Friday, August 31, 2012

WikiLeaks' Assange sees up to a year in Ecuador embassy

WikiLeaks' Assange sees up to a year in Ecuador embassy

WikiLeaks' Assange sees up to a year in Ecuador embassy

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 09:10 PM PDT

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange arrives to speak from the balcony of Ecuador's embassy in LondonQUITO (Reuters) - Julian Assange expects to wait six months to a year for a deal to free him from Ecuador's embassy in London, and hopes Sweden will drop its case against him, the WikiLeaks' founder said in an interview broadcast on Thursday. The former computer hacker has been holed up at the embassy for more than two months, seeking to avoid being sent to Sweden for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations - and triggering a diplomatic spat with Britain. ...

Insight: Brutality, anger fuel jihad in Russia's Caucasus

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 01:03 AM PDT

GIMRY, Russia (Reuters) - Little girls in hijabs peek out of tin-roof houses and boys play at "cops and insurgents" in the narrow dirt streets. At one end of the village of Gimry men are building a new, red-brick madrassa, one of many religious schools springing up across Dagestan, a region in the high Caucasus mountains on Russia's southern fringe, in the throes of an Islamic revival. More than a dozen young men from the village have "gone to the forest" - the local euphemism for joining insurgents in their hideouts, says village administrator Aliaskhab Magomedov. ...

Egypt says Syria's "oppressive regime" must go

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 11:22 AM PDT

Free Syrian Army fighters run for cover after Syrian forces fired a mortar in the El Amreeyeh neighborhood of AleppoDUBAI/AMMAN (Reuters) - Egypt called on Thursday for intervention to halt bloodshed in Syria, telling a meeting of 120 nations it was their duty to stand against the "oppressive regime" of Bashar al-Assad, prompting a Syrian walkout. President Mohamed Mursi, elected two months ago after a popular uprising toppled Egypt's long-standing leader Hosni Mubarak, said Assad had lost legitimacy in his fight to crush a 17-month-old revolt in which 20,000 people have been killed. ...

Chelsea owner Abramovich faces $6 billion court ruling

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 05:34 PM PDT

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich watches the players do a lap of honour after their English Premier League soccer match against Blackburn Rovers in LondonLONDON (Reuters) - Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich will find out on Friday whether he owes his former partner Boris Berezovsky as much as $6 billion after a British court battle that has laid bare the post-Soviet carve-up of Russia's vast natural resources. After a legal odyssey stretching from the gilded corridors of the Kremlin to the offshore enclaves favored by Russia's richest tycoons, Judge Elizabeth Gloster will rule on whether Berezovsky was extorted out his business empire by Abramovich. ...

Lufthansa cancels 64 flights as strike begins

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 11:30 PM PDT

Lufthansa planes stand on the tarmac at Munich's international airportFRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lufthansa cancelled 64 flights at its main hub Frankfurt on Friday as cabin crew began the first of a series of strikes over pay and cost cuts in a busy holiday season. The eight-hour industrial action, following the breakdown of 13 months of negotiations between Germany's largest airline and trade union UFO, is due to end at 1100 GMT on Friday. The stoppages were focused in Frankfurt, Germany's largest airport, but are expected to have an impact on the airline's global network. ...

Disgraced father of Pakistan nuclear bomb mulls politics

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 12:45 AM PDT

Pakistan nuclear scientist Khan waves to journalists from the front door of his house in IslamabadISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya, may try his hand at politics to rescue a country he says has become worse than a banana republic. Abdul Qadeer Khan, still lionized as the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb despite his fall from grace in 2004, may have some appeal ahead of elections due next year. Many Pakistanis are deeply frustrated with their leaders over everything from chronic power cuts to their strategic ties with the United States, and they might welcome someone seen as a national hero on the political stage. ...

Mexico electoral judges reject challenge to Pena Nieto victory

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 08:42 PM PDT

A protester holds a poster of Enrique Pena Nieto during a demonstration outside Mexico's electoral court in Mexico CityMEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's electoral tribunal on Thursday unanimously rejected a legal bid to overturn Enrique Pena Nieto's victory in the July 1 presidential election, paving the way for the centrist to take office and press ahead with his reform agenda. Pena Nieto, 46, and his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, were accused by runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of laundering money and buying votes to secure victory, but the judges said there was insufficient evidence of wrongdoing. ...

Insight: Does China's next leader have a soft spot for Tibet?

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 02:10 PM PDT

China's Vice President Xi Jinping speaks with Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People, in BeijingBEIJING/DHARAMSALA (Reuters) - For decades, Beijing has maintained that the Dalai Lama is a separatist, but Tibet's exiled spiritual leader once had a special relationship with the father of Xi Jinping, the man in line to become China's next president. Few people know what Xi, whose ascent to the leadership is likely to be approved at a Communist Party congress later this year, thinks of Tibet or the Dalai Lama. ...

Argentina strikes back at U.S. in WTO beef row

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 12:52 AM PDT

GENEVA (Reuters) - Argentina has lodged a dispute against U.S. restrictions on imports of Argentina beef and other meat products, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Friday. A week ago, the United States and Japan filed complaints against Argentina with the WTO, alleging that its import licensing rules are protectionist because they discriminate against foreign goods. "Argentina has notified the WTO Secretariat of a request for consultations with the United States on measures applied to the imports of Argentinean meat and other products of animal origin. ...

Colombia's Santos appoints Renjifo as energy minister

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 06:44 PM PDT

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos speaks to the media at the Narino Presidential house in BogotaBOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos named close ally Federico Renjifo as energy and mining minister on Thursday in part of a Cabinet shuffle as the leader begins pursuing a peace process with FARC rebels. Renjifo replaces Mauricio Cardenas, who was appointed last week to head the Finance Ministry. Renjifo, an economist and lawyer, previously served as interior minister. ...

Mexican court nixes election appeal, upholds vote

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 12:09 AM PDT

A student of the #Yo Soy 132 or "I am 132" movement wears a face mask as he demonstrates outside of the Federal Electoral Tribunal in Mexico City, Thursday, Aug. 30, 2012. Three of the seven justices on Mexico's highest election court, the Federal Electoral Tribunal, recommended Thursday dismissing legal challenges mounted by the second-place leftist candidate that seek to overturn the results of the July 1 presidential elections. The "I am 132" movement began in opposition of the alleged biased coverage by the media of the 2012 elections and against the candidacy of Enrique Pena Nieto of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI). (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)Mexico's old ruling party cleared the last hurdle in regaining the presidency it held for 71 years, after the country's highest electoral court dismissed legal challenges brought by a leftist opponent trying to overturn the July 1 election.

Palestinians chip away at male divorce monopoly

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 12:30 AM PDT

In this photo taken Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012, Hekmat Besesso, a Palestinian woman's rights advocate, sits beside a laptop that shows an image of her son, Yazan, 6, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Besesso, a divorce, lost custody of her son after she remarried _ a quirk of Palestinian law. Now, she says, her husband wont let her see him once a week, in accordance with her visitation rights. (AP Photo/Diaa Hadid)For decades, Palestinian women seeking to divorce their husbands risked years of miserable, expensive litigation or lengthy domestic battles as they begged their spouses for permission to leave.

Clinton in South Pacific with China in focus

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 11:05 PM PDT

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 2012 file photo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks in Johannesburg, South Africa. Clinton will try to reassert American interests in the Asia-Pacific region in the face of China's growing influence as she kicks off a six-nation trip to the region. She left Washington Thursday on a trip that will keep her half a world away from U.S. politics at the height of the presidential conventions. But her travels will put her at the center of rising tensions over territorial disputes involving China and its neighbors in the South China Sea. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File, Pool)U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has arrived in the South Pacific at the top of a six-nation Asia tour during which she aims to reassert American interests in the face of China's growing influence and calm rising tensions over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Arrested Russian killer denies ties to Pussy Riot

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 12:56 AM PDT

This image taken from TV footage provided by The Associated Press Television News shows a place where two women stabbed to death were found under this sign on the wall of their apartment in the central Russian city of Kazan on Thursday, Aug. 30, 2012. The sign is presumably written with blood, prosecutors said adding that the murderer probably tried to mislead police by the writing that supports three members of the provocative feminist band jailed for their "punk prayer" at a Moscow cathedral.(AP Photo/APTN) TV OUTInvestigators say police have detained a man who has confessed to killing two women in a central Russian city and trying to mislead investigations by scrawling a message at the murder scene demanding freedom for jailed members of the Pussy Riot band.

Egypt leader in Iran: World must back Syria rebels

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 12:20 PM PDT

In this photo released by the official website of the Iranian supreme leader's office, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, parliament speaker Ali Larijani, right, chief of Expediency Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, second right, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, second left, and judiciary chief Sadeq Larijani, left, listen to Iran's national anthem, at the start of the Nonaligned Movement, NAM, summit, in Tehran, Iran, on Thursday, Aug. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Office of the Supreme Leader)In a sweeping message that Iran is on the wrong side of Syria's civil war, Egypt's new president urged the world Thursday to support the rebels seeking to topple Bashar Assad and suggested that Tehran could risk a deepening confrontation with regional powers over the fate of the regime in Damascus.

Terror attack survivor becomes Paralympian

Posted: 31 Aug 2012 01:03 AM PDT

FILE - In this March 19, 2012 file photo, former marketing manager Martine Wright, works out in a gym with other members of the Great Britain sitting volleyball team, in London. Keep an eye out Friday, Aug. 31, 2012, for No. 7 when Britain plays Ukraine in its first match of the Paralympic Games sitting volleyball tournament. That's Martine Wright, a former marketing manager who was traveling on London's subway on July 7, 2005, when four suicide bombers inspired by Osama bin Laden detonated explosives and killed 52 commuters. She lost both her legs in the explosion. But as Wright will tell you, that was not the end of the story. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)Keep an eye out for No. 7 when Britain plays Ukraine in its first match of the Paralympic Games sitting volleyball tournament Friday.

Venezuela election council takes ad off air

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 11:07 PM PDT

Venezuelan electoral officials have ordered off the air a political ad that depicts the murder of a young man to highlight concerns about crime.

Court extends detention in Pakistan blasphemy case

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 10:51 PM PDT

A Pakistani court has ordered a Christian girl accused of blasphemy to be held in prison for two more weeks as police finalize charges.

Feuding Russian tycoons face London court ruling

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 11:44 PM PDT

FILE This Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011 file photo shows the owner of England's Chelsea Football Club, Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich as he leaves court in London. Russian businessmen Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky. rose to riches together in the chaotic years of post-Soviet Russia and then became archenemies and a British judge will soon rule on which oligarch will defeat the other in a multi-billion-dollar court battle. After a seven-month delay, Judge Elizabeth Gloster is expect to deliver a summary ruling Friday Aug. 31, 2012 to settle the legal feud between Roman Abramovich, the billionaire Chelsea Football Club owner, and self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)A judge is due to rule on a multibillion-dollar legal battle waged between two Russian tycoons in a London courtroom.

Turkey appeals to UN council for Syria safe zone

Posted: 30 Aug 2012 05:51 PM PDT

William Hague, right, U.K. Foreign Minister, and Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., listens during a meeting on Syria in the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, Aug. 30, 2012. Turkey's foreign minister urged the Security Council on Thursday to set up a safe zone in Syria to protect thousands of civilians fleeing the civil war. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)Turkey appealed to a reluctant UN Security Council Thursday for a safe haven for thousands of Syrians facing a "humanitarian disaster" as Britain and France said they would rule out no options — including a no-fly zone — to aid residents fleeing an escalating civil war.
Posted by Harshad at 1:30 AM

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