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| Dozens killed in Ukraine fighting and fire; OSCE monitors freed Saturday, May 03, 2014 12:26 PM PDT  By Miran Jelenek and Maria Tsvetkova ODESSA/SLAVIANSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - At least 42 people were killed in a street battle between supporters and opponents of Russia in southern Ukraine that ended with dozens of pro-Russian protesters incinerated in a burning building, bringing the country closer to war. Pro-Russian rebels in the east freed seven European military observers on Saturday after holding them hostage for eight days, while Kiev pressed on with its biggest military operation so far to reclaim rebel-held territory in the area. The riot in the Black Sea port of Odessa, ending in a deadly blaze in a besieged trade union building, was by far the worst incident in Ukraine since a February uprising that ended with a pro-Russian president fleeing the country. A couple of hundred pro-Russian protesters in the eastern city of Donetsk stormed the governor's business premises and the state security headquarters, ransacking files and smashing windows. Full Story | Top |
| Buffett defends Coke, BNSF at Berkshire annual meeting Saturday, May 03, 2014 03:16 PM PDT  By Luciana Lopez OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - Warren Buffett on Saturday defended his recent controversial vote on executive pay at Coca-Cola Co and disappointing performance at railroad BNSF, as investors grilled him on his Berkshire Hathaway Inc conglomerate at its annual shareholder meeting. The investment guru was peppered with questions at the meeting, part of a mostly festive weekend that Buffett calls "Woodstock for Capitalists," following concerns that Berkshire last year missed Buffett's five-year growth target for the first time in his 49 years at the helm. Buffett, 83, and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, 90, took the stage at a downtown Omaha arena as they faced off with the audience and a hand-picked panel often excusing recent worries at the sprawling conglomerate. Berkshire, he said, is designed to perform best when markets are at their worst, unlike in 2013 when the Standard & Poor's 500 rose 30 percent. Full Story | Top |
| Afghan landslide rescue focuses on displaced Saturday, May 03, 2014 09:54 AM PDT By Mirwais Harooni and Jeremy Laurence KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan officials gave up hope on Saturday of finding any survivors from a landslide in the remote northeast, with the number killed or missing put at between a few hundred and as many as 2,700. The United Nations said the focus now was on helping more than 4,000 displaced people. The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said more than 350 people were killed, but a spokesman for the local governor put the number in excess of 2,100. The Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) said 2,700 were dead or missing. Full Story | Top |
| SAC's Steinberg asks for two-year sentence Saturday, May 03, 2014 12:08 PM PDT  By Casey Sullivan and Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) - Michael Steinberg, a portfolio manager at Steven A. Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors who was found guilty last year on insider trading charges, has asked for a two-year sentence, far shorter than the term recommended by probation officials. In a 65-page sentencing memo, Steinberg's lawyer Barry Berke referred to his "character and broader life accomplishments" in arguing that his sentence should be only two years in prison. A report by the court's probation department recommended that Steinberg be sentenced to a prison term of 4-1/4 to 5-1/4 years for his December conviction on one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and four counts of securities fraud. "Mr. Steinberg is a man of many admirable individual characteristics — but more than that, he is a giver and a doer, someone whose contributions to the happiness, success and well-being of his family, friends, and many others are second to none," Berke wrote to U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan. Full Story | Top |
| Senator urges Hillary Clinton to seek presidency Saturday, May 03, 2014 11:47 AM PDT  Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia on Saturday endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, even though the former secretary of state has not announced whether she will seek the White House in 2016. Kaine, who backed Barack Obama when he beat Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, announced his support on Twitter and at breakfast meeting of the South Carolina Women's Democratic Council in Columbia, South Carolina. "Today I encouraged Hillary Clinton to run for president & pledged my support for her candidacy if she does," Kaine said in a tweet that linked to his remarks on www.readyforhillary.com, website of one of the most prominent pro-Clinton organizations. Full Story | Top |
| Indiana hospital caring for MERS patient still bustling Saturday, May 03, 2014 11:54 AM PDT  By Karl Plume MUNSTER, Indiana (Reuters) - Along a stretch of rust-belt suburbia in Indiana, the Community Hospital in Munster now claims the dubious distinction of being the first U.S. facility to admit a patient with the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). The patient, a male healthcare worker, had traveled to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and began exhibiting symptoms upon his return to the United States, they said. Separately, Saudi officials on Saturday said the rate of infections was on the rise in the country, where MERS was first discovered in 2012. At Community Hospital, however, the news did not seem to create panic among Munster residents soon after it was broadcast on local news outlets. Full Story | Top |
| Sinn Fein poised for Irish poll success amid Adams murder probe Saturday, May 03, 2014 02:01 PM PDT  Sinn Fein is in contention to win three of the Irish republic's 11 seats in the European Parliament, a poll showed on Saturday ahead of an election which the party says the arrest of leader Gerry Adams was timed to disrupt. Northern Ireland police extended the detention of Adams by another two days on Friday to give detectives more time to question him about a 1972 murder, raising the stakes in a case that has rocked the British province. Sinn Fein, which shares power in Northern Ireland and has gained popularity south of the border during the country's financial crisis, could win as many European Parliament seats as Prime Minister Enda Kenny's Fine Gael party in the May 23 poll, according to a survey in the Sunday Business Post newspaper. Full Story | Top |
