Today's Reuters World News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
|
|
Colombia's Santos appoints Renjifo as energy minister
Thu,30 Aug 2012 06:44 PM PDT
Reuters -  BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos named close ally Federico Renjifo as energy and mining minister on Thursday in part of a Cabinet shuffle as the leader begins pursuing a peace process with FARC rebels. Renjifo replaces Mauricio Cardenas, who was appointed last week to head the Finance Ministry. Renjifo, an economist and lawyer, previously served as interior minister. ...
Full Story | Top |
Mexico electoral judges reject challenge to Pena Nieto vote win
Thu,30 Aug 2012 06:31 PM PDT
Reuters -  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A majority of Mexico's electoral tribunal judges on Thursday rejected a bid by leftist leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to overturn Enrique Pena Nieto's victory in the July 1 presidential election, which has left the country in political limbo. Lopez Obrador, who was the runner-up, accused Pena Nieto and his Institutional Revolutionary Party of buying votes and money laundering to secure victory. ...
Full Story | Top |
Chelsea owner Abramovich faces $6 billion court ruling
Thu,30 Aug 2012 05:35 PM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich will find out on Friday whether he owes his former partner Boris Berezovsky as much as $6 billion (3.8 billion pounds) after a British court battle that has laid bare the post-Soviet carve-up of Russia's vast natural resources. After a legal odyssey stretching from the gilded corridors of the Kremlin to the offshore enclaves favoured by Russia's richest tycoons, Judge Elizabeth Gloster will rule on whether Berezovsky was extorted out his business empire by Abramovich. ...
Full Story | Top |
Waning Isaac heads north but eyes turn to stricken dam
Thu,30 Aug 2012 05:22 PM PDT
Reuters -  NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Torrential rain dumped by Hurricane Isaac threatened to burst a dam in Mississippi on Thursday, triggering the mass evacuation of local residents, while large areas of the region were still flooded and without power but getting ready to mop up. Isaac, which was downgraded to a tropical depression on Thursday, did little damage to New Orleans, where stronger barriers were installed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Only one fatality linked to the storm has been confirmed so far. But it produced a soggy mess across widespread areas of the U.S. ...
Full Story | Top |
U.N. all talk on Syria aid as West mulls military action
Thu,30 Aug 2012 05:10 PM PDT
Reuters - UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria's aid crisis achieved nothing new on Thursday except to highlight global paralysis on the 17-month conflict as western powers warned that military action to secure civilian safe zones was still an option. While the Security Council impasse between western nations and Russia and China means a resolution to approve such a move appears impossible, countries could act outside the authority of the world body and intervene, as happened in Kosovo in 1999. ... Full Story | Top |
Scores arrested in new Maldives protest against Nasheed ruling
Thu,30 Aug 2012 04:55 PM PDT
Reuters -  MALE (Reuters) - Maldives police arrested at least 12 people in the early hours of Friday to break up a protest by supporters of former president Mohamed Nasheed against a report that said he had been replaced legitimately. Hundreds of angry supporters of Nasheed had blocked a main road in the capital Male for three hours before the arrests forced them to disperse. On Thursday, around 50 protesters had been detained. After his removal on February 7, Nasheed, in power since 2008, said he had been forced to resign at gunpoint by mutinying police and soldiers. ...
Full Story | Top |
Lufthansa cabin crew to strike from Friday in Frankfurt
Thu,30 Aug 2012 04:07 PM PDT
Reuters -  FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lufthansa passengers face widespread flight disruption from Friday after cabin crew representatives said they would start a series of strikes over pay and cost-cutting measures at Germany's largest airline. The UFO union, which represents around two-thirds of Lufthansa's 19,000 cabin crew, late on Thursday called on its members to strike from 0300 GMT to 1100 GMT on Friday in Frankfurt. "UFO calls on its members within Lufthansa to participate in the strike in Frankfurt from 0500 to 1300 hours (local)," UFO said in an emailed statement. ...
