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| Mexico plan to beef up tax revenues nears final Senate approval Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 08:49 PM PDT By Michael O'Boyle, Miguel Gutierrez and Dave Graham MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's Senate on Wednesday was close to passing a package of measures to bolster the country's weak tax revenues, including higher taxes for the rich, levies on sugary drinks and junk food, as well as a charge on stock market gains. After giving general approval to the fiscal bill late on Tuesday, the Senate must still vote on divisive sections that lawmakers want to repeal or amend, a process which has been held up by opposition from conservatives. The fiscal reform is one the main planks of President Enrique Pena Nieto's economic agenda, and although it will not raise as much new revenue as had originally been hoped, it has prompted vigorous attacks from opponents and lobbyists. Disputes over the bill, which aims to introduce a new top income tax rate of 35 percent, risk complicating negotiations over other reforms sought by the Revolutionary Institutional Party, which lacks a majority in Congress. Full Story | Top |
| China's state media calls for strong action on Tiananmen attack Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 08:43 PM PDT  By Michael Martina TURPAN, China (Reuters) - Chinese state media demanded severe punishment on Thursday after the government blamed militants from restive Xinjiang for an attack in Tiananmen Square, as the exiled leader of the region's Uighur minority called for an independent probe. An SUV burst into flames on Monday after being driven into a crowd in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the symbolic centre of China's power structure and one of the country's most closely guarded areas. Police said it was a "terrorist attack" carried out by people from Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people, and announced they had caught five accomplices who were planning holy war. "Maintaining the capital's security and stability is a responsibility of utmost importance." The English-language China Daily said the perpetrators will "go down in history as murderers not heroes". Full Story | Top |
| China suspects Tiananmen car incident was 'terrorist attack' Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 08:43 PM PDT BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police suspect that a car crash and fire on Beijing's Tiananmen Square was a "terrorist attack" and five suspects linked to the incident have been captured, state media reported on Wednesday. The three people who died in the sport utility vehicle were a man, his mother and his wife, the official Xinhua news agency said, giving names which appeared to identify them as ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim people who come from China's restive far western region of Xinjiang. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jason Subler) Full Story | Top |
| Uighur leader questions China's account of Tiananmen attack Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 05:12 PM PDT  By Paul Eckert WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The exiled leader of China's Uighur ethnic minority community called on Wednesday for an international investigation into an incident in which a car ploughed into pedestrians in Beijing, after Chinese authorities arrested five suspected Uighurs over the attack. The SUV vehicle burst into flames after being driven into a crowd on Tiananmen Square on Monday. Rebiya Kadeer, president of the Munich-based World Uighur Congress, called the attack tragic but was equivocal on whether Uighurs - a Muslim people from China's far western region of Xinjiang - had carried it out. Kadeer, who lives in the Washington area, warned against accepting at face value China's account of the incident. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. spy agency's defense: Europeans did it too Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 04:53 PM PDT  By Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The political uproar over alleged U.S. eavesdropping on close European allies has produced an unusual defense from the National Security Agency: NSA says it was the Europeans themselves who did the spying, and then handed data to the Americans. It is rare for intelligence officials to speak in any public detail about liaison arrangements with foreign spy agencies because such relationships are so sensitive. But that is what NSA Director General Keith Alexander did at a public congressional hearing on Tuesday when, attempting to counter international complaints about the agency's alleged excesses, he said its sources for foreign telecommunications information included "data provided to NSA by foreign partners." Alexander's disclosure marked yet another milestone in NSA's emergence from the shadows to defend its electronic surveillance mission in the wake of damaging revelations by former agency contractor Edward Snowden. "It is true that in general we stay close-mouthed about intelligence liaison relationships and we only speak in the most general terms about sharing things with our friends and allies," said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA analyst. Full Story | Top |
