Today's Politics - Bloomberg News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
|
|
White House said to plan executive order on cybersecurity
Mon,24 Sep 2012 06:56 PM PDT
Reuters -  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The White House is preparing to direct federal agencies to develop voluntary cybersecurity guidelines for owners of power, water and other critical infrastructure facilities, according to people who said they had seen recent drafts of an executive order. ...
Full Story | Top |
Cameron backs minister in row over "pleb" swipe at police
Mon,24 Sep 2012 06:52 PM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - David Cameron backed a senior minister accused of ranting at policemen in public and calling them "plebs", an old-fashioned insult laden with snobbery that has undermined his party's attempts to shake off its privileged image. The tirade outside the prime minister's Downing Street office by Andrew Mitchell has embarrassed a Conservative party that is trailing in the polls and struggling to shore up its support at a time of recession, tax increases and spending cuts. ...
Full Story | Top |
Clinton offers more U.S. help as Libya battles militias
Mon,24 Sep 2012 06:16 PM PDT
Reuters -  NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered Libya more help on Monday as it seeks to rein in militias, stressing that Washington will remain a firm partner despite this month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. Clinton met Mohammed Magarief, who was elected to head Libya's ruling national assembly in August, and received his personal apology for the September 11 attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. "What happened on 11th of September towards these U.S. ...
Full Story | Top |
Libyan government puts army in charge of Benghazi militias
Mon,24 Sep 2012 06:15 PM PDT
Reuters - BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Libya's government, seeking to assert its authority over private militias following the killing of U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, placed two powerful freelance units in the city under the command of full-time army officers on Monday. Commanders of two units which have, with official sanction, been providing security since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi were ordered removed and the men of the February 17 Brigade and Rafallah al-Sahati militia put under army orders. A third unit, Libya's Shield, would also change leadership, an official said. ... Full Story | Top |
Morning-after pills available to N.Y. high school students
Mon,24 Sep 2012 05:01 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hundreds of New York City high schools students have received morning-after pills since the launch of a program that provides emergency contraception through public school nurses, the city's health department said on Monday. Many schools around the nation have long made condoms available to students but New York health officials said they believe the city is the first to make hormonal contraceptives available. ... Full Story | Top |
Venezuela's Capriles edges toward Chavez as vote nears: poll
Mon,24 Sep 2012 04:59 PM PDT
Reuters -  CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles edged closer to President Hugo Chavez in an opinion poll but remained 10 percentage points behind the socialist leader in the run-up to the October 7 election, according to two sources who have seen the poll. Recent Datanalisis' polls show support for Capriles, a 40-year-old state governor, growing in the waning days of the campaign as he continues campaigning across the country. Capriles' has vowed to create a Brazilian-style "modern left" that balances free enterprise with social welfare programs. ...
Full Story | Top |
Mali asks U.N. for "immediate" action on force to recapture north
Mon,24 Sep 2012 04:50 PM PDT
Reuters - UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Mali has asked the United Nations to approve an "immediate" mandate for an international force to help it recover northern parts of the country controlled by Islamist militants and drug traffickers, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Monday. The West African country descended into chaos in March when soldiers toppled the president, leaving a power vacuum that enabled Tuareg rebels to seize nearly two-thirds of the country. But Islamist groups, some allied with al Qaeda, then hijacked the rebellion in the north to impose strict Islamic law. ... Full Story | Top |
U.S. clears path for more sanctions on Iran oil deals
Mon,24 Sep 2012 04:48 PM PDT
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government officially linked Iran's state oil company to the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Monday, a determination that enables Washington to apply new sanctions on foreign banks dealing with the company. The Treasury Department determined that the National Iranian Oil Company, one of the world's largest oil exporters, is "an agent or affiliate" of the IRGC, which the United States has long put under sanctions for terrorism and human rights abuses. The U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
Obama should call China a currency manipulator: Romney aide
Mon,24 Sep 2012 04:36 PM PDT
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's administration should formally declare China a currency manipulator in a semi-annual report due to be released by the U.S. Treasury on October 15, a spokesman for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said on Monday. "Governor Romney believes China should be labeled a currency manipulator - without delaying the report - and he will move to label them as such on Day One," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in an emailed reply to a query. A spokeswoman for the U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
Obama offers himself up as "eye candy" on "The View"
Mon,24 Sep 2012 04:28 PM PDT
Reuters -  NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday sought to woo women voters at a taping of the daytime talk show "The View," by flirting with his wife and bearing gifts for the hosts, but he could not escape tough questions on the economy that have dominated the election. When host and veteran journalist Barbara Walters kidded Michelle Obama about bringing the president as her "date," Obama quipped, "I've been told I'm just eye candy here. ...