Full Story | Top |
Cuba reports mixed results of labor reform
Thu,30 Aug 2012 03:53 PM PDT
Reuters - HAVANA (Reuters) - Communist-run Cuba's five-year plan to cut more than a million state jobs, create a strong "non-state sector" and improve wages has made only limited progress, according to a government report released this week. Authorities announced the shift of state workers to private and leased small businesses and farming in late 2009 as the core of a broader reform of the state-dominated economy that employed 90 percent of the workforce. ... Full Story | Top |
South Africa prosecutors charge miners with murder
Thu,30 Aug 2012 03:47 PM PDT
Reuters -  JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African prosecutors on Thursday charged 270 striking miners with murder of 34 co-workers seen being shot dead in a hail of police bullets captured in videos broadcast around the world. Prosecution have filed papers invoking a measure called "common purpose" seldom used since the dying days of apartheid, arguing the miners were complicit in the killings since they were arrested at the scene with weapons. ...
Full Story | Top |
Spanish court says sick Basque separatist can be freed
Thu,30 Aug 2012 03:30 PM PDT
Reuters - MADRID (Reuters) - A top Spanish court ruled on Thursday that a Basque ETA separatist jailed for his involvement in several kidnappings and murders could be freed because he has cancer. Jesús María Uribetxeberría Bolinaga last week abandoned a two-week hunger strike that had prompted around a hundred fellow ETA prisoners to refuse food to press for his release. ETA, which wants independence for Basque lands in northern Spain and southern France, laid down its weapons last October after four decades of armed struggle that resulted in more than 800 deaths. ... Full Story | Top |
Pirates release Greek-run oil tanker in Gulf of Guinea
Thu,30 Aug 2012 03:22 PM PDT
Reuters - ATHENS (Reuters) - Pirates released a Greek-operated oil tanker seized off Togo on Tuesday after stealing 3,000 tonnes of fuel from it, an official from the ship's operator said on Thursday. The seizure of MT Energy Centurion, which is operated by Golden Energy Management, underscored the growing risks to shipping in the Gulf of Guinea, where piracy is rising but still not as common as off the coast of Somalia. "They took some of the cargo, jewellery and money that belonged to the crew," the official said, on condition of anonymity. ... Full Story | Top |
Budget poses challenge to Irish government future: minister
Thu,30 Aug 2012 02:52 PM PDT
Reuters - DUBLIN (Reuters) - The austerity budget Ireland must adopt in December could weaken its coalition government, though it has a "middling to good" chance of survival, a senior minister said on Thursday, raising doubts about the coalition for the first time. Dublin must boost taxes and cut spending to the tune of 3.5 billion euros ($4.37 billion) in the latest of a series of austerity budgets promised under an EU/IMF bailout and Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte said it would be the toughest to vote through. ... Full Story | Top |
Flooding from Isaac forces evacuation of 60,000
Thu,30 Aug 2012 02:13 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Torrential rain dropped by Hurricane Isaac threatened to burst a dam on Thursday, forcing evacuation of up to 60,000 people in Louisiana and Mississippi and leaving large areas of the region flooded and without power. Isaac, which was downgraded to a tropical depression on Thursday after moving in from the Gulf on Tuesday, left little damage in New Orleans, where stronger barriers were installed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Only one fatality linked to the storm has been confirmed so far. But it left a soggy mess across widespread areas of the U.S. ...
Full Story | Top |
Insight: Does China's next leader have a soft spot for Tibet?
Thu,30 Aug 2012 02:10 PM PDT
Reuters -  BEIJING/DHARAMSALA (Reuters) - For decades, Beijing has maintained that the Dalai Lama is a separatist, but Tibet's exiled spiritual leader once had a special relationship with the father of Xi Jinping, the man in line to become China's next president. Few people know what Xi, whose ascent to the leadership is likely to be approved at a Communist Party congress later this year, thinks of Tibet or the Dalai Lama. ...
Full Story | Top |
Exclusive: Google, Apple CEOs in secret patent talks
Thu,30 Aug 2012 01:50 PM PDT
Reuters -  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc Chief Executive Larry Page and Apple CEO Tim Cook have been conducting behind-the-scenes talks about a range of intellectual property matters, including the mobile patent disputes between the companies, people familiar with the matter said. The two executives had a phone conversation last week, the sources said. Discussions involving lower-level officials of the two companies are also ongoing. Page and Cook are expected to talk again in the coming weeks, though no firm date has been set, the sources said on Thursday. ...
Full Story | Top |
Iran doubles underground nuclear capacity: U.N. agency
Thu,30 Aug 2012 01:41 PM PDT
Reuters -  VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has doubled the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges it has in an underground bunker, a U.N. report said on Thursday, showing Tehran has continued to expand its nuclear program despite Western pressure and the threat of an Israeli attack. As Israeli politicians increased their talk of air strikes on Iran's nuclear sites in recent months, the Islamic Republic was rapidly increasing the enrichment capacity of its Fordow site, buried deep underground to withstand any such hit. The U.N. ...
