Friday, August 24, 2012

Exclusive: North Korean leader asks for Beijing trip

Exclusive: North Korean leader asks for Beijing trip

Exclusive: North Korean leader asks for Beijing trip

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 11:47 PM PDT

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un waves as he visits military units on islands in the most southwest of PyongyangBEIJING (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is seeking an ice-breaking trip to key ally Beijing next month to meet China's outgoing and new leaders, a source with ties to Pyongyang and Beijing told Reuters on Friday. The planned visit comes amid signs of a thaw in Pyongyang as it desperately seeks investment to lift its impoverished and isolated economy using Chinese money. The trip was requested during this month's visit to Beijing by Kim's uncle, Jang Song-thaek, effectively the second most powerful figure in North Korea. ...

Norway Court to decide mass killer Breivik's sanity

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 05:05 PM PDT

Policemen stand outside a courthouse in OsloOSLO (Reuters) - A Norwegian court delivers its verdict in the ten-week trial of gunman Anders Behring Breivik on Friday, deciding whether to send the anti-Muslim militant to jail or a mental hospital for the massacre of 77 people last summer. Prosecutors have demanded a verdict of insanity, a fate Breivik called "worse than death", while many of his victims say only a sane person could have carried out such a complex attack. Either way he is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars. ...

Japan says no decision on buying Korean debt, island row festers

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 05:51 PM PDT

A Japanese flag held by a member of the nationalist movement "Ganbare Nippon" flutters under a South Korean flag outside the South Korean embassy, during a protest against South Korean President Lee's visit to a disputed island, in TokyoTOKYO (Reuters) - The Japanese government has not reached a decision yet on whether it will buy South Korean government debt, Finance Minister Jun Azumi said on Friday, as a diplomatic row escalates between the two countries over a territorial dispute. Azumi reiterated that the government might not extend a currency swap arrangement with South Korea after it expires in October. ...

Iranian envoy upbeat ahead of U.N. nuclear talks

Posted: 24 Aug 2012 12:44 AM PDT

Iran's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh attends a news conference after talks at the U.N. headquarters in ViennaVIENNA (Reuters) - A senior Iranian envoy said he expected progress at talks on Friday with the U.N. nuclear watchdog about the Islamic state's atomic activities. "We are determined to go to a ... positive conclusion," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters. "Both sides are trying to bridge the gap." He was speaking outside's Iran's diplomatic mission in Vienna shortly before the start of his talks with U.N. inspectors seeking to unblock an agency probe into suspicions that Iran has been conducting atom bomb research. ...

Three killed in tribal clash in Libya

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 05:17 PM PDT

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - At least three people were killed and eight were wounded in a tribal clash near the Libyan town of Zlitan on Thursday, an official source said, testing transitional efforts to improve security after an uprising ended Muammar Gaddafi's rule. Heavy weaponry was used in the violence, including 14 mm anti-aircraft canons, the source said. The clash was sparked by a dispute between two families from the al-Haly and al-Fawatra tribes. The source could not say what the dispute was about. An army deployment managed to impose a truce between the two warring tribes. ...

China deports Myanmar refugees amid fighting - group

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 08:20 PM PDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has forcibly returned scores of ethnic Kachins who have fled Myanmar because of civil war, putting them at risk of armed violence and abuse by Myanmar's army, a human rights group said on Friday. Up to 10,000 Kachins have sought refuge in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan after fighting between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Myanmar's government flared up in the middle of 2011 following a 17-year truce, according to aid groups. Diplomats say the conflict in Kachin state is one of the biggest tests for Myanmar's new civilian government's reform ...

Merkel and Hollande unite in tough message for Greece

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 04:04 PM PDT

German Chancellor Merkel talks with France's President Hollande before a meeting at the Chancellery in BerlinBERLIN (Reuters) - Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande presented a united front towards Greece on Thursday, telling Athens it should not expect leeway on its bailout agreement unless it sticks to tough reform targets. The German and French leaders met in Berlin to fine-tune their message to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who begins a charm offensive in Berlin and Paris this week in the hope of persuading Europe's big powers that Greece deserves patience. ...

Iran expands nuclear capacity underground: sources

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 07:21 PM PDT

Objects representing nuclear fuel which will be used in Tehran's research reactor and a sample of 3rd generation of centrifuges for uranium enrichment are unveiled during a ceremonyVIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has installed many more uranium enrichment machines in an underground bunker, diplomatic sources said on Thursday, potentially paving the way for a significant expansion of work the West fears is ultimately aimed at making nuclear bombs. Iran denies allegations it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability. But its refusal to curb its nuclear enrichment program has prompted tough Western sanctions and has heightened speculation that Israel may attack its atomic sites. ...

Australia's Victoria state bans coal seam gas "fracking"

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 10:45 PM PDT

PERTH (Reuters) - Australia's southeastern state of Victoria on Friday put a hold on hydraulic fracturing, a technique used to produce hard-to-reach gas deposits, and a halt on new coal seam gas exploration licenses. The moratorium would remain until a national regulatory framework for regulating coal seam gas and hydraulic fracturing was put in place by Australia's federal government, state energy and resources minister Michael O'Brien said in a statement. ...

Q&A: It's judgment time for Norway mass killer

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 11:18 PM PDT

FILE - This Monday Feb. 6, 2012 file photo shows Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who confessed to a bombing and mass shooting that killed 77 people on July 22, 2011, arriving for a detention hearing at a court in Oslo, Norway. Breivik will receive his judgment Friday Aug. 24, 2012 in a court room custom built for his trial. (AP Photo/Heiko Junge/ Scanpix Norway) NORWAY OUTA chapter of a terror case that has haunted Norway for 13 months will end Friday as confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik receives his judgment for attacks that left 77 people dead and more than 200 injured.

Even more brutal leader takes over Mexico's Zetas

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 10:57 PM PDT

This undated image taken from the Mexican Attorney General's Office rewards program website on Aug. 23, 2012, shows the alleged leader of Zetas drug cartel, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, alias A falling out between the leaders of the hyper-violent Zetas cartel appears to have put the gang in the hands of a brutal and feared gangster who has been blamed for an eruption of bloodshed in Mexico's once relatively calm central states.

AP IMPACT: With war, Syrians in constant flight

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 11:51 AM PDT

A Syrian girl, who fled her home with her family due to fighting between the Syrian army and the rebels, sleeps by her family's belongings, while she and others take refuge at the Bab Al-Salameh border crossing, in hopes of entering one of the refugee camps in Turkey, near the Syrian town of Azaz, Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012. Thousands of Syrians who have been displaced by the country's civil are struggling to find safe shelter while shelling and airstrikes by government forces continue. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)Civil war has chased Fatima Ghorab and her brood of some two dozen women and children across Syria in search of safe havens that keep disappearing in the booms of artillery shells. They now shelter in an unfinished apartment in this Aleppo suburb, crowded into two rooms with a few plastic chairs and some thin mattresses. If their neighbors didn't bring them bread, they'd have none.

Paris backs Syria no-fly zone as fighting grows

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 07:49 PM PDT

This image made from video and released by Shaam News Network and accessed Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012, purports to show the funeral of children in Daraya, near Damascus, Syria. Syrian troops backed by tanks and helicopters broke into a Damascus suburb on Thursday following two days of shelling and intense clashes as part of a widening offensive by President Bashar Assad's forces to seize control of parts of the capital and surrounding areas from rebel fighters, activists said. At least 15 people were killed in the offensive on Daraya, only a few miles (kilometers) southwest of Damascus. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network SNN via AP video) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAS NO WAY OF INDEPENDENTLY VERIFYING THE CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS PICTURE.France signaled Thursday that it was prepared to take part in enforcing a partial no-fly zone over Syria, piling pressure on President Bashar Assad's embattled regime as it widens a major offensive against rebels in Damascus and surrounding areas.

Police: Insurgents kidnap, kill 3 Afghan soldiers

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 11:47 PM PDT

Insurgents kidnapped three Afghan soldiers and another man from a bus in eastern Afghanistan and killed all four, authorities said Friday, in another challenge to the government and its security forces.

Greenpeace activists storm Russian oil rig

Posted: 24 Aug 2012 12:41 AM PDT

Greenpeace activists have stormed a floating oil rig in Russia's Pechora Sea to protest oil drilling in the Arctic, the environmental organization said on Friday.

AP NewsBreak: Nuke agency forms special Iran team

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 12:09 PM PDT

FILE - In this May 14, 2012 file photo Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh waves as he arrives for talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, at the permanent mission of Iran in Vienna, Austria. The U.N. nuclear agency is forming a special Iran team, drawing together sleuths in weapons technology, intelligence analysis, radiation and other fields of expertise as it seeks to add teeth to a long-stalled probe of suspicions that Tehran worked secretly on atomic arms, diplomats tell The Associated Press in a series of interviews reaching into Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, File)The U.N. nuclear agency is forming a special Iran team, drawing together sleuths in weapons technology, intelligence analysis, radiation and other fields of expertise as it seeks to add muscle to a probe of suspicions that Tehran worked secretly on atomic arms, diplomats tell The Associated Press.

Russia: We have Syrian guarantees on chemical arms

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 12:21 PM PDT

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov speaks in an interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012. Gatilov said Russia is working closely with the Syrian government to make sure its arsenal of chemical weapons remains securely in place. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)Russia is working closely with the Syrian government to ensure that its arsenal of chemical weapons remains under firm control and has won promises that the weapons of mass destruction will not be used or moved, Moscow's point man on Syria told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Israel making inroads in halting African migration

Posted: 24 Aug 2012 12:04 AM PDT

FILE - In this Thursday, Dec. 23, 2010 file photo, dozens of African migrants cross into southern Israel through the border with Egypt. The number of Africans slipping into Israel from Egypt's Sinai desert has dropped dramatically from about 1,000 a month in recent months to 268 in July 2012, with the government crediting a soon-to-be-completed border fence and a new, get-tough policy of detaining migrants who show up at the Israeli border. (AP Photo/Assaf Golan, File) ISRAEL OUTJust a few months ago, Israel was in the midst of a nationwide uproar over the tens of thousands of African migrants who have poured into the Jewish state. Today, that influx has slowed dramatically, following a series of measures meant to halt the new arrivals.

Greek hopes of reform leeway face test in Berlin

Posted: 24 Aug 2012 12:13 AM PDT

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, and France's President Francois Hollande brief the media prior to a meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012 .The leaders of Germany and France are stressing that it's up to Greece to keep pursuing painful reforms as it strives to keep its place in the euro. Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Francois Hollande were meeting Thursday before both hold talks over the next two days with Greece's new prime minister, Antonis Samaras. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)The new Greek prime minister's hopes of winning more time from creditors to implement reforms and spending cuts face a tough test as he travels to a deeply skeptical Germany on Friday to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Posted by Harshad at 1:18 AM

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