Full Story | Top |
U.S. warns hospitals against Medicare scams, vows to prosecute
Mon,24 Sep 2012 04:19 PM PDT
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There are "troubling indications" some hospitals may be using electronic records to defraud Medicare, the Obama administration said on Monday, promising to prosecute any doctors and hospitals found "gaming the system". U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder warned five hospital-related interest groups of signs of abuse of the Medicare healthcare program administered by the federal government. ... Full Story | Top |
Americas court tells Peru to scrap rule that could help Fujimori
Mon,24 Sep 2012 04:16 PM PDT
Reuters -  LIMA (Reuters) - The Inter-American Court of Human Rights told Peru on Monday to annul a ruling by its Supreme Court that could have paved the way for an early release of jailed former President Alberto Fujimori. President Ollanta Humala's administration harshly criticized the Supreme Court in July for cutting the prison terms being served by members of an infamous death squad that Fujimori ran during his crackdown on leftist insurgents in the 1990s. ...
Full Story | Top |
Picking Ryan has done little to win voters for Romney
Mon,24 Sep 2012 04:10 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate has done little to attract voters to the Republican ticket and more think he is not qualified to be president than believe he is ready for the White House, a Reuters/Ipsos poll said on Monday. Fewer than a third of registered voters, 29 percent, said the selection of Ryan made them feel more favorable toward Romney. But with 27 percent in the online poll saying it made them feel less favorable, Ryan's place on the ticket may have little effect on the November 6 election. ...
Full Story | Top |
In Obama's trip to New York, there's Whoopi but no "Bibi"
Mon,24 Sep 2012 04:08 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As hundreds of world leaders and diplomats converged on New York for the United Nations General Assembly's annual meeting, President Barack Obama teed up a crucial meeting of his own on Monday - with Whoopi Goldberg. With the November 6 election six weeks from Tuesday, Obama is squeezing in his duties as leader of the free world between an appearance on Goldberg's TV talk show and campaigning in Ohio. Every U.S. president facing re-election must balance the demands of governing and campaigning. ...
Full Story | Top |
UK to underwrite funding for Crossrail trains-minister
Mon,24 Sep 2012 04:05 PM PDT
Reuters - BRIGHTON, England (Reuters) - The British government will offer to guarantee private funding for its London Crossrail infrastructure project to ensure train carriages are delivered on time, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said on Tuesday. Tight market conditions have squeezed funding for big infrastructure schemes at a time when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government is looking to the private sector to engineer growth and create jobs. ... Full Story | Top |
In New York, defiant Ahmadinejad says Israel will be "eliminated"
Mon,24 Sep 2012 03:51 PM PDT
Reuters -  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday Israel has no roots in the Middle East and would be "eliminated," ignoring a U.N. warning to avoid incendiary rhetoric ahead of the annual General Assembly session. Ahmadinejad also said he did not take seriously the threat that Israel could launch a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, denied sending arms to Syria, and alluded to Iran's threats to the life of British author Salman Rushdie. The United States quickly dismissed the Iranian president's comments as "disgusting, offensive and outrageous. ...
Full Story | Top |
Germany lists EADS/BAE worries while UK starts inquiry
Mon,24 Sep 2012 03:51 PM PDT
Reuters -  BERLIN/LONDON (Reuters) - Germany has deep reservations about proposals to merge Airbus parent EADS and Britain's BAE Systems , an official document showed, as the British parliament began an inquiry into the planned European defense and aerospace giant. Underlining the complex domestic and international politics surrounding the proposed deal, British Prime Minister David Cameron has also contacted the leaders of France and Germany, seeking to safeguard UK interests should it go ahead. ...
