandling of the ignition switch defect....has adversely affected the company's reputation as a manufacturer of safe, reliable vehicles with high resale value," the lawsuit said. GM did not immediately comment on the lawsuit. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. consumer sentiment slips; bad weather eyed Friday, Mar 14, 2014 08:32 AM PDT  By Jason Lange WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumer sentiment weakened in early March as an unusually harsh winter appeared to dim views on the economy's prospects. The preliminary Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment fell to 79.9 in March from 81.6 the prior month, a survey showed on Friday. Full Story | Top |
| Rouhani has not stopped Iran suppressing human rights: U.N. envoy Friday, Mar 14, 2014 10:27 AM PDT  By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - President Hassan Rouhani has made only "baby steps" to improve human rights in Iran where forces loyal to the supreme leader are "working to suppress the rights of people," a United Nations investigator said on Friday. Ahmed Shaheed, U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, said the country was holding almost 900 political prisoners, "including people persecuted for religious activities, lawyers and journalists." In his latest report to the U.N. Human Rights Council Shaheed said there were 379 political activists, 292 religious practioners, 92 human rights defenders, 71 civic activists, 37 journalists and bloggers and 24 students held as what he defined as political prisoners. Iran has refused to let Shaheed enter Iran, saying its human rights record is good and accusing the West of using the issue as a pretext to add pressure to a country already under sanctions for its nuclear activities. Full Story | Top |
| Exclusive: Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane deliberately flown way off course - sources Friday, Mar 14, 2014 03:01 AM PDT By Niluksi Koswanage and Siva Govindasamy KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Military radar data suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown hundreds of miles off course, heightening suspicions of foul play among investigators, sources told Reuters on Friday. Analysis of the Malaysia data suggests the plane, with 239 people on board, diverted from its intended northeast route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and flew west instead, using airline flight corridors normally employed for routes to the Middle East and Europe, said sources familiar with investigations into the Boeing 777's disappearance. Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints when it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast. The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said. Full Story | Top |
| Banks to be hit with Microsoft costs for running outdated ATMs Friday, Mar 14, 2014 07:50 AM PDT  By Matt Scuffham and David Henry LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Banks around the world, consumed with meeting more stringent capital regulations, will miss a deadline to upgrade outdated software for automated teller machines (ATMs) and face additional costs to Microsoft to keep them secure. The U.S. software company first warned that it was planning to end support for Windows XP in 2007, but only one-third of the world's 2.2 million ATMs which use the system will have been upgraded to a new platform, such as Windows 7 by the April deadline, according to NCR, one of the biggest ATM makers. To ensure the machines are protected against viruses and hackers many banks have agreed deals with Microsoft to continue supporting their ATMs until they are upgraded, extra costs and negotiations that were avoidable but are now likely to be a distraction for bank executives. "There are certainly large enterprise customers who haven't finished their migrations yet and are purchasing custom support," a spokesman for Microsoft said, declining to name those customers or to quantify the extra revenue it is earning. Full Story | Top |
| Nearly two dozen killed in attacks across Pakistan despite talks Friday, Mar 14, 2014 07:38 AM PDT  By Jibran Ahmed and Gul Yousafzai PESHAWSAR/QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Attacks in the volatile Pakistani cities of Peshawar and Quetta killed a total of 19 people on Friday, frustrating hopes of a lasting peace deal with insurgents fighting to topple the government. In Peshawar, a sprawling city on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a police vehicle, killing at least nine bystanders including a woman and a child, police said. In Quetta, in the unruly province of Baluchistan, at least 10 people were killed when a motorcycle laden with explosives exploded near a college in the city center, police said. The attacks took place as the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tried to revive a stalled peace process with the Pakistani Taliban militants in order to hammer out a permanent ceasefire agreement and end years of violence. Full Story | Top |
| Syria agrees greater access for aid supplies: UNICEF Friday, Mar 14, 2014 09:22 AM PDT  By Dominic Evans ZAHLE, Lebanon (Reuters) - Syria's government has promised greater access for aid groups supporting millions of Syrians, but faster progress is needed to tackle a dire humanitarian crisis, the head of the United Nations children's agency said on Friday. UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake, speaking at a refugee camp for Syrians in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, said he was encouraged by "business-like" talks he held this week with Syrian officials in Damascus and Homs. In a rare display of unity over Syria, the U.N. Security Council last month called unanimously for greater aid access in Syria, including a demand for cross-border access which Damascus has resisted because it has lost control of some border regions. Lake gave no details, but aid workers said Syria had offered to let relief goods pass through Turkey's Nusaybin crossing into northeastern Syria, a Kurdish region which has assumed a degree of autonomy but where Assad's security forces are still present. Full Story | Top |