Full Story | Top |
Canada opposition attacks government over CNOOC Nexen bid
Thu,30 Aug 2012 01:17 PM PDT
Reuters -  OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's main opposition party criticized how the government is handling a $15.1 billion bid by China's CNOOC Ltd for Canadian oil producer Nexen Inc on Thursday, underlining how politically sensitive the matter has become. The Conservative government is probing the offer -- China's richest foreign takeover bid yet -- to see if it is of net benefit to Canada. Political sources say the cabinet is split over the CNOOC deal, in part because of concerns that China would gain more control over Canada's energy patch. ...
Full Story | Top |
Ivory Coast using attacks as pretext for crackdown: opposition
Thu,30 Aug 2012 01:09 PM PDT
Reuters -  ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's main opposition party on Thursday accused the government of a campaign of repression against supporters of former president Laurent Gbagbo, using attacks on soldiers and police as a pretext. Around 20 people, most of them soldiers, have been killed in the raids, which have revived the specter of unrest in the world's top cocoa grower, still deeply divided a year after a brief civil war that claimed more than 3,000 lives. ...
Full Story | Top |
Georgia says armed raid was in "enemy's" interests
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:47 AM PDT
Reuters -  TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgian officials said on Thursday gunmen who took hostages on its territory were Russian nationals and suggested they acted in the interests of the "enemy", while stopping short of blaming Moscow for the raid. Georgian forces shot dead 11 gunmen and three of its soldiers were killed in an operation on August 29 to free hostages near the frontier with Russia's Dagestan region. ...
Full Story | Top |
White House: closely studying U.N. report on Iran's nuclear program
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:44 AM PDT
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday that it was closely studying a U.N. report that showed Iran has possibly expanded uranium enrichment machines and increased stockpiles of nuclear material. "We are closely studying the details of the report, but broadly speaking it is not surprising that Iran is continuing to violate its obligations," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters when asked about the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency's quarterly report on Iran. "As the report illustrates, we are in a position to closely observe Iran's program," he said. ... Full Story | Top |
Ghana's NDC backs Mahama, seeks unity ahead of vote
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:36 AM PDT
Reuters -  KUMASI, Ghana (Reuters) - Ghana's ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) party nominated interim president John Dramani Mahama on Thursday as its candidate for a December presidential race, hoping a near-unanimous vote will restore unity after months of infighting. Mahama, who replaced the late president John Atta Mills as head of the cocoa, gold and oil-producing nation when he died last month, was the party's intended candidate but had to be confirmed by a vote of the party congress in the town of Kumasi. He won 99. ...
Full Story | Top |
Angolan police arrest opposition members before vote
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:34 AM PDT
Reuters -  LUANDA (Reuters) - Angolan police arrested several members of an opposition party on Thursday on the eve of national elections after they tried to enter the electoral commission building to demand credentials to observe the vote at polling stations, a party official and police said. William Tonet, a candidate for the opposition CASA-CE party, told Reuters that police guarding the national electoral commission (CNE) in Luanda fired shots to keep back dozens of young CASA-CE militants who approached the building. About a dozen party members were taken away by police, Tonet said. ...
Full Story | Top |
"Free Pussy Riot" written in blood at Russian murder scene
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:26 AM PDT
Reuters -  MOSCOW (Reuters) - Two women were found stabbed to death in a Russian apartment with the words "Free Pussy Riot" written on the wall in what was probably blood, investigators said on Thursday, stirring more passion over the women jailed for a protest in a church. A Russian Orthodox Church official said supporters of Pussy Riot now had "blood on their conscience", the Interfax news agency reported. ...