Full Story | Top |
Sudan, South Sudan leaders make another push for border deal
Mon,24 Sep 2012 03:47 PM PDT
Reuters - ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Sudan and South Sudan leaders will try again on Tuesday to seal a border security deal after failing to achieve a breakthrough in the previous two days, officials said on Monday as both sides disagreed over whether progress had been made. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and southern counterpart Salva Kiir have been meeting in Ethiopia since Sunday in hopes of wrapping up peace talks after coming close to all-out war in April. ... Full Story | Top |
Kuwaitis protest ahead of electoral law ruling
Mon,24 Sep 2012 03:31 PM PDT
Reuters - KUWAIT (Reuters) - Thousands of Kuwaitis held a protest rally late on Monday ahead of a court decision on an electoral law they fear could weaken the chances of opposition candidates in the next parliamentary vote in the major oil-producing state. The Gulf Arab country has not witnessed the kind of mass popular uprisings that have buffeted the Arab world. But tension has escalated between the government, which is dominated by the ruling family, and the elected parliament. ... Full Story | Top |
HP loses tax case over valuing U.S. research credit
Mon,24 Sep 2012 03:28 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co on Monday lost a legal bid to expand its benefits from the research tax credit after the U.S. Tax Court ruled the company could not exclude certain types of income when calculating the tax break. It was unclear from the court documents how much in taxes HP would now owe, but according to the ruling, the amounts under dispute involved tens of millions of dollars. HP had challenged an Internal Revenue Service ruling on the matter. The IRS had said the computer maker owed taxes in cases where it tried to claim the credit between 1999 and 2003. ...
Full Story | Top |
Romney promises to be more aggressive on campaign trail
Mon,24 Sep 2012 03:25 PM PDT
Reuters -  DENVER (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney vowed on Sunday that he would campaign more aggressively in battleground states in the final 43 days before the November election. The comments, made to reporters aboard his campaign plane, suggested Romney was taking to heart criticism from his own party about the amount of time he has spent raising funds versus speaking to voters. "I think the fundraising season is probably getting a bit quieter. I would rather spend the time in key states," Romney said in his first comments to reporters since Monday. ...
Full Story | Top |
Nigeria military says kills 35 Boko Haram Islamists
Mon,24 Sep 2012 03:16 PM PDT
Reuters - ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's military said on Monday it killed 35 members of the Islamist sect Boko Haram and arrested several during an overnight gunbattle in Damaturu, capital of northeastern Yobe state. Boko Haram, which wants to carve out an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, has been blamed for more than 1,000 deaths since its insurgency intensified in 2010. The United States has designated three of Boko Haram's senior members as terrorists. ... Full Story | Top |
G20 deputies say central bank fix not enough for ailing economy
Mon,24 Sep 2012 03:15 PM PDT
Reuters - MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Central bank stimulus is not enough to fix the ailing global economy and governments must increase their efforts to boost growth, Group of 20 officials agreed on Monday. Deputy finance ministers and central bankers of the G20, which is made up of wealthy nations and leading emerging economies, met in Mexico City on Sunday and Monday amid a deepening sense of doom around the global economic outlook. ... Full Story | Top |
Morning-after pills made available to N.Y. high school students
Mon,24 Sep 2012 03:11 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hundreds of New York City high schools students have received morning-after pills since the launch of a program that provides emergency contraception through public school nurses, the city's health department said on Monday. Many schools around the nation have long made condoms available to students, but New York health officials said they believe the city is the first to make hormonal contraceptives available. ... Full Story | Top |
Christian Copt to face trial in Egypt for blasphemy
Mon,24 Sep 2012 03:09 PM PDT
Reuters - CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian Copt arrested on suspicion of posting an anti-Islam video online that ignited Muslim protests around the world will stand trial next Wednesday on charges of insulting religions, the state news agency MENA said on Monday. Computer science graduate Alber Saber, 27, was arrested at his Cairo home on September 13 after neighbors accused him of uploading sections of the film "Innocence of Muslims" and making another movie mocking all religions. ... Full Story | Top |
WTO dispute may offer US critics lever in EADS-BAE merger review
