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| CA-NEWS Summary Friday, Apr 26, 2013 09:02 PM PDT Obama talks tough, shows no rush to act on Syria chemical arms evidence WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama warned Syria on Friday that its use of chemical weapons would be a "game changer" for the United States but made clear he was in no rush to intervene in the civil war there on the basis of evidence he said was still preliminary. Speaking a day after the disclosure of U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
| North Korea says American tourist it is holding will face trial Friday, Apr 26, 2013 08:59 PM PDT  SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Saturday a Korean-American tourist, who has been held in prison by the reclusive state since late last year, will face trial for "committing crimes" against the North, a move that could further stoke tensions with the United States. Kenneth Bae, 44, was in a group of five tourists who visited the northeastern city of Rajin on a five-day trip last November and has been held by police since then. KCNA, the North's official news agency, said Bae entered the North on November 3. ... Full Story | Top |
| Italian government could be settled on Saturday: sources Friday, Apr 26, 2013 08:53 PM PDT  By Paolo Biondi ROME (Reuters) - Italian prime minister-designate Enrico Letta could announce a new government on Saturday and spell out its programme early next week, political sources said on Friday, while outgoing premier Mario Monti said he did not expect to be a minister. Letta, deputy leader of the centre-left Democratic Party, has been in discussions to iron out remaining differences with Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party following an initial round of talks on Thursday. ... Full Story | Top |
| "Evidence" of Syria chemical weapons use not up to U.N. standard Friday, Apr 26, 2013 04:55 PM PDT By Anthony Deutsch AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Assertions of chemical weapon use in Syria by Western and Israeli officials citing photos, sporadic shelling and traces of toxins do not meet the standard of proof needed for a U.N. team of experts waiting to gather their own field evidence. ... Full Story | Top |
| Factbox: What is the chemical weapon sarin? Friday, Apr 26, 2013 04:55 PM PDT (Reuters) - Charges that Syria has used the chemical weapon sarin have raised questions about the nerve agent, how it kills and what level of evidence it will take to prove it was used on the Syrian people. WHAT IS SARIN? Sarin is a man-made nerve gas that was originally developed as a pesticide in Germany in 1938. It is chemically similar to a class of pesticides known as organophosphates. Sarin, also known as GB, is part of a class of chemical weapons called G-series nerve agents that were developed during World War Two and were named for the German scientists who synthesized them. ... Full Story | Top |
| Obama talks tough, shows no rush to act on Syria chemical arms evidence Friday, Apr 26, 2013 03:59 PM PDT  By Matt Spetalnick and Jeff Mason WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama warned Syria on Friday that its use of chemical weapons would be a "game changer" for the United States but made clear he was in no rush to intervene in the Syrian civil war on the basis of evidence he said was still preliminary. Speaking a day after the disclosure of U.S. intelligence that Syria had likely used chemical weapons against its own people, Obama mixed talked tough while calling for patience as he sought to fend off pressure for a swift response against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. ... Full Story | Top |
| Islamist says Egypt should press on with judge reforms Friday, Apr 26, 2013 03:56 PM PDT  By Maggie Fick CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Islamist-dominated parliament must move quickly to adopt judicial reforms that have sparked a revolt by judges, the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm argued on Friday. The proposed reforms, which would get rid of more than 3,000 judges by lowering the retirement age, have widened the rift between President Mohamed Mursi's government and a judiciary seen by its critics as a last bastion of the old regime that was toppled in the 2011 revolution. ... Full Story | Top |
| Iceland government heads for defeat as center right revives Friday, Apr 26, 2013 03:13 PM PDT  By Balazs Koranyi REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Icelanders fed up with austerity are set to oust the ruling Social Democrats in elections on Saturday after being wooed with promises of tax cuts and debt relief from the center right that presided over the nation's financial meltdown five years ago. With promises of a quick recovery fading, voters are angered by mounting mortgage debt, rapid inflation and crippling capital controls that keep investment at a record low. ... Full Story | Top |