Full Story | Top |
France, Britain say Syria military intervention on table
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:22 AM PDT
Reuters - UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - France and Britain warned Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday that military action to secure safe zones for civilians inside the country was being considered despite the paralysis of the U.N. Security Council over how to end the 17-month conflict. While the Security Council impasse between western nations and Russia and China means a resolution to approve such a move appears impossible, countries could act outside the authority of the world body and intervene, as happened in Kosovo in 1999. ... Full Story | Top |
Timeline: Violence in Syria
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:22 AM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - Here are some of the main events in the uprising in Syria in August: [ID:nL6E8JTMC2] August 2 - Kofi Annan quits as mediator. The United Nations confirms on August 17 that Algerian diplomat, Lakhdar Brahimi is to replace Annan as international mediator. August 6 - Prime Minister Ryad Hijab announces that he has defected and joins the opposition. Assad later appoints Health Minister Wael al-Halki as prime minister. August 7 - Assad appears on television for the first time in two weeks since a July bombing killed four members of his inner circle. ... Full Story | Top |
U.N. warns against threats to Lebanon amid Syria spillover
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:22 AM PDT
Reuters - UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council warned on Thursday against attempts to threaten the security and stability of Lebanon amid outbursts of violence and escalating tensions in the country fueled by the 17-month conflict in neighboring Syria. The warning was contained in a resolution unanimously passed by the council to renew a 11,500-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL and based in a Hezbollah stronghold in the south to monitor a cessation of hostilities with Israel. ... Full Story | Top |
Syrian refugees strain Jordan's dusty desert camp
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:22 AM PDT
Reuters - ZAATARI, Jordan (Reuters) - At a dust-blown refugee camp in the Jordanian desert, Ayham Qaddah hugs the only member of his immediate family to survive the rocket which struck his home in Syria's southern province of Deraa, killing his wife and three sons. The young father, caring for his bandaged six-year-old daughter, is one of nearly 2,000 refugees who have crossed daily into northern Jordan, overwhelming the efforts of a country with few natural resources to accommodate them. ... Full Story | Top |
Egypt says Syria's "oppressive regime" must go
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:22 AM PDT
Reuters -  DUBAI/AMMAN (Reuters) - Egypt called on Thursday for intervention to halt bloodshed in Syria, telling a meeting of 120 nations it was their duty to stand against the "oppressive regime" of Bashar al-Assad, prompting a Syrian walkout. President Mohamed Mursi, elected two months ago after a popular uprising toppled Egypt's long-standing leader Hosni Mubarak, said Assad had lost legitimacy in his fight to crush a 17-month-old revolt in which 20,000 people have been killed. ...
Full Story | Top |
Netanyahu to speak on Iran at U.N. General Assembly
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:11 AM PDT
Reuters -  JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he would speak out about the dangers of Iran's nuclear program in an address next month to the U.N. General Assembly in New York. It was not immediately known if Netanyahu would meet U.S. President Barack Obama during his September 27-30 visit. The two leaders last met in March at the White House. ...
Full Story | Top |
U.N. rights expert condemns Israeli ruling on Corrie death
Thu,30 Aug 2012 11:07 AM PDT
Reuters -  GENEVA (Reuters) - A U.N. investigator condemned an Israeli court on Thursday for clearing the military of blame for the death of American activist crushed by an army bulldozer, calling it a "victory for impunity". The ruling handed down on Tuesday on the civil suit brought by the family of Rachel Corrie was part of a pattern of decisions exonerating Israeli military actions and political leaders, said Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories. ...
Full Story | Top |
Iran's policies attacked by U.N. head, Egyptian leader
Thu,30 Aug 2012 10:48 AM PDT
Reuters -  DUBAI (Reuters) - The U.N. chief and Egypt's president delivered stinging speeches at a summit of developing nations in Iran on Thursday, damaging the host country's quest for global prestige and support for its nuclear program and its policy on Syria. The Iranians had to listen while Ban Ki-moon denounced them for calling for Israel's destruction and denying the Holocaust. ...
Full Story | Top |
Marseille calls for army as drug killings escalate
Thu,30 Aug 2012 10:22 AM PDT
Reuters -  MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) - The mayor of a tough Marseille neighborhood called on Thursday for France's army to tackle armed criminals after a spate of shootings in the Mediterranean port city, in a test of President Francois Hollande's crime-fighting mettle. The appeal, which the government rejected, highlighted worsening crime in France's second-largest city, a drug-trafficking hub where an influx of weapons from eastern Europe after the Balkan wars has contributed to a rise in gun violence and tit-for-tat killings. ...