| France says EU shirking duty to Central African Republic Friday, Mar 14, 2014 07:29 AM PDT  France said on Friday the European Union was shirking its responsibilities for international security after an EU plan to send up to 1,000 troops to Central African Republic next week seemed to be about to collapse. However, EU sources said on Thursday the plan was in jeopardy because European governments had not provided the soldiers and equipment they promised. In a blunt joint statement from France's foreign and defense ministers, Paris "strongly" urged its partners to do more. "The EU must not shirk its responsibilities with regard to international security," Laurent Fabius and Jean-Yves Le Drian, the respective ministers, said. Full Story | Top |
| Well-known Chinese dissident dies after being denied treatment Friday, Mar 14, 2014 06:15 AM PDT  By Sui-Lee Wee BEIJING (Reuters) - Prominent Chinese human rights activist Cao Shunli, detained in September for staging sit-ins at the country's foreign ministry, has died, a fellow dissident and one of her lawyers said on Friday, after she was denied medical treatment in detention. Cao's death is likely to trigger an outcry from China's fledgling rights community and criticism from the West, which has expressed concern about her case. The news comes soon after the start of a session in Geneva of the U.N. Human Rights Council, a body to which China was elected amid controversy last November. Cao Shunli's wishes were never accomplished," dissident Hu Jia told Reuters. Full Story | Top |
| Damascus ceasefires bring respite but no end to conflict Friday, Mar 14, 2014 03:20 AM PDT  (The identity of the reporter has been withheld for security reasons) BARZEH, Syria (Reuters) - Overwhelmed by hunger and outgunned by their enemy, Syrian rebels in the Damascus suburb of Barzeh finally bowed to the inevitable and agreed a ceasefire with President Bashar al-Assad's forces besieging them. It was one of several similar deals struck around Damascus, allowing a semblance of normality to return to some districts and the government to proclaim a homegrown reconciliation process with local fighters - though not foreign jihadis. But in Barzeh the truce agreed in January tastes like defeat for fighters who once hoped to overrun the capital, topple Assad and win a conflict which enters its fourth year this month. The army siege of Barzeh, part of a nationwide campaign against opposition strongholds which some officials refer to as "starvation until submission", wore down rebel resistance. Full Story | Top |
| Media squeeze tightens as Russia harks back to WW2 Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 10:12 PM PDT  By Elizabeth Piper MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ilya Azar does not know whether he has been fired yet from one of Russia's most popular independent online news organizations, but he is pretty sure he soon will be. His editor, Galina Timchenko, has already been sacked, and Azar says her departure was his fault, for interviewing a leader of Ukraine's right-wing paramilitary group Right Sector for their Lenta.ru website. Lenta.ru's journalists say Timchenko's sacking, after 10 years running one of a handful of media organizations offering an alternative to state-controlled outlets, shows President Vladimir Putin is tightening his grip over news. As the crisis in Ukraine escalates, that news has taken on shades of Soviet-era propaganda, with anchors and reporters peppering their reports with references to what they say was the cooperation of some Ukrainians with the Nazis in World War Two. Full Story | Top |
| Eight dead after New York City blast, building collapse Friday, Mar 14, 2014 02:53 AM PDT (Reuters) - Search and rescue workers on Friday combed still-smoldering rubble for survivors of a New York City gas explosion that caused two apartment buildings to collapse this week, killing eight people and injuring dozens. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which reviews natural gas-related accidents, had said it was having trouble getting close enough to examine the main pipe that supplies natural gas to the Upper East Side neighborhood. Full Story | Top |
| Accused killer in Florida theater phone-use tiff sent text to son beforehand Friday, Mar 14, 2014 01:36 AM PDT  By Kenneth Knight TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - A retired police captain charged with shooting dead a fellow moviegoer in a dispute over cellphone use in a Florida theater in January messaged his son from his seat minutes before opening fire, court documents show. The Pasco County sheriff's office has said Curtis Reeves, 71, was watching coming attractions with his wife when they got into an argument with another couple seated directly in front of them at the Tampa-area Grove 16 movie theater. Chad Oulson was using a cellphone to text-message or make a mobile video call to a daycare center or babysitter looking after his 3-year-old daughter. Reeves said he brandished and fired his .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun after Oulson stood up and struck him in the face with an unknown object, an arrest affidavit said. Full Story | Top |
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