| Pfizer U.S. research jobs jeopardized by promises to UK for merger Saturday, May 03, 2014 05:09 AM PDT  By Ransdell Pierson and Bill Berkrot NEW YORK (Reuters) - Employees at Pfizer Inc's U.S. research centers, such as the La Jolla, California site that specializes in cancer drugs, may want to dust off their resumes if the company's proposed acquisition of Britain's AstraZeneca comes to fruition. Pfizer said on Friday it was determined to reach a deal that would restore its status as the world's biggest pharmaceutical company despite AstraZeneca's rejection of its latest cash and stock offer of 63 billion pounds ($106 billion). To reassure the British government about its proposal, Pfizer has promised the combined company would keep 20 percent of its research and development workforce in the country. It also vowed to complete construction of a research center planned by AstraZeneca in Cambridge, England, and retain a manufacturing plant in the northern town of Macclesfield. Full Story | Top |
| Greek conservatives regain lead in polls ahead of EU election Saturday, May 03, 2014 11:02 AM PDT  Greece's co-ruling conservatives have regained a narrow lead over the main, anti-bailout opposition three weeks before a European Parliament election, two polls showed. The election, which coincides with a key local vote, is seen as a test for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' fragile coalition in a country still reeling from the debt crisis and banking on loans from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. Samaras' New Democracy - which leads the coalition with the Socialist PASOK party - and its rival, the leftist Syriza party, have been running neck-and-neck in polls for months, with voters often swinging in favor of one or the other party. But New Democracy has seen a boost in ratings since Athens tapped bond markets in April for the first time in four years and Samaras promised to spend a 527 million euro ($731 million) windfall from Greece's 2013 budget surplus on poor, austerity-hit Greeks. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. jury orders Samsung to pay Apple $120 million Saturday, May 03, 2014 03:13 AM PDT  By Dan Levine SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - A U.S. jury on Friday ordered Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to pay $119.6 million to Apple Inc, far less than Apple had sought and marking a big loss for the iPhone maker in the latest round of their globe-spanning mobile patent litigation. During the month-long trial in a San Jose, California, federal court, Apple accused Samsung of violating patents on smartphone features including universal search, while Samsung denied wrongdoing. On Friday, the jury found the South Korean smartphone maker had infringed two Apple patents. Apple and Samsung have been litigating around the world for three years. Full Story | Top |
| Honduras to extradite drug trafficker wanted by U.S. Saturday, May 03, 2014 08:26 AM PDT  Honduras said it will extradite to the United States a drug trafficker who worked for Mexico's powerful Sinaloa Cartel, making him the first such case since the country changed the law to allow the process two years ago. Carlos Arnoldo Lobo, who the U.S. government says trafficked multi-tonne loads of cocaine from Colombia for Honduran, Guatemalan and Mexican gangs, will be extradited next week, a spokesman for the Honduran justice department said after a decision by the country's Supreme Court late on Friday. The U.S. Treasury Department said Lobo's clients included the Sinaloa Cartel, which has been at the forefront of cocaine trafficking from Mexico into the United States. Full Story | Top |
| Mortar fire kills at least 13 in government-held Syria Saturday, May 03, 2014 11:55 AM PDT By Alexander Dziadosz BEIRUT (Reuters) - At least 13 people were killed by mortar fire in government-held areas of Syria on Saturday, including central Damascus, a monitoring group and state media said, just days after President Bashar al-Assad said he would seek another term in office. The attacks occurred as activists said rebel fighters had delayed their planned withdrawal from the Old City district of Homs, once called the "capital of the revolution", although a ceasefire with government forces continued there. Damascus residents say the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim insurgents have stepped up mortar attacks into the government-held capital in recent weeks as government forces have tightened their grip over central parts of the country. Syria's state news agency SANA blamed "terrorists" for the mortar attack in Damascus, saying it killed four people including a 16-year-old girl when it struck a minibus in the al-Dwel'a area of the capital. Full Story | Top |
| Papal commission on sex abuse to push for accountability Saturday, May 03, 2014 09:05 AM PDT  By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A commission advising Pope Francis on the sexual abuse crisis will recommend that negligent clerics be held accountable regardless of their rank in the Church, Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley said on Saturday. The commission, made up of four men and four women from eight countries including an Irish woman who was a victim of abuse, met for the first time since its formation in March, holding talks with the pope and Vatican officials. "We see ensuring accountability in the Church as especially important," the commission said in a statement. O'Malley, known as a pioneer for a more open and forceful approach to tackling the scandal since he published a database of Boston clergy accused of sexual abuse of minors online in 2011, said a person's rank in the Church should not be cause for special treatment or protection. Full Story | Top |