Full Story | Top |
Yemen intelligence officer killed in Sanaa: ministry
Thu,30 Aug 2012 10:13 AM PDT
Reuters - SANAA (Reuters) - A Yemeni intelligence officer was killed on Thursday by a gunman shooting from a motorbike, the defense ministry said on its website. The attack took place in the Habra district of the capital Sanaa, the ministry said without giving further details. The shooting came the same day a security official said a U.S. drone attack killed at least four suspected Islamist militants in a car in a remote province of eastern Yemen. Washington, which fears the spread of Islamist militancy in Yemen, has stepped up attacks by unmanned drones this year. ... Full Story | Top |
Love-triangle books a headache for France's Hollande
Thu,30 Aug 2012 10:00 AM PDT
Reuters -  PARIS (Reuters) - Stuck with dismal approval ratings for his presidential debut, France's Francois Hollande is now having his private life raked over in a series of books that dissect the alleged jealousy between his current and former companions. Despite Hollande's insistence he wants his home life kept private, public interest has been rife since first lady Valerie Trierweiler sent a "killer tweet" in June that exposed the animosity between her and Segolene Royal, the president's partner up to mid-2007. ...
Full Story | Top |
Factbox: Polonium: lethal, invisible poison
Thu,30 Aug 2012 09:48 AM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - A Swiss institute said on Thursday that it agreed to a request from the Palestinian Authority to help exhume the body of its former leader Yasser Arafat and determine whether he was poisoned, but time is running out. Here is a look at polonium-210 amid suspicions that the radioactive substance may have been used. * Polonium is a radioactive element that is present in the environment at extremely low concentrations. Polonium-210 is the most common and stable isotope, or variant. Polonium-210 is a metallic solid that can be dissolved in dilute acids. ... Full Story | Top |
Swiss experts ready to help Arafat probe, but time running out
Thu,30 Aug 2012 09:48 AM PDT
Reuters -  GENEVA (Reuters) - A Swiss institute has agreed to a request from the Palestinian Authority to exhume Yasser Arafat's body and determine whether he was poisoned, but time is running out for a credible scientific examination of his remains, it said on Thursday. The Palestinian leader died in a Paris military hospital in November 2004, a month after being flown, seriously ill, from his battered headquarters in Ramallah. Eight years is considered a limit to detect any traces of the deadly radioactive substance, the Institute of Radiation Physics in Lausanne said. ...
Full Story | Top |
Eco-commune flourishes as Greek economy withers
Thu,30 Aug 2012 09:46 AM PDT
Reuters -  AGHIOS, Greece (Reuters) - Web designer Apostolos Sianos and three friends startled Greek villagers when they quit well-paid jobs in Athens to set up a self-sufficient commune that lives in yurts and grows its own vegetables. In California, or Scandinavia, such a move might have gone unnoticed. But in deeply conservative rural Greece - where green thinking is strictly the domain of urbanites - the project made suspicious locals uneasy, or was laughed off as ridiculous. But now, two years and a brutal economic crisis later, Sianos and his friends are the ones laughing. ...
Full Story | Top |
In Brazil, a land of rivers, crops take the road
Thu,30 Aug 2012 09:41 AM PDT
Reuters -  SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's Mato Grosso state has all the conditions to be a soy farmers' paradise: plentiful rains, fertile and affordable land and a potentially navigable river, the Teles-Pires, that winds its way north to the Amazon and out to sea. Yet farmers cannot use the Teles-Pires and instead have to load their crops onto trucks for a two-day, 1,300-mile (2,100-km) journey by road to overcrowded southern ports, where they often wait weeks before loading. ...
Full Story | Top |
Ghana's ruling NDC backs Mahama for December vote
Thu,30 Aug 2012 09:40 AM PDT
Reuters - KUMASI, Ghana (Reuters) - Ghana's ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) party nominated interim president John Dramani Mahama on Thursday as its candidate in a presidential election to be held in December. Mahama, who replaced the late president John Atta Mills when he died last month, was the party's intended candidate but was confirmed by a vote of the party congress in the town of Kumasi. (Reporting by Kwasi Kpodo; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Michael Roddy) Full Story | Top |
Fewer than 7 percent of Lonmin workers report for duty
Thu,30 Aug 2012 09:40 AM PDT
Reuters -  JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Fewer than 7 percent of Lonmin's 28,000-strong South African workforce reported for duty on Thursday as the platinum producer held talks with warring unions, attempting to cool tensions and bring people back to work. The world's third-largest platinum producer has been forced to shut its mining operations for almost three weeks because of a violent turf war between the established National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), which led to the deaths of 44 people this month. ...
Full Story | Top |
| |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment