Friday, September 21, 2012

Egypt's mufti urges Muslims to endure insults peacefully

Egypt's mufti urges Muslims to endure insults peacefully

Egypt's mufti urges Muslims to endure insults peacefully

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 10:44 PM PDT

Riot policemen stand guard outside the French embassy in SanaaCAIRO (Reuters) - Muslims angered by cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammad should follow his example of enduring insults without retaliating, Egypt's highest Islamic legal official said. Western embassies tightened security in Sanaa, fearing the cartoons published in a French magazine on Wednesday could lead to more unrest in the Yemeni capital where crowds attacked the U.S. mission last week over an anti-Islam film made in America. ...

China's Xi seeks to reassure Southeast Asia on sea dispute

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 10:56 PM PDT

China's Vice President Xi listens to U.S. Secretary of Defense Panetta in BeijingBEIJING (Reuters) - China's leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping sought to reassure Southeast Asian leaders on Friday that his country wanted only peaceful relations with them, following months of growing tensions over the strategically located South China Sea. Speaking at the opening of a trade fair in southern China for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members, Vice President Xi said China's own prosperity could only be guaranteed by having good relations with its neighbors. ...

Japanese firms say China protests affect business plans: Reuters poll

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 11:51 PM PDT

A man kicks the door of a Japanese pub decorated with Chinese national flags during a protest on the 81st anniversary of Japan's invasion of China, in ShenzhenTOKYO (Reuters) - About 41 percent of Japanese firms see an escalating territorial row with China affecting their business plans, with some considering pulling out of the country and shifting operations elsewhere, a Reuters poll showed on Friday. The Reuters poll comes as relations between Asia's two biggest economies have hit their lowest point in decades over a dispute centered on an uninhabited group of islands in the East China Sea -- known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. ...

AngloGold workers strike at South African mine

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 11:08 PM PDT

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Workers have embarked on an illegal strike at a South African mine run by world No. 3 bullion producer AngloGold Ashanti, a company spokesman said on Friday, signaling spreading labor unrest in the mining sector. "The night shift embarked on an unprotected strike at Kopanang and the morning shift didn't go down either," company spokesman Alan Fine said. Fine said the mine has 5,000 workers and the strikers had not yet communicated their demands to the company. ...

Insight: Chavez plays populist card for Venezuela election

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 10:02 PM PDT

Venezuelan President Chavez plays a guitar, which was a gift from Mexican singer Vicente Fernandez, during a cabinet meeting at Miraflores Palace in CaracasSABANETA, Venezuela (Reuters) - To understand why President Hugo Chavez may win yet another election in Venezuela next month, go and sit under the mango trees of Los Rastrojos or Sabaneta. There, in the rural villages of his childhood at the heart of Venezuela's great savannah or "llanos," family and friends pour out tales of a boy whose motor-mouth and popular touch - now mainstays of his rule - were evident early on. ...

Libya offers further apology for U.S. envoy's death

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 01:45 PM PDT

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns arrives in TripoliTRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya apologized on Thursday to visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns for an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in which U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died. Burns held talks in Tripoli with Libyan leaders including new Prime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagour and Mohammed Magarief, head of the national congress. He later attended a memorial ceremony for Stevens and his colleagues. ...

U.S. lifts ban on New Zealand warships, New Zealand keeps nuclear-free stance

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 11:34 PM PDT

U.S. Secretary of Defense Panetta smiles next to New Zealand's Minister of Defence Coleman in AucklandAUCKLAND (Reuters) - The United States has lifted a ban on visits by New Zealand warships to U.S. defense and coast guard bases around the world, further thawing relations after a 26-year stand-off on nuclear issues. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made the announcement during a visit to New Zealand on Friday. He said Washington would lift restrictions on military exercises and facilitate more talks with New Zealand even though Wellington maintains its long-held nuclear-free stance. ...

Chinese democracy experiment marked by protest a year on

Posted: 21 Sep 2012 12:38 AM PDT

Villagers gather outside the Wukan Communist Party offices to protest against the land grab disputes in Wukan village in the southern Chinese province of GuangdongWUKAN, China (Reuters) - One of China's most celebrated experiments in grass-roots democracy showed signs of faltering on Friday, as frustrations with elected officials in the southern fishing village of Wukan triggered a small and angry protest. On the first anniversary of an uprising that gave birth to the experiment, more than 100 villagers rallied outside Wukan's Communist Party offices to express anger at what they saw as slow progress by the village's democratically elected governing committee to resolve local land disputes. ...

China sets Monday verdict for ex-police chief at heart of Bo scandal

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 08:32 PM PDT

Still image of former police chief Wang speaking during a court hearing in ChengduBEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court will announce its verdict on a former police chief at the centre of the country's biggest political scandal in decades on Monday, an official said, with observers in little doubt that he will be found guilty. The hearing for Wang Lijun, former police chief of southwestern Chongqing municipality, will come a week after he was tried in Chengdu on multiple charges, chiefly that he sought to cover up the murder of a British businessman by Gu Kailai, the wife of one of China's most senior and ambitious politicians, Bo Xilai. ...