| Boston bombing suspect in prison, brother's body unclaimed Friday, Apr 26, 2013 02:10 PM PDT  By Scott Malone and Svea Herbst-Bayliss BOSTON (Reuters) - The surviving suspect in last week's Boston Marathon bombing was moved to a prison medical center outside Boston on Friday, while the body of his older brother who died in a shootout with police remained unclaimed, officials said. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old ethnic Chechen charged with the bombing that killed three people and wounded 264, was moved from the hospital where he was kept under guard since he was arrested, badly wounded, a week ago, the U.S. Marshals Service said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Congress passes plan to ease flight delays Friday, Apr 26, 2013 01:43 PM PDT By Richard Cowan and Doug Palmer WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress on Friday approved a plan to ease nationwide air-traffic delays caused by federal spending cuts, seeking to calm irritated travelers but sparking a backlash from groups still being hit by budget cuts. The Senate unanimously voted for the plan late Thursday and the House of Representatives approved it Friday by a 361-41 vote. White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama intends to sign the bill. ... Full Story | Top |
| Obama: Syrian government use of chemical weapons a "game changer" Friday, Apr 26, 2013 01:08 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Friday that the deployment of chemical weapons by the Syrian government was a "game changer" while noting that intelligence assessments proving that such weapons had been used were still preliminary. "Horrific as it is when mortars are being fired on civilians and people are being indiscriminately killed, to use potential weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line with respect to international norms and international law," Obama told reporters at the White House. "That is going to be a game changer. ... Full Story | Top |
| Turkey says chemical arms use would escalate Syria crisis Friday, Apr 26, 2013 01:08 PM PDT By Jonathon Burch ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey said on Friday that any use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would "take the crisis to another level", but remained cautious about any foreign military intervention in the conflict on its border. The White House said on Thursday Assad's government had probably used chemical arms on a small scale, but that President Barack Obama needed proof before he would act. "We have been hearing allegations of the use of chemical weapons for quite some time now and these new findings take things to another level. ... Full Story | Top |
| Turkey becomes partner of China, Russia-led security bloc Friday, Apr 26, 2013 12:31 PM PDT  By Dmitry Solovyov ALMATY (Reuters) - NATO member Turkey signed up on Friday to became a "dialogue partner" of a security bloc dominated by China and Russia, and declared that its destiny is in Asia. "This is really a historic day for us," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty after signing a memorandum of understanding with Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Secretary General Dmitry Mezentsev. "Now, with this choice, Turkey is declaring that our destiny is the same as the destiny of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) countries. ... Full Story | Top |
| Top British publicist charged with 11 sex assaults Friday, Apr 26, 2013 12:10 PM PDT  LONDON (Reuters) - Celebrity publicist Max Clifford on Friday became the first high profile figure to be charged in a wide-ranging investigation into a sex scandal that has grabbed front page headlines in Britain in recent months. Clifford, 70, was charged with 11 counts of indecent assault, prosecutors said, including on two underage girls, after being arrested in December as part of an investigation into sex crime allegations against the late Jimmy Savile. ... Full Story | Top |
| Russian court denies punk band convict Tolokonnikova parole Friday, Apr 26, 2013 11:41 AM PDT  MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court refused to release from prison one of two jailed members of the Pussy Riot punk band so that she can look after her young daughter. The court on Friday rejected Nadezhda Tolokonnikova's appeal for parole eight months after she was handed a two-year prison sentence for the band's performance of a "punk prayer" in Moscow's main Russian Orthodox cathedral. Tolokonnikova, 23, has been serving her sentence for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" in a prison colony in central Russia, about 550 km (350 miles) southeast of Moscow. ... Full Story | Top |
| Russia detains 140 in sweep at Muslim prayer room: reports Friday, Apr 26, 2013 11:22 AM PDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian law enforcement officers detained 140 people at a Muslim prayer room in Moscow on Friday as part of a search for Islamist militants, Russian news agencies quoted Federal Security Service (FSB) officials as saying. FSB and Federal Migration Service officers took the detainees, including more than 30 foreigners, to police stations near the site in southern Moscow, state-run RIA cited the FSB's Moscow branch as saying. There was no indication of any link to the April 15 attack at the Boston Marathon, in which U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
| French Socialists call for tougher stance on Merkel Friday, Apr 26, 2013 11:17 AM PDT  By Elizabeth Pineau PARIS (Reuters) - France's ruling Socialist Party is pressing President Francois Hollande to toughen his stance towards a German counterpart it describes as "self-centered", arguing that Chancellor Angela Merkel's pro-austerity policies are hurting Europe. The message - spelled out in a 21-page document to be presented at a party brainstorming conference in June - added to growing criticism of Berlin from across the Rhine after Socialist National Assembly speaker Claude Bartolone this week raised the prospect of a "confrontation" with Merkel. ... Full Story | Top |
| Bosnian regional president arrested in graft probe Friday, Apr 26, 2013 11:15 AM PDT  By Daria Sito-Sucic and Maja Zuvela SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The president of Bosnia's autonomous Muslim-Croat federation and 19 others were arrested on Friday in an anti-corruption probe that also targeted the offices of the regional government, a spokesman for the state prosecutor said. The raid on Zivko Budimir's Sarajevo office and the regional government in the southern town of Mostar is the most high-profile anti-graft operation in Bosnia since independence more than two decades ago. ... Full Story | Top |
| Bombs kill at least 20 across Iraqi capital Friday, Apr 26, 2013 11:13 AM PDT  By Kareem Raheem BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bomb blasts in Baghdad killed at least 20 more people on Friday at the end of a week of bloodshed that prompted a United Nations envoy to warn Iraq was "at a crossroads". More than 160 people have been killed since Tuesday, when troops stormed a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk, triggering clashes that quickly spread to other Sunni areas in western and northern provinces. Although well below the heights of 2006-7, this week's violence was the most widespread since U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq in December 2011. ... Full Story | Top |
| Thousands of South Sudanese rebels surrender after thaw with Sudan Friday, Apr 26, 2013 11:10 AM PDT By Hereward Holland JUBA (Reuters) - Several thousand South Sudanese rebels have surrendered to the government and returned home from alleged rear bases in neighboring Sudan, government and rebel officials in the south said on Friday. South Sudan has been struggling to contain insurgencies it claims have been supported by Sudan since it gained independence from its northern neighbor in 2011 under a peace deal that ended one of Africa's longest civil wars. Sudan denies the allegations. ... Full Story | Top |
| Norway extends period for buying F-35 fighter jets Friday, Apr 26, 2013 10:44 AM PDT  By Henrik Stolen and Nerijus Adomaitis GARDERMOEN, Norway (Reuters) - Oil-rich Norway is stretching out its purchase of 52 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from Lockheed Martin, the Defense Ministry said on Friday, a move that will nudge up the total cost but reduce the annual burden on the defense budget. The country is about to place firm orders for six of the fighter planes and will extend the timeframe for the purchase of all 52 from four years to eight years, the ministry said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Egyptian Islamist urges fast passage of disputed law on judges Friday, Apr 26, 2013 10:34 AM PDT  By Maggie Fick CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Islamist-dominated parliament must move quickly to adopt judicial reforms that have sparked a revolt by judges, the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm argued on Friday. The proposed reforms, which would get rid of more than 3,000 judges by lowering the retirement age, have widened the rift between President Mohamed Mursi's government and a judiciary seen by its critics as a last bastion of the old regime that was toppled in the 2011 revolution. ... Full Story | Top |
| Evidence Syria used chemical arms not "airtight:" White House Friday, Apr 26, 2013 09:55 AM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Friday it was continuing to study evidence that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons and would not set a timetable for corroborating reports. "I'm not going to set a timeline, because the facts need to be what drives this investigation, not a deadline," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at a briefing. "We are continuing to work to build on the assessments made by the intelligence community, that the degrees of confidence here are varying, that this is not an airtight case," he said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Kenyan deputy president seeks Hague trial delay Friday, Apr 26, 2013 09:54 AM PDT  AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Kenyan deputy president William Ruto has asked for the start of his trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to be delayed to allow his legal team more time to prepare, his lawyer said on Friday. Judges have yet to rule on the request, but previously they have granted delays in other trials relating to post-election violence in Kenya just over five years ago. Ruto stands accused of orchestrating the violence, alongside Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. ... Full Story | Top |