| Murdoch editors must have known of phone hacking, court hears Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 04:38 PM PDT By Michael Holden and Kate Holton LONDON (Reuters) - Rebekah Brooks, a former top editor, and Andy Coulson, Prime Minister David Cameron's ex-media chief, oversaw a system of phone-hacking and illegal payments when they ran Rupert Murdoch's British tabloids, a London court heard at the start of their trial on Wednesday. Setting out the prosecution case, Andrew Edis said Brooks was linked to both phone-hacking that ruined the tabloid News of the World and the practice of paying public officials for stories at its sister newspaper, the Sun. Brooks, 45, later ran Murdoch's British newspaper division from 2009 to 2011. Full Story | Top |
| New dolphin species spotted swimming off Australian coast Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 03:35 PM PDT A newly discovered species of humpback dolphin has been seen swimming off the northern Australia coast, an international team of scientists reported this week. All humpback dolphins have a characteristic hump just below the dorsal fin, but there are several distinct species in this family of marine mammals, the scientists found. While the Atlantic humpback dolphin has been recognized as a species, the latest research offers the best evidence yet that the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin should be split into three species, including one that is new to science. Researchers examined the humpback dolphin family's evolutionary history using both physical features and genetic data, the Wildlife Conservation Society said in a statement about the discovery. Full Story | Top |
| Merkel envoys at White House to sort out U.S.-German tensions Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 03:32 PM PDT  By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American and German officials sought to overcome tension between their governments on Wednesday following reports that the U.S. National Security Agency monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone. A meeting between White House national security adviser Susan Rice and her German counterpart came a week after an infuriated Merkel complained to President Barack Obama about accusations that the United States had for years been eavesdropping on her. German's national security adviser, Christoph Heusgen, and the German chancellery intelligence coordinator, Guenter Heiss, sat down with Rice and Obama's homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, at the White House. Full Story | Top |
| Iraqi PM Maliki struggles to convince U.S. lawmakers to back more aid Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 02:38 PM PDT  By Patricia Zengerle and Lesley Wroughton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers had tough criticism for Iraq's government after meeting with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Wednesday, saying they were open to meeting his request for military assistance only if Baghdad made significant changes. Maliki is on his first visit to Washington in two years, urgently seeking U.S. Apache attack helicopters and other military supplies to fight militant groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq as sectarian violence spills over the border from Syria. But U.S. officials, particularly members of Congress who take a harder line on many foreign policy issues than the Obama administration, have watched in dismay as Maliki has ignored Washington's calls to give Iraq's Sunni and Kurdish minorities a greater role in his Shi'ite-led government, and moved closer to Iran since U.S. troops left Iraq two years ago. Full Story | Top |
| France denies paying ransom as Sahel hostages return Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 02:16 PM PDT  By Abdoulaye Massalatchi and Nicholas Vinocur NIAMEY/PARIS (Reuters) - Four Frenchmen held hostage in the Sahara desert by al Qaeda-linked gunmen for three years were reunited with their families on Wednesday, and Paris dismissed media reports it had paid a ransom for their release. The men, kidnapped in 2010 while working for French nuclear group Areva and a subsidiary of construction group Vinci in northern Niger, were freed on Tuesday after secret negotiations conducted by the government of Niger. It was difficult, the ordeal of a lifetime," said Thierry Dol, one of the freed men before leaving. Gaunt and bearded, but said to be in good health, Dol, Pierre Legrand, Daniel Larribe and Marc Feret embraced their families on the runway of a military airport near Paris where President Francois Hollande was waiting. Full Story | Top |
| Egyptian students protest after Brotherhood leader arrested Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 02:14 PM PDT By Hadeel Al Shalchi CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian police fired teargas at protesting students at Cairo's al-Azhar university on Wednesday hours after authorities announced the detention of Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam El-Erian, part of a crackdown against the Islamist movement. Erian, deputy leader of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party, was taken into custody from a residence in New Cairo, a suburb on the outskirts of the capital, where he had been in hiding, an interior ministry source told Reuters. Down, down with the lord of the army," one protester scribbled, referring to army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led the overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July. If you see anyone just arrest them right away." Over 20 students were arrested, according to two security sources. Full Story | Top |