Norway PM to reshuffle cabinet on Friday: media

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 11:03 PM PDT

OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg will reshuffle his cabinet on Friday, hoping to revive the fortunes of his Labour Party a year before parliamentary elections, local media said on Friday. Trailing the conservative opposition in opinion polls, Stoltenberg will move his foreign, defense, health and culture ministers and replace the labour minister in what is expected to be the last big major reshuffle before the autumn 2013 ballot, public broadcaster NRK and daily VG said. ...

iPhone 5 launch draws Apple fans across Asia

Posted: 21 Sep 2012 12:41 AM PDT

Kae Shibata 20, left, and Yutaro Noji, 21, show off Apple's iPhone 5 after they bought at a store in Tokyo Friday morning, Sept. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)In a now familiar global ritual, Apple fans jammed shops from Sydney to Tokyo to pick up the tech juggernaut's latest iPhone.

West accuses Iran of shipping arms to Syria

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 07:12 PM PDT

The four Western powers trying to rein in Iran's nuclear program accused Tehran on Thursday of shipping arms to Syria in violation of U.N. sanctions and ignoring demands to open key nuclear facilities to U.N. inspectors.

Mideast ambitions: Turkey and Egypt seek alliance

Posted: 21 Sep 2012 12:19 AM PDT

FILE - In Monday, Sept. 17, 2012 file photo released by the Egyptian President, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, right, meets with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, Egypt. The question of who speaks for the Middle East, which is chronically prone to turmoil, has no easy answer. There is a sectarian rift, a divide over tradition and modernity, and a divide over secularism and religion. Amid this cacophony, Turkey and Egypt, both with claims to regional leadership, are seeking a closer partnership even though their visions and circumstances differ starkly.(AP Photo/Egyptian Presidency, File)The image of an Ottoman sultan glowered at the gridlock from a highway billboard in the Egyptian capital, hands clasped, his feathered headgear and gold-hewn epaulettes in elegant contrast to the grind of traffic below. The poster for a Turkish-made movie about the 1453 fall of Constantinople recalled the early feats of an empire that eventually ruled the Middle East and beyond.

Iran's president assails West over prophet film

Posted: 21 Sep 2012 12:08 AM PDT

A Pakistani protester hurls back a tear gas canister fired by police, not pictured, during clashes that erupted as protestors tried to approach the U.S. embassy, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012. Hundreds of Pakistanis angry at an anti-Islam film that denigrates the religion's prophet clashed with police in the Pakistani capital Thursday, the most violent show of anger in a day that saw smaller demonstrations in Indonesia, Iran and Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)The Iranian president has lashed out at the West over an anti-Islam film produced in the United States and the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by a French satirical weekly.

Syrian activists: airstrikes kill at least 30

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 12:12 PM PDT

In this image taken from video obtained Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012 from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, people are seen after an airstrike on a gas station in Raqqa, Syria. Syrian opposition activists said a regime airstrike hit a gas station in the north of the country Thursday, setting off an explosion that killed and wounded dozens of people. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)Regime airstrikes hit a gas station in northern Syria Thursday, setting off a fiery explosion that killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens, opposition activists said. Amateur video showed thick black smoke engulfing the scene.

Shell sues Greenpeace to stop Artic protests

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 11:57 PM PDT

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is suing Greenpeace International in Dutch court in an attempt to end protests against its plans to drill for offshore oil in the Artic Sea.

Japan's Noda to remain PM after ruling party vote

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 11:50 PM PDT

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda handily beat three other contenders in a ruling party leadership election Friday and will remain Japan's leader a while longer.

Libya's Benghazi keeps its air of rebelliousness

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 12:12 PM PDT

Libyans fishing at the Seaport shore cornice, in Benghazi, Libya, Monday, Sept. 20, 2012. In front of Benghazi's stock market, there are lakes of sewage in the street, and the grandest hotel here is a gloomy hulk with broken windows and dim corridors. The city that was the site of a deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate was the heart of Libya's revolution, and now its residents are discontent with the new leadership in Tripoli.(AP photo/Mohammad Hannon)In front of Benghazi's stock market, pedestrians pick their way around lakes of sewage in the street, carefully stepping on bricks set in the fetid water. The grandest hotel in Libya's second largest city is a gloomy, state-owned bulk, with broken windows and dim corridors.

UK soldier unexpectedly gives birth in Afghanistan

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 12:01 PM PDT

FILE- A British armored vehicle patrols on the periphery of the camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan, in this Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2007 file photo. The Taliban claimed responsibility on Saturday Sept 15 2012 for an attack against the sprawling British base in southern Afghanistan that killed two U.S. Marines and wounded several other troops, saying it was to avenge an anti-Islamic film which insulted the Prophet Muhammad and also because Britain's Prince Harry is serving there.The camp Bastion, which is the middle of the Afghanistan desert, locally called Dasht-e-Margo or 'the desert of death' houses some 3,500 British servicemen and provides logistic supports to all the troops for their various operations in Southern Afghan. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)Hours after a British soldier in Afghanistan told medics she was suffering from stomach pains, the Royal Artillery gunner unexpectedly gave birth to a boy — the first child ever born to a member of Britain's armed forces in combat.

US to reinstate New Zealand military ship visits

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 07:20 PM PDT

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, center, reviews an honor guard during an official ceremony at the Government House in Auckland, New Zealand Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. Panetta become the first Pentagon chief to visit the South Pacific nation in 30 years as the U.S. tries to rebuild military ties that were fractured when New Zealand banned nuclear warships from its shores. (AP Photo/Larry Downing, Pool)After a 25-year ban, America will begin allowing Royal New Zealand Navy ships to visit U.S. military and Coast Guard facilities around the world, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday.
Posted by Harshad at 1:26 AM

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