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| Obama's caution on Ukraine may loom over midterm election Monday, Mar 03, 2014 07:15 PM PST  By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With Russia's incursion into Ukraine reviving Cold War-style tensions, President Barack Obama is at risk of suffering a blow to his credibility at a time when he can least afford it: as he tries to convince voters to stick with his fellow Democrats in congressional elections that will help shape his legacy. For five years, Obama has practiced a cautious approach to foreign policy crises, prizing sober diplomacy and the search for consensus over brinkmanship, in prolonged conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the deliberative style that Obama's team sees as a statesmanlike attitude in tune with Americans' war-weariness, was described as dithering in the crisis over Syria, where the United States long discussed military action without committing. Facing his toughest test yet in Ukraine, Obama is once again finding himself portrayed as a weak leader, outmaneuvered by a wily, opportunistic Russian President Vladimir Putin intent on reviving the United States' nemesis. Full Story | Top |
| Russian markets plunge as Putin tightens Crimea grip Monday, Mar 03, 2014 07:00 PM PST  By Lidia Kelly and Alissa de Carbonnel MOSCOW/PEREVALNOYE, Ukraine (Reuters) - Russia paid a heavy financial price on Monday for its military intervention in neighboring Ukraine, with stocks, bonds and the ruble plunging as President Vladimir Putin's forces tightened their grip on the Russian-speaking Crimea region. The Moscow stock market fell 10.8 percent, wiping nearly $60 billion off the value of Russian companies, more than the $51 billion Russia spent on the Winter Olympics in Sochi last month. Putin declared at the weekend he had the right to invade Ukraine to protect Russian interests and citizens. Moscow's U.N. envoy told a stormy meeting of the Security Council on Monday that Ukraine's ousted leader Viktor Yanukovich had sent a letter to Putin requesting he use Russia's military to restore law and order in Ukraine. Full Story | Top |
| Obama, advisers discuss ways to 'further isolate' Russia Monday, Mar 03, 2014 06:34 PM PST President Barack Obama met for over two hours on Monday with his national security advisers and discussed ways the United States and its allies could "further isolate" Russia over its military intervention in Ukraine, a White House official said. The group discussed ways to "reinforce that the Russians still have an opportunity to take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation or they face further political and economic repercussions from the international community," the official said about the meeting. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. and EU marshal economic tools to punish Russia Monday, Mar 03, 2014 06:11 PM PST By Warren Strobel, Arshad Mohammed and Anna Yukhananov WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has a number of economic weapons to punish Russia for its military intervention in Ukraine, ranging from asset freezes to kicking Moscow out of the exclusive G8 group of countries, and President Barack Obama is focusing first on measures that would not require congressional action. But Washington needs Europe to join it to make sanctions tough enough to potentially deter Russian President Vladimir Putin. Obama is seriously considering an executive order imposing asset freezes and visa bans on Russian officials, a U.S. official said on Monday. Such an order could be drawn narrowly to focus on Russian officials directly involved in the intervention in Ukraine's Crimea or more broadly to target a wider range of Russian officials, two officials said. Full Story | Top |
| Fear of losing tech edge factors into Pentagon budget plans Monday, Mar 03, 2014 05:36 PM PST  By David Alexander WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Concerns that cuts in defense spending could erode the U.S. military's technological edge over rivals such as Russia and China are in part driving the Pentagon's plans to slash troop levels and retire aging weapons. U.S. defense officials have watched in recent years as Moscow and Beijing have tested a string of sophisticated weapons, from radar-evading aircraft and anti-ship missiles that fly many times the speed of sound, to integrated air defenses. "The development and proliferation of more advanced military technologies by other nations means that we are entering an era where American dominance on the seas, in the skies, and in space can no longer be taken for granted," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said last week. Hagel will unveil a 2015 budget on Tuesday that includes cutting the Army by 40,000 to 50,000 troops to levels last seen before the United States entered World War Two and killing off the fleet of tank-killing A-10 "Warthog" aircraft. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. court rejects BP appeal over Gulf spill losses Monday, Mar 03, 2014 05:26 PM PST  A divided U.S. appeals court on Monday rejected BP Plc's bid to block businesses from recovering money over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, even if they could not trace their economic losses to the disaster. By a 2-1 vote, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld a December 24 ruling by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans, authorizing the payments on so-called business economic loss claims. Monday's decision is a setback for BP's effort to limit payments over the April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and rupture of BP's Macondo oil well. Barbier had ruled that BP would have to live with its earlier interpretation of a multi-billion dollar settlement agreement over the spill, in which certain businesses claiming losses were presumed to have suffered harm. Full Story | Top |
| New U.S. fuel standards aim to cut asthma, heart attacks Monday, Mar 03, 2014 05:10 PM PST  By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday announced new fuel and automobile rules to cut soot, smog and toxic emissions, which it says will reduce asthma and heart attacks in the United States. The rules unveiled by the Environmental Protection Agency will cut sulfur levels in gasoline by more than 60 percent and will be phased in between 2017 and 2025. Health advocates praised the move, while a petroleum refiners' group called the compliance schedule unrealistic and warned that these regulations and others would eventually raise gasoline prices throughout the country. "By reducing these pollutants and making our air healthier, we will bring relief to those suffering from asthma, other lung diseases and cardiovascular disease, and to the nation as a whole," said Dr. Albert Rizzo, former chairman of the American Lung Association. Full Story | Top |