| Tunisia elections probably to be held in November: election chief Saturday, May 03, 2014 06:58 AM PDT  By Tarek Amara TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's next presidential and parliamentary elections will probably be held in the second half of November, the election agency chief said on Saturday, about polls that will mark the country's final step towards full democracy. Tunisia's often turbulent political transition began after an 2011 uprising that ousted autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali and inspired the "Arab Spring" revolutions across the region. Since then, Tunisia has been led by a caretaker government and has adopted a new constitution. Islamist party Ennahda rose to power in the first election after the uprising, held in October 2011, and Tunisia, one of the Arab world's most secular countries, has struggled with growing divisions over the role of Islam in politics. Full Story | Top |
| Al Qaeda's leader says Iraqi branch in Syria must return to fight at home Saturday, May 03, 2014 01:41 AM PDT  Iraqi al Qaeda's entry into Syria's civil war caused "a political disaster" for Islamist militants there, the movement's global leader Ayman al-Zawahri said in a video message, urging the faction to redouble its efforts in Iraq instead. Zawahri has repeatedly tried to end infighting between the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and another al Qaeda-aligned group, the Nusra Front. He said on Friday in a message translated by SITE Monitoring that if ISIL had accepted his decision not to get involved in Syria and had instead worked to "busy itself with Iraq, which needs double its efforts" then it could have avoided the "waterfall of blood" caused by militant infighting. Full Story | Top |
| Thai opposition leader wants election delayed to allow reforms Saturday, May 03, 2014 12:30 AM PDT  By Amy Sawitta Lefevre BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva on Saturday urged that a general election planned for July be delayed by up to six months to allow time for reforms aimed at ending a protracted political crisis that threatens to explode. Protesters have been trying to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra since November, part of a long-running crisis that broadly pits Bangkok's middle class and royalist establishment against the mainly poor, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Former Prime Minister Abhisit, who launched a mediation effort on April 24, told a news conference the vote should be delayed by five or six months while a committee thrashed out reforms that would be put to a referendum. The panel should include representatives of the People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), the protest group led by Suthep Thaugsuban, who was a deputy prime minister under Abhisit until 2011. Full Story | Top |
| India deploys army in Assam after 31 Muslims killed Saturday, May 03, 2014 07:18 AM PDT  By Biswajyoti Das BARAMA, India (Reuters) - India deployed troops to the state of Assam on Saturday after 31 Muslims were gunned down in three days of what police said were attacks by tribal militants who resent the presence of immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. The unrest in the tea-growing state comes towards the end of a marathon election across India that has heightened ethnic and religious divisions and which the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) looks set to win. Full Story | Top |
| Yemeni colonel shot dead in Aden, two hurt in bomb attack Saturday, May 03, 2014 07:19 AM PDT Unidentified gunmen shot dead an army colonel in his car in Yemen's southern port city of Aden late on Friday and two soldiers were injured when a car bomb exploded in another major southern port on Saturday, security sources said. The army is conducting a big operation against Islamist militants in the southern provinces of Shabwa and Abyan. Western countries fear further destabilization in Yemen could give more space to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the local branch of the global Islamist militant movement, to plot attacks on international targets. AQAP and its local ally, Ansar al-Sharia, have been waging an insurgency in southern Yemen for more than three years, battling both government forces and local tribal militias. Full Story | Top |
| Brazil presidential race tightens in new poll Saturday, May 03, 2014 04:09 AM PDT  The race for Brazil's October presidential election has tightened, according to a poll released on Saturday that also showed high disapproval for President Dilma Rousseff and widespread dissatisfaction with the stagnant economy. Rousseff had 35 percent of votes, compared to 24 percent for Senator Aecio Neves and 11 percent for former governor Eduardo Campos, according to the survey by Sensus polling firm. Brazil's stock market advanced 2.6 percent on Friday as investors anticipated the Sensus poll would show the race tightening. Full Story | Top |
| At least six killed in blast in Somali capital: police Saturday, May 03, 2014 04:26 AM PDT  By Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar MOGADISHU (Reuters) - At least six people were killed in Mogadishu on Saturday, including a senior city council official, when a remotely controlled bomb planted by al Shabaab insurgents exploded on a busy street in the Somali capital, police said. Somalia's fragile government is struggling to impose any sense of order more than two decades after the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre tipped the country into chaos. The city has been hit by a series of suicide bomb attacks in the past few months, claimed by al Qaeda-linked militants al Shabaab, who have waged a sustained guerrilla campaign even after they were pushed out of the city in mid-2011. Police said the bomb that killed the city official was hidden in a pile of rubbish placed along the road. Full Story | Top |
| Slovenia's prime minister to step down on Monday Saturday, May 03, 2014 04:03 AM PDT  Slovenia's Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek said on Saturday that she would step down from her post on May 5 after losing a contest for her party leadership. Bratusek said earlier this week she wanted to see elections held before the summer, if possible, following her defeat by Ljubljana mayor Zoran Jankovic in a contest for the leadership of the Pozitivna Slovenija party last weekend. "I call upon all the deputies to give up their right to propose a new prime minister-designate, so that we hold elections as soon as possible," Bratusek said on Saturday after a meeting of the centre-left coalition partners comprising her cabinet. Full Story | Top |
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