| Nigerian Islamists got $3.15 million to free French hostages: document Friday, Apr 26, 2013 09:44 AM PDT By Tim Cocks LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram was paid an equivalent of around $3.15 million by French and Cameroonian negotiators before freeing seven French hostages this month, a confidential Nigerian government report obtained by Reuters said. The memo does not say who paid the ransom for the family of seven, who were all released on April 19, although it says Cameroon freed some Boko Haram detainees as part of the deal. France and Cameroon reiterated denials that any ransom was paid. Nigerian authorities declined to comment. ... Full Story | Top |
| Militants kill Somali prosecutor, threaten more Friday, Apr 26, 2013 09:28 AM PDT MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Islamist militants killed Somalia's deputy chief prosecutor and will target more judiciary staff while the government tries to reform the courts, a militant spokesman said on Friday. The al Shabaab rebel group, which is linked to al Qaeda, has foguht for six years to impose its strict interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia, on Somalia. The shooting of Ahmed Sheikh Nur Maalin, Somalia's deputy national prosecutor, on Thursday followed a wave of suicide bombings and shootings earlier this month in which 30 people were killed. ... Full Story | Top |
| Don't let referendum hold up Kosovo accord, EU tells Serbia Friday, Apr 26, 2013 09:02 AM PDT  BELGRADE (Reuters) - The European Union cautioned Serbia on Friday not to delay implementing a landmark accord on Kosovo after Belgrade said it might hold a referendum on the deal, which is crucial to its hopes of starting EU membership talks. The EU-brokered agreement between Serbia and its majority-Albanian former province won Belgrade a preliminary green light for accession talks this year, but the bloc wants progress on the ground before taking a final decision in late June. ... Full Story | Top |
| Man convicted of spying for India attacked in Pakistani jail Friday, Apr 26, 2013 08:56 AM PDT  By Mubasher Bukhari LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - A prisoner convicted of spying for India was attacked and seriously injured by fellow inmates in a Pakistani jail on Friday in an incident that could inflame the uneasy relations between the two nations. Sarabjit Singh was hospitalized with a serious head injury, a doctor said, after two fellow prisoners attacked him in Kot Lakhpat Jail in the eastern city of Lahore. "Sarabjit was having tea with fellow prisoners Muhammad Muddasar and Amir, also condemned for death sentence in murder cases. ... Full Story | Top |
| Amnesty for Nepali war crimes could undermine peace, U.N. warns Friday, Apr 26, 2013 08:54 AM PDT  By Gopal Sharma KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal risks more bloodshed in the future if a planned panel set up to investigate crimes committed during a decade-long civil war is given the power to offer amnesty, a senior official from the UN human rights agency said on Friday. The volatile Himalayan nation is still recovering from a brutal civil conflict which ended in 2006 and in which more than 16,000 were killed, hundreds disappeared and thousands injured. Sabina Lauber, in charge of Nepal at the U.N. ... Full Story | Top |
| British PM says growing evidence Syria used chemical weapons Friday, Apr 26, 2013 08:48 AM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Friday there was limited but growing evidence that Syria had committed a war crime by using chemical weapons. In a cautious assessment mirroring that of U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, Cameron said the use of chemical weapons was a red line that should trigger greater pressure on President Bashar al-Assad. "It is limited evidence but there is growing evidence that we have seen too of the use of chemical weapons, probably by the regime," Cameron told the BBC. "It is extremely serious: this is a war crime ... ... Full Story | Top |
| Bethlehem monastery loses court battle on Israeli wall Friday, Apr 26, 2013 08:31 AM PDT By Noah Browning RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - A Catholic monastery and convent in a secluded valley outside Bethlehem lost a seven-year legal battle against the building of Israel's separation wall on its land on Friday, according to its lawyers. The Society of St. Yves, a Catholic human rights group which argued the case on the monastery's behalf, said an Israeli appeals court had endorsed a plan to expand the barrier it had built in the area. The wall would surround the convent on three sides and cut it off from most of its land, St. Yves said in a statement. ... Full Story | Top |
| Israeli army breaks up Palestinian march on Jewish settlement Friday, Apr 26, 2013 08:31 AM PDT  By Noah Browning DEIR JAREER, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse about 500 Palestinian villagers marching toward a Jewish settlement outpost in the occupied West Bank on Friday. The procession, the largest of its kind for years, followed charges by Palestinians that the Israeli settlers, whose caravans abut village land, had attacked them twice this week. Around half a million settlers have moved to the West Bank and East Jerusalem since Israel captured the area, along with the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Middle East War. ... Full Story | Top |
| Turkey warns opposition against sabotaging Kurdish peace moves Friday, Apr 26, 2013 08:28 AM PDT  By Daren Butler ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The Turkish government welcomed a planned withdrawal by Kurdish militants as significant progress towards ending three decades of conflict on Friday, and it warned its nationalist opponents not to sabotage the peace process. The main nationalist party, however, was quick to reiterate its opposition to any dealings with the militants. Rebel field commander Murat Karayilan on Thursday ordered his fighters to begin leaving Turkey on May 8 for the mountains of northern Iraq, in a step to halt a war that has killed more than 40,000 and scarred the nation. ... Full Story | Top |
| Fire kills dozens in Russian psychiatric hospital Friday, Apr 26, 2013 08:15 AM PDT By Alexei Anishchuk RAMENSKY, Russia (Reuters) - Thirty-eight people were killed, most of them in their beds, in a fire that raged through a psychiatric hospital near Moscow on Friday, raising questions about the care of mentally ill patients in Russia. The fire, which broke out at around 2 a.m. (6 p.m. ET on Thursday), swept through a single-storey building at the hospital, a collection of wood and brick huts with bars on some windows that was home to people sent there on grounds of mental illness by Russian courts. By mid morning, a few blackened walls were left standing. ... Full Story | Top |
| Syrian refugees denied health care due cash crunch: UNHCR Friday, Apr 26, 2013 07:59 AM PDT By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - Doctors at Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan are having to decide between treating acute cancer patients and helping deliver babies due to severe shortages of cash, the United Nations said on Friday. More than 1.4 million Syrian refugees have now fled their shattered homeland for neighboring countries whose health care systems are straining to meet the needs of their populations, in some cases suddenly swollen by 20 percent, it said. But an appeal by U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees for $1 billion through mid-year is only 55 percent covered. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. suspects Syria used chemical weapons, wants proof Friday, Apr 26, 2013 07:37 AM PDT  By Phil Stewart and David Alexander WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad had probably used chemical weapons on a small scale in the country's civil war, but insisted that President Barack Obama needed definitive proof before he would take action. The disclosure created a quandary for Obama, who has set the use of chemical weapons as a "red line" that Assad must not cross. It triggered calls from some hawkish Washington lawmakers for a U.S. military response, which the president has resisted. ... Full Story | Top |
| Bombs kill eight at Friday prayers in Baghdad Friday, Apr 26, 2013 07:18 AM PDT By Kareem Raheem BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bombs planted outside Baghdad mosques killed eight more people on Friday at the end of a week of bloodshed that prompted a United Nations envoy to warn Iraq was "at a crossroads". At least 150 people have been killed since Tuesday, when troops stormed a Sunni protest camp, triggering clashes that quickly spread to other Sunni areas in western and northern provinces. Although well below the heights of 2006-7, this week's violence was the most widespread since U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq in December 2011. ... Full Story | Top |
| Most French believe Hollande will miss job target: poll Friday, Apr 26, 2013 06:39 AM PDT  PARIS (Reuters) - An overwhelming majority of French people believe President Francois Hollande's government will fail to reduce record high unemployment this year, a poll showed on Friday. The government is clinging to the Socialist leader's pledge to revert a relentless unemployment rise even as data showed on Thursday that more people were jobless than any time on record, with the country on the edge of recession. ... Full Story | Top |
| France to stick with revised deficit targets: minister Friday, Apr 26, 2013 06:39 AM PDT HONG KONG (Reuters) - France will stick with its recently revised public deficit targets, Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici told Reuters on Friday despite many economists' warnings they remain too optimistic. Moscovici, who is seeking a one-year delay for Paris to cut the deficit below a European Union limit of 3 percent of GDP, also voiced confidence that the European Commission would give its blessing to the new targets. Last week, the government raised the nominal deficit target for 2013 to 3. ... Full Story | Top |
| Bulgaria delays rail sell-off until after election Friday, Apr 26, 2013 06:26 AM PDT SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria pushed back the privatization of the state railway company's cargo unit until after May's parliamentary elections, highlighting the difficulty of enacting economic reforms amid political instability. The operator BDZ hopes to eventually raise about raise around 100 million levs ($67 million) from the sale to ease its 700 million levs debts and allowing it to tap a World Bank loan. But Bulgaria has already twice extended the deadline for the disposal, in part due to mounting public pressure to halt the deal. ... Full Story | Top |
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