| Powerful storm lashes eastern U.S. with snow, arctic cold Monday, Mar 03, 2014 04:14 PM PST  By Ian Simpson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A deadly winter storm hit the U.S. East Coast with freezing rain, snow and near-record cold on Monday, cancelling about 2,900 flights, shutting down Washington and closing schools and local governments. The latest in a series of weather systems to pummel the winter-weary eastern United States, the storm dumped about 4 inches of snow on the U.S. capital by early afternoon as it swept from the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic coast, the National Weather Service said. Brian Hurley, a weather service meteorologist, said temperatures would be about 30 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius) below normal as a cold front settled in from Great Plains to the Atlantic coast. Icy roads in Virginia were blamed for at least one death on Monday morning when a 30-year-old man drove his pickup truck into an embankment, flipping the vehicle and striking a tree, Virginia State Police said. Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine crisis new rallying point for U.S. energy export backers Monday, Mar 03, 2014 04:11 PM PST By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supporters of U.S. energy exports have pounced on the crisis in Ukraine to press their case for faster approvals of liquid natural gas (LNG) projects and for an end to the decades-long ban on exports of most U.S. crude oil. LNG supplies from the United States could help some Western European countries react to any Russian aggression in coming years, but because of added transportation costs the fuel could be too expensive for others in Central Europe who are likely to remain dependent on neighbors, energy experts said. As President Vladimir Putin's forces tightened their grip on the Crimea peninsula in the Ukraine on Monday, the moves heightened concerns that the crisis could widen and that Russia could slash its shipments of natural gas to Europe, about half of which are sent through the Ukraine via pipeline. Full Story | Top |
| Meetup.com fights off hackers, refuses to pay $300 ransom Monday, Mar 03, 2014 03:55 PM PST By Alastair Sharp TORONTO (Reuters) - Social networking website Meetup.com is fighting a sustained battle against cyber-criminals who are demanding $300 to call off an attack that has kept the site offline for much of the past four days. The site, which enables strangers to meet for shared-interest activities ranging from parents' groups to software development, was back online but still under attack late on Monday afternoon, Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman told Reuters. Heiferman said he was open to the possibility of some financial relief for members who pay between $12 and $17 a month to organize Meetup groups in their geographic and thematic areas of interest. Full Story | Top |
| Obama meets national security team on Ukraine at White House Monday, Mar 03, 2014 03:38 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is holding a high-level meeting at the White House about Ukraine with senior military and national security advisers, a White House official said on Monday. Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, national security adviser Susan Rice, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and General Martin Dempsey were among those in attendance, the official said. (Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Peter Cooney) Full Story | Top |
| Risk-off, but no U.S. investor panic over Ukraine Monday, Mar 03, 2014 03:00 PM PST  By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) - Russia's military move on the Crimean peninsula has raised tensions between Moscow and the West to levels not seen since the Cold War ended, but U.S. investors are not yet ready to sell, duck or cover. While Russian markets were hammered after the country took control of the Crimean region of Ukraine, the moves were less frenetic in Europe and even more muted in the United States. If military action is involved or Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen as too aggressive in his demands, expect a further drop in Treasury yields and in global stocks, at least in the short term. Over a longer period, however, investors expect this issue to cause only a modest selloff in U.S. stocks, mostly because very little in the way of U.S. sales depends on Russian demand. Full Story | Top |
| 'High use' pain killer addicts get fix from doctors, dealers: study Monday, Mar 03, 2014 02:56 PM PST By Susan Heavey WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most Americans who abuse prescription pain killers get them free from friends or family, but a new study released on Monday shows that addicts who use these opiates most frequently gravitate toward doctors or dealers to get their fixes. U.S. government researchers found that nearly one in three "high use" abusers - people who take opioids between 200 and 365 days a year - obtained a doctor's prescription for the drugs, compared with about one in five of those who used the drugs less than 30 days over the course of a year. Prevention programs should concentrate much more on ensuring that doctors prescribe pain killers judiciously, screen patients carefully and conduct follow-up monitoring of frequent users. "This is the group where we really need to be targeting our efforts because they're most at risk for overdose or dependence," lead author Christopher Jones, former head of the CDC's prescription drug overdose team, told Reuters. Full Story | Top |
| First patient fitted with Carmat artificial heart dies Monday, Mar 03, 2014 02:42 PM PST By Natalie Huet PARIS (Reuters) - The first patient fitted with an artificial heart made by the French company Carmat has died, the hospital that had performed the transplant in December said on Monday. The 76-year-old man died on Sunday, 75 days after the operation, the Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris said in a statement, adding that the cause of his death could not be known for sure at this stage. When he was fitted with the device, the man was suffering from terminal heart failure, when the sick heart can no longer pump enough blood to sustain the body, and was said to have only a few weeks, or even days, to live. Carmat's bioprosthetic device is designed to replace the real heart for as much as five years, mimicking nature's work using biological materials and sensors. Full Story | Top |
| TSX steady as commodities gain with Ukraine tensions Monday, Mar 03, 2014 02:08 PM PST  By John Tilak and Leah Schnurr TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index was little changed in choppy trade on Monday as worries about increasing instability in Ukraine were overcome by shares of natural resource producers benefiting from stronger commodity prices. Ukraine said Russia's military presence in Crimea was growing, and U.S. President Barack Obama called Russia's actions a violation of international law and of Ukraine's sovereignty. "Overall investors are disconcerted, but there is very little panic," said Elvis Picardo, a strategist at Global Securities in Vancouver. "That would really not be a good thing for the TSX." The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index closed up 3.15 points, or 0.02 percent, at 14,212.74. Full Story | Top |
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