| Egypt accuses Brotherhood of rejecting reconciliation Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 02:14 PM PDT Egypt's government said on Wednesday it was committed to reconciliation and accused the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders are due to appear in court next week, of undermining efforts to resolve political turmoil. The army toppled the Brotherhood's President Mohamed Mursi in July after mass protests against his rule. "The government realizes from its side the importance of reconciliation," said Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Bahaa El-Din in a statement. "Those who are until now rejecting or stalling any understandings aimed at achieving reconciliation and stability for the Egyptian people are the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood." Mursi, Egypt's first freely elected leader, is due to appear in court on Monday along with 14 other senior Muslim Brotherhood figures on charges of inciting violence. Full Story | Top |
| Brazil to extradite former Turks and Caicos premier Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 01:51 PM PDT Brazil will extradite former Turks and Caicos Prime Minister Michael Misick to answer corruption charges alleging he accepted millions of dollars in bribes to allow developers to build resort hotels on the Caribbean islands. Brazil's Supreme Court unanimously approved on Tuesday a request for his extradition to his home country after finding he was not a victim of political persecution and therefore not eligible for asylum. A spokeswoman for Brazil's Federal Police in Sao Paulo, where Misick is being held, said he will be extradited to Turks and Caicos by Interpol within 10 days. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. tells U.N. it won't spy on world body Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 01:40 PM PDT  By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Wednesday that the United States has pledged not to spy on the world body's communications after a report that the National Security Agency had gained access to the U.N. video conferencing system. The United Nations contacted U.S. authorities after the spying revelations were made by German news magazine Der Spiegel in August, citing documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. "I understand that the U.S. authorities have given assurances that United Nations communications are not and will not be monitored," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters on Wednesday. "The United States is not conducting electronic surveillance targeting the United Nations headquarters in New York," the official said. Full Story | Top |
| Britain approves new press regulation system, newspapers cry foul Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 01:33 PM PDT  By Andrew Osborn LONDON (Reuters) - Britain approved a new system of regulating its press on Wednesday, a move newspapers said was draconian and threatened freedom of speech but which former victims of press excess described as long overdue. "It'll protect freedom of press and offer redress when mistakes are made," Britain's ministry of culture said on its official Twitter feed. All three main political parties, including Prime Minister David Cameron's ruling Conservatives, back the new rules. Britain's press has tried and failed to block the new system via the courts, arguing it would expose the industry to possible political interference since the British parliament will be able to change the system if it wants to. Full Story | Top |
| Saudi court convicts Jordanian of spying for Israel: newspaper Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 12:23 PM PDT A Saudi court convicted a Jordanian citizen of spying for Israel and sentenced him to nine years in jail and 80 lashes, a pro-government Saudi newspaper reported on Wednesday. Saudi Arabia and Israel are officially enemies, although the U.S.-allied Muslim kingdom has for more than a decade been promoting a plan for Israel to withdraw from occupied Arab lands in exchange for peace with the entire Arab world. The Arabic-language al-Riyadh newspaper did not identify the Jordanian but said the Riyadh criminal court found him guilty of "writing to the Israeli prime minister and communicating with a Zionist (Israeli) intelligence officer" by email and receiving a financial payment. Saudi Arabia this month refused to take up a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council, citing among other things what it said was the world body's failure to make Israel find a just solution to its conflict with the Palestinians. Full Story | Top |
| Scandal alarms Canada's ruling Conservatives ahead of convention Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 12:22 PM PDT  By David Ljunggren and Randall Palmer OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's ruling Conservatives go into what was supposed to be a triumphant convention this weekend trying to limit damage from a scandal over improper expenses that reaches the office of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and could undermine the party's chances of winning re-election in 2015. Harper has been on the defensive since news broke that his then chief of staff, Nigel Wright, gave a personal check for C$90,000 ($85,700) to Mike Duffy, a member of the upper Senate chamber, to help repay expenses that Duffy improperly claimed. "It's a bit too early to slam the panic button, but I think the hands should be over the panic button," said pollster Nik Nanos, who sees the opposition Liberals ahead of the Conservatives by 37 percent to 29 percent. If those numbers hold on election day two years from now, the Liberals, under new party leader Justin Trudeau, would almost certainly end nearly a decade of Conservative power. Full Story | Top |
