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| South Korea cuts future reliance on nuclear power, but new plants likely Monday, Jan 13, 2014 07:40 PM PST  By Jane Chung SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea has revised down its future reliance on nuclear power, although growing energy demand and the shutdown of aging reactors mean it is still likely to need more nuclear-fired plants over the coming two decades. Asia's fourth-largest economy has been under pressure to curb its use of nuclear power in the wake of a safety scandal that led to the shutdown of some nuclear reactors to replace parts supplied with fake safety certificates. The energy ministry said on Tuesday it has changed its energy policy to reduce the country's reliance on nuclear power to 29 percent of total power supply by 2035, down from a planned 41 percent by 2030 and in line with a draft proposal. Nuclear power made up 26 percent of South Korea's energy mix as at end-2012. Full Story | Top |
| Tap water use ban lifted in parts of West Virginia after spill Monday, Jan 13, 2014 04:38 PM PST  West Virginia officials on Monday lifted a ban on drinking or bathing with tap water in some areas of the state hit by a chemical spill that affected hundreds of thousands of people for five days, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin said. Officials had ordered some 300,000 people not to drink their tap water after as much as 7,500 gallons (28,000 liters) of the 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or crude MCHM, leaked into the river. Jeff McIntyre, president of West Virginia American Water Co, said the first area cleared for use was in downtown Charleston, the state capital. Full Story | Top |
| Italy's Letta sees opportunities in Mexico's energy reform Monday, Jan 13, 2014 04:15 PM PST  By Gabriel Stargardter MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta said on Monday he sees opportunities for Italian firms to invest in Mexico's energy sector thanks to a government opening of the ailing, long-shuttered industry. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto last month signed a bill into law that ended the country's 75-year-old oil and gas monopoly. Speaking on a state visit alongside Pena Nieto, who has pushed overhauls to the country's telecoms, banking and tax laws since taking office in 2012, Letta said the opening up of Mexico's energy sector was a big opportunity for Italian firms. "The reforms that President Pena Nieto began to enact last year, and continues to enact this year, open very interesting opportunities for Italian businessmen and for our country," Letta said. Full Story | Top |
| Wave of lawsuits follows West Virginia chemical spill Monday, Jan 13, 2014 03:50 PM PST  By Mica Rosenberg NEW YORK (Reuters) - People whose drinking water was contaminated in West Virginia have filed at least 18 lawsuits in state court against two companies after a chemical spill affected 300,000 residents and shut down businesses and schools. Lawyers started filing suits last Friday in West Virginia's Kanawha County court, less than 24 hours after the first alarms were sounded about the release of an industrial chemical into the Elk River. None of the 18 cases filed against Freedom Industries, which owned the leaky chemical storage tanks, and a water processing plant upstream, have been certified yet as class actions, according to a court clerk. "We're receiving calls by the minute regarding the situation that's occurred following the spill," said Bernard Layne, a personal injury attorney in the state capital Charleston who filed the first claim when the court opened on Friday morning. Full Story | Top |
| Regulator: 18 of 20 oil cars pierced in North Dakota crash Monday, Jan 13, 2014 03:28 PM PST  By Brendan O'Brien (Reuters) - Eighteen of 20 tanker cars carrying oil that derailed in the fiery crash of two trains in North Dakota in late December were punctured, spilling more than 400,000 gallons of crude oil, safety regulators reported on Monday. In a preliminary report, the National Transportation Safety Board said the oil train heading east struck a derailed car from a westbound grain train, leading to the derailment and fire about a mile outside the small town of Casselton, North Dakota, on December 30. Both trains were operated by BNSF Railway Co, more than 100 cars long each and were traveling well below the posted 65-mile-per-hour speed limit, the NTSB report said. BNSF is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The grain train was traveling at 28 mph (45 km per hour) and the oil train at 43 mph when emergency braking systems were applied on both trains, the report said. Full Story | Top |
| Obama to visit Mexico in February for leaders summit Monday, Jan 13, 2014 03:07 PM PST  By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will visit Mexico in February to attend a North American leaders' summit, the White House said on Monday. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would travel to Toluca, Mexico, on February 19. Obama will attend the annual North American leaders summit along with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Full Story | Top |
| Hollande bids to deflect glare from private life to reforms Monday, Jan 13, 2014 03:06 PM PST  By Mark John PARIS (Reuters) - President Francois Hollande will aim at a news conference on Tuesday to set out plans to revive the weak French economy and deflect questions about his private life after allegations surfaced of a secret love affair with an actress. His New Year's encounter with journalists in his Elysee Palace will be the French leader's first public appearance since a celebrity magazine on Friday published photos it said showed Hollande making a nocturnal visit to a lover. The saga took a surprise new turn on Sunday when it emerged that his long-term partner, Valerie Trierweiler, had been admitted to hospital in a state of shock. "This major political event must remain a major political event," David Assouline, spokesman for Hollande's Socialist party, said of the 4:30 p.m. (10.30 a.m. ET) news conference, an annual setpiece which could go on as long as two hours. Full Story | Top |
| Obama defends himself from Gates' book criticism Monday, Jan 13, 2014 02:50 PM PST  President Barack Obama on Monday rejected criticism from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who questioned whether the president supported his own policy toward Afghanistan. Answering questions during an Oval Office appearance, Obama said Gates was an outstanding defense secretary and that because of the strategy that the Obama administration formulated, the United States will have concluded combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of this year. "I think what's important is that we got the policy right but that this is hard and it always has been," Obama said. Gates, who was defense secretary from 2006 to 2010, wrote a memoir released this week entitled "Duty" that complains that Obama did not believe in his own strategy and "doesn't consider the war to be his." "Just as I have continued to have faith in our mission, most importantly I've had unwavering confidence in our troops, in their performance in some of the most difficult situations," Obama said. Full Story | Top |
| World powers, Iran eye February start to nuclear settlement talks Monday, Jan 13, 2014 02:50 PM PST By Justyna Pawlak BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Big powers and Iran are likely to start talks on a final settlement to the long dispute over its nuclear ambitions in February, shortly after a six-month deal curbing its atomic activity takes effect, a diplomatic source said on Monday. If successful, the next round of negotiations could head off the risk of lingering mistrust spiraling out of control into a wider Middle East war over the Islamic republic's nuclear program. Led by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, the talks will face the challenge of defining a permissible scope of Iranian nuclear activity that would lay to rest Western concerns that it could yield an atomic weapon. In return, Iran - which denies having any intention to "weaponise" the enrichment of uranium for nuclear energy - wants governments in the United States and Europe to end painful economic sanctions. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. has concerns about Iran-Russia oil-for-goods swap reports Monday, Jan 13, 2014 02:41 PM PST By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday it was concerned about a recent report that Iran and Russia are negotiating an oil-for-goods swap worth $1.5 billion a month, a deal a spokeswoman said could trigger U.S. sanctions. Such a deal would significantly boost Iran's oil exports, which have been slashed by more than half to about 1 million barrels a day by U.S. and European economic sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to accept curbs to its nuclear program. Russian and Iranian sources close to the barter negotiations said the deal could see Russia buy as much as 500,000 barrels a day of Iranian oil in exchange for Russian equipment and goods. "We are concerned about these reports and Secretary (of State John) Kerry directly expressed this concern with (Russian) Foreign Minister (Sergei) Lavrov today," Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, told Reuters. Full Story | Top |
| Tap water use OK'd in some West Virginia areas after spill Monday, Jan 13, 2014 02:27 PM PST West Virginia officials on Monday lifted a ban on drinking or bathing with tap water in some areas of the state hit by a chemical spill that affected hundreds of thousands of people for five days, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin said. Officials had ordered some 300,000 people not to drink their tap water after as much as 7,500 gallons (28,000 liters) of the 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or crude MCHM, leaked into the river. Jeff McIntyre, president of West Virginia American Water Co, said the first area cleared for use was in downtown Charleston, the state capital. Full Story | Top |
| Wall Street slides on caution ahead of earnings Monday, Jan 13, 2014 01:38 PM PST  Various companies that posted weak earnings or forecasts on Monday, including SodaStream , Lululemon Athletica , Express Inc and Aaron's saw their stocks get hit hard. "People have moved to the sidelines waiting for earnings to get a little more clarity," said Michael O'Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut. After the stellar year stocks had in 2013, "there's no need to be aggressive in 2014 until the companies you care about have reported earnings and given you an all-clear," said O'Rourke. Lululemon, Express Inc, Aaron's and SodaStream gave weak outlooks. Full Story | Top |
| Monsanto critics denied U.S. Supreme Court hearing on seed patents Monday, Jan 13, 2014 10:05 AM PST  The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Monsanto Co's biotech seed patents on Monday, dealing a blow to a group of organic farmers and other activists trying to stop the biotech company from suing farmers if their fields contain a few plants containing the company's genetically modified traits. The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association and a group of dozens of organic and conventional family farmers, seed companies and public advocacy interests sued Monsanto in March 2011. The suit sought to prohibit the company from suing farmers whose fields became inadvertently contaminated with corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and other crops containing Monsanto's genetic modifications. Monsanto has genetically engineered its specialty seeds to withstand dousings of glyphosate, the main ingredient in the company's Roundup herbicide. Full Story | Top |
| Federal judge overseeing Madoff liquidation dies Monday, Jan 13, 2014 09:33 AM PST  The federal bankruptcy judge presiding over the liquidation of assets related to Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme has died, a clerk to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York said on Monday. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland, 84, died on Sunday, according to the clerk, Vito Genna. Lifland was the longest-serving judge for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, for which he was previously chief judge, Genna said. "We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Judge Lifland, one of the leading experts on bankruptcy law," said Amanda Remus, a spokeswoman for Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. In a ruling on Monday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 2011 injunction issued by Lifland that blocked two former Madoff clients from pursuing claims against the estate of a Florida businessman who was one of Madoff's biggest clients. Full Story | Top |
| GSK hands back failed muscular dystrophy drug to Prosensa Monday, Jan 13, 2014 08:43 AM PST  By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline has handed back rights to an experimental drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy to U.S.-listed Dutch biotech firm Prosensa after it failed last year in a critical clinical trial. Both companies said on Monday that Prosensa would now have full and unencumbered rights to drisapersen, as well as other compounds at an earlier stage of development. Full Story | Top |
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