Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Insight: South Africa mine union revolt shows cracks in ANC rule

Insight: South Africa mine union revolt shows cracks in ANC rule

Insight: South Africa mine union revolt shows cracks in ANC rule

Posted: 04 Jul 2012 12:17 AM PDT

MODDER EAST/JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Shaking his fist and surrounded by angry colleagues, South African gold miner Chres Manyaka raged against 'fat cats' getting rich from the sweat of the workers. But he was not talking about managers of the Gold One company, which had sacked him and several other fellow workers for an illegal strike at the mine east of Johannesburg. ...

Exclusive: Myanmar poised for cabinet shake-up, MPs say

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 11:41 PM PDT

Myanmar's President Thein Sein attends a meeting with TEPCO Chairman Katsumata at TEPCO's Kawasaki Thermal Power Plant in KawasakiNAYPYITAW (Reuters) - Myanmar President Thein Sein plans to reshuffle his cabinet and appoint a new vice-president soon to reduce the influence of anti-reform ministers and accelerate changes in the former pariah state, several members of parliament said. The reshuffle is expected in the current session of parliament that begins on Wednesday and could sideline some hardliners by reducing their responsibilities in the 37-member cabinet or give them new roles, said the members. ...

Mexico's president-elect may double security spending: aide

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 06:37 PM PDT

Mexico's President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto delivers a speech to the media at a hotel in Mexico CityMEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto will seek to double security spending to around 2 percent of GDP to fight drug violence and organized crime while proposing new tactics to the United States, a top aide said on Tuesday. Emilio Lozoya, touted as a possible pick for foreign minister, said Pena Nieto's administration would try to boost efforts to tackle money laundering and propose trans-border infrastructure projects to help create jobs, cut business costs and increase security. ...

Peru clash over Newmont mine kills three

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 07:42 PM PDT

LIMA (Reuters) - Three people were killed and 21 injured on Tuesday when Peruvian police clashed with protesters opposed to a $5 billion gold mine planned by Newmont Mining, officials in the northern region of Cajamarca said. The fatalities were the first in Cajamarca since protests against the mine started there late last year and the government has responded by suspending freedom of assembly to quell clashes between police, soldiers and protesters. "I don't think we Peruvians should tolerate bad apples who incite violence that ends up causing deaths," Prime Minister Oscar Valdes said. ...

China stops copper plant, frees 21 after protests

Posted: 04 Jul 2012 12:52 AM PDT

SHIFANG, China (Reuters) - Authorities in a southwestern Chinese city halted construction of a copper refinery following protests by residents that it would poison them, and freed most of the people who were detained after a clash with police over the row. Both decisions are highly unusual in the tightly controlled nation, but underline the depth of public anger against environmental pollution. Thousands of people in the southwestern city of Shifang had taken to the streets over the past three days against the government's plans to allow building of the $1. ...

Reactor restarts, but Japan's energy policy in flux

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 06:43 PM PDT

Kansai Electric Power Co's Ohi nuclear power plant No.3 unit is seen in Ohi, Fukui prefecture, in this photo taken by KyodoTOKYO (Reuters) - Buffeted by industry worries about high electricity costs on one side and public safety fears about nuclear power on the other, Japan's leaders are still struggling to craft a coherent energy policy more than a year after the Fukushima disaster. Critics say Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, whose top priority is raising the sales tax to curb bulging public debt, is caving in to Japan's "nuclear village" - a powerful nexus of utilities, bureaucrats and businesses - by restarting the first of Japan's 50 reactors to come back on line since the crisis. Kansai Electric Power Co's No. ...

U.N. chief pleads for arms pact, Palestinians demand seat

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 07:03 PM PDT

U.S. Secretary of State Clinton speaks with United Nations Secretary-General Ban before a dinner hosted by the Swiss authorities after a meeting in GenevaUNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pleaded on Tuesday for a binding pact to regulate the more than $60 billion global weapons market, while delegates at a treaty drafting conference worked to defuse a dispute over Palestinian participation. "We do not have a multilateral treaty of global scope dealing with conventional arms," Ban told delegates to the conference, which runs through July 27. "This is a disgrace." "Poorly regulated international arms transfers are fueling civil conflicts, destabilizing regions, and empowering terrorists and criminal networks," he said. ...

Swiss institute finds polonium in Arafat's effects

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 03:38 PM PDT

A Palestinian boy holds a Fatah flag during an event marking the anniversary of the late Palestinian leader Arafat in RamallahZURICH (Reuters) - Traces of the poisonous element polonium have been found in the belongings of late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, a Swiss institute said on Wednesday, and a television report said his widow had demanded his body be exhumed for further tests. Arafat died at a hospital in France in 2004, after a sudden illness which baffled doctors. Many Palestinians have long suspected he was poisoned. ...

U.S., Pakistan reach deal to reopen Afghan supply routes

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 02:41 PM PDT

A man walks across the tops of fuel tankers, which were used to carry fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan, parked at a compound in KarachiWASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan and the United States reached a deal on Tuesday to reopen land routes that NATO uses to supply troops in Afghanistan, ending a seven-month crisis that damaged ties between the two countries and complicated the U.S.-led Afghan war effort. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a telephone call with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, apologized for a November NATO air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last November and prompted an infuriated Islamabad to slam the supply routes closed. ...

German spy agency faces shake-up in neo-Nazi case

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 11:24 PM PDT

FILE - In this Nov. 16, 2011 file picture a police van stands in front of a burnt-out house in Zwickau, eastern Germany that was destroyed by a supposed member of a far-right terror gang. For years, authorities suspected organized crime rather than racist violence; only when two suspected founding members were found dead last November after a botched bank robbery and their house was set on fire by an accomplice, did the so-called National Socialist Underground's activities come to light. Germany's domestic spy agency faces awkward questions and a shake-up after revelations that an official destroyed files related to a neo-Nazi group suspected of killing 10 people, mostly ethnic Turks. The case prompted the government to announce this week that the agency's head for the past 12 years, Heinz Fromm, will take early retirement. (AP Photo/dapd/ Joern Haufe,file)The case horrified Germany, a nation where the Hitler era still casts a long shadow: a small band of neo-Nazis suspected of killing ethnic Turks and others in a seven-year terror spree, undetected by security forces until a botched bank robbery brought down the group last year.

Australia, Indonesia try to help boat in distress

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 11:59 PM PDT

Australian and Indonesian rescuers were trying to help a migrant-filled boat taking on water in bad weather and rough seas off Indonesia on Wednesday, a day after the countries agreed to strengthen maritime ties as a way to combat people smuggling.

Accusations grow of vote-buying in Mexico election

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:56 PM PDT

A woman shows her pre-paid gift card while waiting in line at a Soriana supermarket in Mexico City, Tuesday July 3, 2012. Many of the people at the supermarket say they went to redeem pre-paid gift cards they said were given them by the party that won Mexico's presidency and at least a few cardholders were angry, complaining they didn't get as much as promised, or that their cards weren't working. The incidents are inflaming accusations that the election was marred by massive vote-buying. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)Thousands of people rushed to stores to redeem pre-paid gift cards they said were given to them previously by the party that won Mexico's presidency, inflaming accusations that the weekend election was marred by widespread vote-buying.

73 Georgians hospitalized after chlorine leak

Posted: 04 Jul 2012 12:02 AM PDT

Officials say that 73 people, including 20 children and a pregnant woman, have been hospitalized after a chlorine leak in a suburb of the ex-Soviet nation's capital, Tbilisi.

US says sorry, Pakistan opens Afghan supply lines

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:43 PM PDT

FILE - In this June 12, 2012 file photo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the State Department in Washington. The Obama administration says Pakistan is reopening supply lines into Afghanistan after the U.S. issued an apology for the November killing of 24 Pakistani troops in a NATO airstrike. Clinton says she told Pakistan's foreign minister in a telephone conversation that the U.S. is Ending a bitter seven-month standoff, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized to Pakistan on Tuesday for the killing of 24 Pakistani troops last fall and won in return the reopening of critical NATO supply lines into Afghanistan. The agreement could save the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars in war costs.

US sending Ospreys to Japan despite local protests

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 10:41 PM PDT

FILE - In this Sunday, June 10, 2012 file photo, a Marine MV-22 "Osprey" tilt-rotor aircraft lands at Voinovich Park in downtown Cleveland. The United States is going ahead with a plan to deploy its Osprey military transport aircraft to Japan despite strong opposition from residents over safety issues. A city official in Iwakuni, where the aircraft are to be briefly stationed before their deployment on the southern island of Okinawa, said Wednesday, July 4, 2012, the first 12 Ospreys have left port in San Diego and are expected to arrive by the end of the month. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan, File)The United States is moving ahead with plans to deploy its first Osprey military transport aircraft to Japan, despite strong opposition from residents over safety issues following two recent crashes, officials said Wednesday.

Galapagos' new star tortoise a prolific dad

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 02:39 PM PDT

This undated photo released by Galapagos National Park shows tortoise Diego at Galapagos National Park. Diego is another centenarian reptile, but unlike Lonesome George who was not able to reproduce, Diego has sired hundreds of offspring. Galapagos National Park authorities say it is impossible to know Diego's age, but they believe he is well over 100 and estimate Diego is the father of 40 to 45 percent of the 1,781 tortoises born in the breeding program. (AP Photo/Galapagos National Park)Lonesome George's inability to reproduce made him a global symbol of efforts to halt the disappearance of species. And while his kind died with him, that doesn't mean the famed giant tortoise leaves no heir apparent.

Myanmar frees 20 political prisoners; more urged

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 07:45 PM PDT

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi talks to journalists during a press conference at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy Party in Yangon, Myanmar Tuesday, July 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)Myanmar's reformist government granted amnesties for at least 20 political prisoners, but opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for the release of all of the hundreds more still behind bars.

Diamond in the rough; Banker Bob falls on sword

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 08:36 AM PDT

FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010 file photo Bob Diamond, Chief Executive of Barclays, listens during a plenary session on the first day of the 40th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland. Barclays Chief Executive Bob Diamond has resigned with immediate effect, the latest scalp of a financial markets scandal that has also cost the job of the chairman. The bank said Tuesday July 3, 2012, that outgoing-chairman Marcus Agius would lead the search for Diamond's replacement. (AP Photo/Keystone/Laurent Gillieron, file)He was a poster boy for corporate arrogance, telling Parliament last year that the time for bankers to apologize had passed.

Iraq bombs kill 40; officials eye security bribes

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 05:22 PM PDT

Bombing victims are taken for burial in Najaf, 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, July 3, 2012. Market bombings and other attacks across Iraq killed and wounded scores of people on Tuesday, and one senior intelligence figure said he could not rule out that guards may have taken bribes to allow terrorists to penetrate security during a Shiite pilgrimage. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)Bombs pounded six Iraqi cities and towns Tuesday, killing at least 40 people and raising suspicion that security forces might be assisting terrorists in launching attacks on Shiite Muslims.
Posted by Harshad at 1:14 AM

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