| Bulgaria takes seven of Roma girl's brothers and sisters into care Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 12:14 PM PDT  Bulgarian authorities said on Wednesday they would take into care most of the brothers and sisters of Maria, the four-year-old whose discovery in neighboring Greece captured global attention. DNA tests have confirmed that Sasha Ruseva, 35, is the biological mother of Maria, whose blue eyes and blonde hair aroused the suspicions of Greek police when they raided a Roma camp this month. Ruseva and her husband, both Bulgarian Roma, have nine other children aged between 2 and 20 and live in deep poverty, occupying one room in a crumbling house in the town of Nikolaevo, 280 km (170 miles) east of Sofia. "We decided to accommodate four of the kids with foster families," Diana Kaneva, head of the agency for social assistance in the area, told Reuters on Wednesday. Full Story | Top |
| Kenya crackdown on militants troubles Muslims Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 12:08 PM PDT By Drazen Jorgic MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - A Kenyan police crackdown on Islamists is fuelling Muslim resentment and moderate preachers say it undermines their efforts to counter recruiting by al Qaeda militants with links across the border in Somalia. Smashing Islamist recruitment networks among its Muslim minority has become a priority for Kenya, however, as it tries to end attacks by Somali militants bent on punishing it for sending troops over the frontier to fight al Shabaab rebels. The cost of failure was laid bare in September when al Shabaab gunmen, one of whom police say is a Kenyan from the port of Mombasa, raided the Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. Police say their tough approach, taken before Westgate but stepped up since, has limited the flow of would-be jihadists in and out of Somalia, citing a drop in the number of suspected militants they have tracked and arrested in the past year. Full Story | Top |
| Peru's Humala reshuffling Cabinet in investor-friendly move Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 12:03 PM PDT  Peruvian President Ollanta Humala is reshuffling his Cabinet after asking his prime minister to leave, part of an investor-friendly effort to push through stalled reforms and projects, sources said Wednesday. Energy and Mines Minister Jorge Merino will also stay on, a separate source in his ministry told Reuters. The regional governor and former business manager whom Humala has tapped as his fourth prime minister, Cesar Villanueva, has been praised by leaders across the political spectrum - except the far left - as an effective leader and savy politician. The move makes clear that Humala, once a radical nationalist who was elected in 2011 on promises to make sure the poor benefit from Peru's mining-fueled economic boom, intends to continue adhering to orthodox economic policies. Full Story | Top |
| Lockheed signs deal to design largest ocean thermal electric plant Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 11:49 AM PDT By David Alexander WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leading U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin signed a contract on Wednesday to design the biggest power station fueled by differences in ocean temperatures, a 10-megawatt plant that would provide electricity for a new Asian resort. The contract between Lockheed and Beijing-based Reignwood Group, a Chinese consumer products and lifestyle firm, is the initial 10-month stage in a 3-1/2-year effort to build the green energy electric plant, which would generate power using a process known as ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC). And that's where the business is for Lockheed," said Dan Heller, vice president of new ventures for Lockheed's Mission Systems and Training unit. Heller declined to say how much the contract is worth for Lockheed or to estimate the potential cost of constructing the facility, which uses a process that has been tested in smaller plants but has never been developed on a commercial scale. Full Story | Top |
| Bombs blasts in Russia's volatile North Caucasus kill two Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 11:49 AM PDT Bomb blasts in shops in Russia's volatile North Caucasus province of Dagestan killed two people and injured 15 others on Wednesday, Itar-Tass quoted the Emergencies Ministry as saying. Dagestan has become the focal point of violence in the insurgency that has its roots in two wars fought between separatists in the neighboring Russian region of Chechnya and federal troops since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia's anti-terrorism committee said two bombs were detonated in two stores standing side by side. Full Story | Top |
| Congo rebels abandon last town, withdraw to hills Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 11:45 AM PDT By Kenny Katombe BUNAGANA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Civilians celebrated in the streets on Wednesday as Congolese troops entered the eastern border town of Bunagana after a major new success in their offensive to crush a 20-month rebellion. The town was the first seized last year by M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the last they held after being forced back recently by Congo's U.N.-backed army. A Reuters reporter in Bunagana said residents flocked onto the streets to cheer the arrival of Congolese government troops, calling them liberators. A Congolese army officer in Goma, the regional capital, told Reuters government troops would now move to mop up pockets of rebel fighters in the hills around Bunagana. Full Story | Top |
| Trial of Kenyan president likely to be delayed until next year Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 11:39 AM PDT  The trial of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on charges of crimes against humanity is unlikely to start next month as planned, after prosecutors said on Tuesday they did not object to a delay. Fellow African leaders have urged Kenyatta not to attend the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which they accuse of unfairly targeting Africans and of violating Kenyan sovereignty. His deputy William Ruto, a former political rival, faces similar charges. Full Story | Top |
| Thousands evacuated after Pemex gasoline leak in western Mexico Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 11:14 AM PDT Thousands of people were evacuated in western Mexico on Wednesday morning after thieves tapping a pipeline run by state oil monopoly Pemex caused a major gasoline leak. Television footage showed a large column of gasoline shooting skywards near the town of Tlajomulco south of the state capital Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city. Arturo Zamora, Jalisco's state interior minister, told reporters the leak was under control and that locals in the outermost reaches affected by the incident could be allowed back to their homes from early Wednesday afternoon. Pemex, whose pipelines are frequently the target of attacks by thieves, said it shut down the flow of gasoline as soon as the leak was detected. Full Story | Top |
| Poland asks court to hear CIA jails case in private Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 10:58 AM PDT By Christian Lowe WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's government has asked the European Court of Human Rights to exclude the media and the public from a court hearing on whether Poland hosted a secret CIA prison on its territory. The request for a private hearing was criticized by a Polish human rights group, which accuses the state of trying to conceal its involvement in the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program behind a veil of secrecy. The Strasbourg-based court scheduled a public hearing for December 3 to hear arguments in the cases of two men who say they were held in a CIA-operated jail in Poland. Since then, Poland's government has submitted a request to the court asking for the hearing to be held in private, a spokeswoman for the court told Reuters. Full Story | Top |
| India's Modi aims at history and Gandhis with world's tallest statue Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 10:49 AM PDT  By Frank Jack Daniel and Sruthi Gottipati NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian opposition leader Narendra Modi is building the world's tallest statue at a cost of almost $340 million in honor of one of the country's founding fathers, a project he is using to undermine his chief rivals, the Gandhi-Nehru political dynasty. The statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's deputy and his interior minister but often at odds with him, is to be built on a river island in Gujarat, the home state of both Patel and Modi. Modi, who rules Gujarat as chief minister and is the leading opposition candidate for prime minister in general elections due next year, is to inaugurate the construction of the statue on Thursday, the 138th birth anniversary of Patel. "Every Indian regrets Sardar Patel did not become the first prime minister. Full Story | Top |
| Exclusive: Syria peace talks face delay as big powers split Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 10:27 AM PDT  By Khaled Yacoub Oweis AMMAN (Reuters) - International powers are unlikely to meet their goal of convening peace talks on Syria in Geneva next month as differences emerge between Washington and Moscow over opposition representation, Arab and Western officials said. Failure of the main Syrian National Coalition to take a clear stance over the talks, which aim to find a political solution to Syria's 2-1/2 year civil war, are also expected to contribute to a delay of up to one month, the officials told Reuters. "A clearer picture will emerge when the United States and Russia meet next week, but all indications show that the November 23 goal will be difficult to meet," said one of the officials involved in preparing for the talks. U.S., Russian and U.N envoys are due to meet in Geneva next Tuesday as part of the preparation for the long-delayed peace conference, which was first proposed back in May. A main point of contention, the official said, is the role of the Western-backed opposition coalition - an issue which has flared up since a meeting in London last week of Western and Gulf Arab countries opposed to Assad. Full Story | Top |
| Mozambique's Renamo says leader 'hunted', government cracks down Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 10:23 AM PDT  By Manuel Mucari MAPUTO (Reuters) - Mozambique's Renamo opposition party said on Wednesday the army was trying to hunt down and kill its leader after President Armando Guebuza said the former rebel group was threatening national sovereignty with renewed attacks. Renamo chief and ex-rebel commander Afonso Dhlakama is in hiding in the mountains of central Mozambique after government troops on October 21 overran his jungle base camp, where he had been living for a year after withdrawing from city life. This week the army captured another Renamo jungle camp in central Sofala province, tightening a military noose around Dhlakama and his followers who are holed up in the nearby Gorongosa mountains, military officials say. Full Story | Top |
| Italian magazine says U.S. spies listened to pope, Vatican says unaware Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 10:13 AM PDT  An Italian magazine said on Wednesday that a United States spy agency had eavesdropped on Vatican phone calls, possibly including when former Pope Benedict's successor was under discussion, but the Holy See said it had no knowledge of any such activity. Panorama magazine said that among 46 million phone calls followed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in Italy from December 10, 2012, to January 8, 2013, were conversations in and out of the Vatican. In a press release before full publication on Thursday, Panorama said the "NSA had tapped the pope". Asked to comment on the report, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said: "We are not aware of anything on this issue and in any case we have no concerns about it." Media reports based on revelations from Edward Snowden, the fugitive former U.S. intelligence operative granted asylum in Russia, have said the NSA had spied on French citizens over the same period in December in January. Full Story | Top |
| Italian Senate to hold open vote on expelling Berlusconi Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 10:12 AM PDT  By Massimiliano Di Giorgio ROME (Reuters) - Italy's Senate will hold an open vote next month on whether to expel Silvio Berlusconi from parliament because of a tax fraud conviction after an upper house committee narrowly rejected the former prime minister's bid to make the ballot secret. A special Senate panel voted by 7 to 6 in favor of an open vote, overruling objections from Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party, which argued that votes on individual senators are traditionally held in secret. "The panel has voted but it's given birth to a constitutional monster," PDL Senator Anna Maria Bernini told reporters. Berlusconi is expected to lose his seat in the upper house after Italy's top court found him guilty in August of being at the center of a giant tax fraud scheme at his Mediaset television empire. Full Story | Top |
| More than 20 killed in Zimbabwe crash involving fuel tanker Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 10:03 AM PDT HARARE (Reuters) - More than 20 people were killed when a truck carrying mourners collided with a fuel tanker which then exploded in southeastern Zimbabwe on Wednesday, police said. Some of the victims were burned beyond recognition in the accident which occurred in Chisumbanje district. "We are investigating. So far, we know that more than 20 people died," a police spokeswoman told Reuters. ... Full Story | Top |
| New video of kidnapped Czech women appears in Pakistan Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 10:02 AM PDT Two young Czech women kidnapped in southwest Pakistan in March said in a new video released by the Czech government on Wednesday they feared they would soon be killed. The Czech embassy in Islamabad received the footage, which shows Antonie Chrastecka, 25, and Hana Humpalova, 24, who were seized while heading for India by microbus through the province of Baluchistan, neighboring Afghanistan. In the video, released by the girls' families through the Czech Foreign Ministry, one of the women said she was in poor health. "My health condition is very unstable mainly because of the food and water and it's getting worse," Humpalova said in English, in a three-minute video she said was recorded on August 23. Full Story | Top |
| Suicide bomber attacks Tunisian resort town Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 09:57 AM PDT  By Tarek Amara TUNIS (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up in the Tunisian tourist resort of Sousse on Wednesday, the first such assault in more than a decade in a country now battling Islamist militants boosted by chaos in neighboring Libya. Police foiled another attack when they arrested a would-be suicide bomber at former President Habib Bourguiba's tomb in the seaside town of Monastir, and detained five other people in Sousse thought to be plotting assaults, security sources said. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Islamist-led government said all the arrested men had admitted to being members of the militant Ansar al-Sharia movement, which it says is linked to al Qaeda's North Africa affiliate. "The two suicide bombers are radical Islamist jihadists. Full Story | Top |
| China says five detained in connection with Tiananmen attack Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 09:37 AM PDT By Megha Rajagopalan and Michael Martina BEIJING/TURPAN, China (Reuters) - China said on Wednesday it had caught five suspected Islamist militants after a vehicle burst into flames on Beijing's Tiananmen Square in what police called a terrorist attack. Authorities also moved to tighten security in the restive far western, energy-rich region of Xinjiang, where the suspects are from. The Xinjiang-registered SUV involved in Monday's incident in which five people were killed was driven by Usmen Hasan, police said, a man whose name suggested he is an ethnic Uighur, a Muslim people from Xinjiang. "Police have identified Monday's incident at Tiananmen Square as a violent terrorist attack which was carefully planned, organized and premeditated," police said, adding the three people in the vehicle died after they set the gasoline on fire. Full Story | Top |
| ANC looters rampage through central Cape Town Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 09:21 AM PDT Hundreds of protesters looted shops, overturned rubbish bins and smashed car windows in Cape Town on Wednesday as police struggled to contain a mob rampaging through the heart of South Africa's top tourist city. Riot police in full body armor cordoned off roads in the city center, where a large crowd, many wearing ruling ANC regalia, were protesting against a lack of state housing in the only metropolis governed by the official opposition. The protesters, who set alight plastic rubbish bins in front of the provincial legislature, also targeted informal traders and ransacked their stores. Andile Lili, a disgraced member of the African National Congress (ANC) who organized the protest, told reporters he would ramp up activity against the Democratic Alliance, South Africa's official opposition, ahead of next year's general elections. Full Story | Top |
| Fisheries chief says some EU cod stocks facing collapse Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 09:16 AM PDT The European Union's fisheries chief proposed on Wednesday a cut of up to a third in the amount of cod the bloc's fishermen can catch next year, warning that stocks are at risk of collapse in some areas. Scottish fishermen are likely to be worst affected by such quota limits after the European Commission proposed a continued ban in 2014 on landings of cod off Scotland's Atlantic west coast to try to avert a possible crash in numbers. Cod stocks off other parts of Britain, Ireland and in the Bay of Biscay are also in a dire state, Greek EU fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki said, meaning quotas in these regions should be reduced by up to a third. But fishermen whose incomes have been hard-hit in recent years by too many vessels chasing too few fish will be hoping for a reprieve when EU fisheries ministers gather in Brussels in December to approve the catch quotas. Full Story | Top |
| F-16 jet delivery to Iraq on track for next fall: U.S. official Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 09:09 AM PDT The delivery of F-16 fighters to Iraq is on track for next fall, a senior U.S. administration official said on Wednesday, with Iraq recently depositing an installment of roughly $650 million for the jets. Iraq last year signed a new contract to buy its second set of 18 F-16 fighters from the United States, part of a deal to purchase 36 of the jets to rebuild its air force. Full Story | Top |
| 'Nationalism and xenophobia' on rise ahead of European elections Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 09:07 AM PDT  By Luke Baker and Stephen Adler BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has warned against nationalism, xenophobia and racism ahead of European Parliament elections next year, when anti-EU and protest parties are expected to do well. Opinion polls months ahead of the vote, which takes place in all EU countries on May 22-25, suggest candidates on the far left and far right will gain support as voters express frustration with Europe after three years of financial turmoil, contracting growth and job losses. "What we don't like is the discourse that is sometimes behind anti-European slogans, a discourse that is promoting what I call negative values, things like narrow nationalism, protectionism and xenophobia. "We should not forget that in Europe, not so many decades ago, we had very, very worrying developments of xenophobia and racism and intolerance. Full Story | Top |
| Merkel, SPD agree to renew German push for transaction tax Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 09:03 AM PDT  By Stephen Brown and Andreas Rinke BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's next government will renew a push for a financial transactions tax, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and the Social Democrats (SPD) agreed at a second round of coalition talks on Wednesday. With Merkel's outgoing center-right government and the SPD having broadly agreed on EU policy during the euro zone crisis, the transactions tax provided an early opportunity to inject some momentum into their tricky coalition talks. Germany's two main political forces began formal post-election talks last week aimed at clinching a new "grand coalition" government by Christmas, after 16 working groups forge compromises on a wide range of issues including Europe. Full Story | Top |
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