Mon,24 Sep 2012 02:47 PM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - A huge transatlantic clash over trade subsidies could sour efforts to get a $45 billion merger of Europe's EADS and BAE Systems Plc approved in the United States, former U.S. officials said. After seven years at the World Trade Organization, the subsidy dispute pitting U.S. aircraft maker Boeing Co against EADS unit Airbus, is edging towards the possible imposition of sanctions just as Britain's BAE Systems prepares to seek crucial U.S. support for the merger. With a big local U.S. presence, BAE must prove that U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
"Savage" jihad ad debuts in New York City subway
Mon,24 Sep 2012 02:45 PM PDT
Reuters -  (Reuters) - An inflammatory ad equating Islamic jihad with savagery was posted Monday in 10 New York City subway stations, even as much of the Muslim world was still seething over a California-made movie ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad. The ad, sponsored by the pro-Israel American Freedom Defense Initiative, appeared after the Metropolitan Transit Authority lost a bid to refuse to post it on the grounds that it violated the agency's policy against demeaning language. In July, a federal judge ruled it was protected speech and ordered the MTA to place the posters. ...
Full Story | Top |
State, local government jobs won't recover until 2017: report
Mon,24 Sep 2012 02:17 PM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - State and local government employment won't return to its pre-recession peak until early 2017, following widespread public sector layoffs that have continued this year, global information company IHS Global Insight said on Monday. Total employment by states and cities could grow 3.2 percent to 19.9 million in 2017 from 19.3 million in 2012 - an addition of 620,000 jobs, IHS Global Insight said. ... Full Story | Top |
U.S. dairy, poultry producers press for Canada market openings
Mon,24 Sep 2012 02:17 PM PDT
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States must fix mistakes it made in the North American Free Trade Agreement by insisting in new trade talks with Canada on unrestricted access to that country's poultry and dairy market, U.S. agricultural groups said on Monday. "All we're asking is that we have an open and free fair trade shot at the border," Bill Roenigk, senior vice president at the National Chicken Council, said at a hearing conducted by the U.S. Trade Representative's office on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact. ... Full Story | Top |
Mexico's Ferrari urges U.S. not to tear up tomato pact
Mon,24 Sep 2012 02:15 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department should renegotiate a 16-year-old tomato trade agreement with Mexico rather than give in to election-year demands from Florida growers to tear up the pact, Mexico's Economy Minister Bruno Ferrari said on Monday. Under the agreement, Washington suspended anti-dumping action against Mexico in 1996 and negotiated a minimum price at which Mexican tomatoes can be sold in the United States. Florida tomato growers complain the agreement fails to protect them against Mexican tomatoes sold below the cost of production. ...
Full Story | Top |
Pakistan's top court struggles to deliver justice
Mon,24 Sep 2012 02:01 PM PDT
Reuters -  ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Each day, the chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court confronts a stack of blue folders stuffed with desperate pleas from residents claiming that corrupt police, inept prosecutors or moribund lower courts have failed them. The files detail heinous crimes, of newlyweds axed to death, children kidnapped and even an unsolved case of a young woman burned alive. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has won acclaim for punishing wrong-doers or delivering justice in a few well-publicized cases. ...
Full Story | Top |
Bollywood's Aishwarya Rai Bachchan named U.N. HIV/AIDS envoy
Mon,24 Sep 2012 01:53 PM PDT
Reuters -  UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations appointed Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan a goodwill ambassador on Monday, with a mission to help stop new HIV infections in children and promote increased access to anti-retroviral treatment. Rai, who gave birth to her first child in November, will work with the U.N. program on HIV/AIDS, known as UNAIDS, advocating the "Global plan towards the elimination of new HIV infections among children and keeping their mothers alive. ...
Full Story | Top |
Wang Yang: reformist credentials tested by Chinese system
Mon,24 Sep 2012 01:51 PM PDT
Reuters -  GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - Wang Yang, Communist Party chief of China's southern Guangdong province and seen by many in the West as a beacon of political reform, encouraged journalists earlier this year to expose the problem of pirated goods - part of his "Three Strikes" campaign against those hawking fake products. But several reporters who heeded his call were sacked. Others had their stories killed. The pattern, a familiar one in Guangdong, is a reminder of the limits of reform in China. ...
Full Story | Top |
Iran to boycott 2013 Oscar over anti-Islamic film: minister
Mon,24 Sep 2012 01:44 PM PDT
Reuters - DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it would boycott the 2013 Oscars to protest against the making of a crude anti-Islam video in the United States that has caused outrage throughout the Muslim world. Despite tough censorship and the repression of leading film makers, Iranian art cinema has earned international acclaim over the past 20 years. Asghar Farhadi's "A Separation" won the Oscar for best foreign language film in February, the first Iranian film to do so. ... Full Story | Top |
Court paves way for UK-based cleric's extradition to U.S.
Mon,24 Sep 2012 01:40 PM PDT
Reuters -  PARIS (Reuters) - The European Court of Human Rights gave final approval on Monday for the extradition of one of Britain's most radical Islamist clerics and four others to the United States, where they face terrorism charges. The decision caps a long legal battle and means Abu Hamza al-Masri could be extradited within weeks. Britain's Home Office, or interior ministry, said it would hand over the suspects "as quickly as possible". ...
Full Story | Top |
Giant panda cub that died at U.S. zoo had abnormal liver
Mon,24 Sep 2012 01:13 PM PDT
Reuters -  (Reuters) - The death of a six-day-old giant panda cub at the National Zoo in Washington - an agonizing blow to wildlife conservation efforts - could be linked to an abnormal liver, the zoo's chief veterinarian said on Monday. A day after the zoo's staff failed to revive the cub with lifesaving measures, including CPR, the initial results of an examination showed the panda was likely a female whose body displayed no obvious signs of trauma or infection. "Her coat was beautiful. It was in very good condition," veterinarian Suzan Murray said at a press conference. ...
Full Story | Top |
Conservatives urge House Speaker to nix wind tax credit
Mon,24 Sep 2012 01:07 PM PDT
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Forty-seven Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are pushing Speaker John Boehner to eliminate the wind production tax credit, a tax break that has split Republicans and drawn criticism from presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. Democratic President Barack Obama has urged Congress to extend the credit, which dates to 1992 and has support from Republicans in states that are home to wind farms and manufacturing plants, such as Iowa and South Dakota. The credit has other powerful proponents in big companies that buy wind energy. ... Full Story | Top |
Health insurers begin to provide user-friendly plan guides
Mon,24 Sep 2012 01:05 PM PDT
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday began requiring health insurers to provide user-friendly guides to patients that explain their benefits, aiming to make buying insurance nearly as easy as scanning packages of food for nutrition facts. Under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law, employers and insurers must provide a summary of benefits and coverage in a clearly worded, standardized format that allows the private insurance market's 163 million beneficiaries to make side-by-side comparisons of plan offerings. ... Full Story | Top |
Yemeni intelligence official shot dead in Sanaa
Mon,24 Sep 2012 12:57 PM PDT
Reuters - SANAA (Reuters) - Masked gunmen shot dead a senior intelligence official in Sanaa on Monday, a security source said, the latest in a series of assassinations in Yemen as the U.S.-allied government battles al Qaeda militants. Abdulilah Al-Ashwal, a colonel in the Political Security Office, the domestic intelligence service, was leaving a mosque in the Safiya district of Sanaa when gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on him, the source said. ... Full Story | Top |
Mexico arrests 35 police for suspected links to drug gang
Mon,24 Sep 2012 12:55 PM PDT
Reuters - MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The Mexican navy has arrested 35 members of the federal police force on suspicion of working for one of the country's most notorious drug gangs, the Zetas. The navy said on Monday the suspects had been arrested in the eastern state of Veracruz and neighboring San Luis Potosi, areas where the Zetas have established a strong foothold. Four of those arrested were women and all belonged to the federal police in Veracruz, a state which President Felipe Calderon last year said had been "left in the hands" of the Zetas. ... Full Story | Top |
| |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment