Thursday, September 20, 2012

Exclusive: Western report - Iran ships arms, personnel to Syria via Iraq

Exclusive: Western report - Iran ships arms, personnel to Syria via Iraq

Exclusive: Western report - Iran ships arms, personnel to Syria via Iraq

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 12:17 AM PDT

An undated handout photo shows Syrian armed forces during a live ammunitions exercise in an undisclosed locationUNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran has been using civilian aircraft to fly military personnel and large quantities of weapons across Iraqi airspace to Syria to aid President Bashar al-Assad in his attempt to crush an 18-month uprising against his government, according to a Western intelligence report seen by Reuters. Earlier this month, U.S. officials said they were questioning Iraq about Iranian flights in Iraqi airspace suspected of ferrying arms to Assad, a staunch Iranian ally. On Wednesday, U.S. Senator John Kerry threatened to review U.S. aid to Baghdad if it does not halt such overflights. ...

In Spain, economic crisis fans Catalan separatism

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 11:03 PM PDT

Marchers wave Catalonian nationalist flags as they demonstrate during Catalan National Day in BarcelonaMADRID (Reuters) - Spain's economic crisis is exposing deep regional fault lines. Among Catalans on Barcelona's boulevards the talk is of independence, and Madrid is worried. This week the king and prime minister called for national unity to get Spain through its worst downturn in decades, King Juan Carlos recalling the spirit that built a democracy after dictator Francisco Franco's death in 1975. ...

India hit by national strike over economic reforms

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 01:34 AM PDT

Demonstrators from the Samajwadi Party shout slogans after they stopped a passenger train during a protest against price hikes in fuel and FDI in retail, near Allahabad railway stationBHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) - Schools, shops and government offices were shut in some Indian states on Thursday as protesters blocked road and rail traffic as part of a one-day nationwide strike against sweeping economic reforms announced by the government last week. The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), joined by smaller parties from both the political left and right, called for the strike to protest against a 14 percent hike in heavily subsidized diesel prices, and a government decision that opens the door to foreign supermarket chains to invest in India. ...

South African miners return to work as unrest spreads

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 11:57 PM PDT

Striking miners dance and cheer after they were informed of a 22 percent wage increase offer outside Lonmin's Marikana mineMARIKANA, South Africa (Reuters) - Thousands of miners at Lonmin's Marikana operations in South Africa returned work on Thursday after a hefty pay hike ended a six-week strike, but nearby mines faced more industrial action with workers demanding similar raises. Shouting "We are reporting for work" in Fanagalo, a pidgin mix of Zulu, English and other African languages, the Lonmin miners were in jubilant mood after securing wage rises of up to 22 percent. ...

UK regulator clears BSkyB of links to hacking scandal

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 01:04 AM PDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's media regulator gave pay-TV firm BSkyB a clean bill of health on Thursday, saying there was no evidence it was linked to a phone hacking scandal which has engulfed Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, its largest shareholder. The investigation by Ofcom, which has clashed repeatedly with BSkyB in the past, had hung over the hugely successful group and raised the prospect of News Corp being forced to sell down some of its near 40 percent holding. ...

Kurdistan seals oil products deal with Baghdad

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 01:20 AM PDT

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan said on Thursday it will receive 147,000 barrels of oil products per day, as part of a deal concluded with Baghdad to end a dispute over oil payments. The deal, which was first outlined last week, will solve only few points of a broader feud between Baghdad and Kurdistan over oil exports, energy policy and territory which have become increasingly contentious topics. ...

Syrian rebels extend grip on Turkish border

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 02:20 PM PDT

Members of the Free Syrian Army are seen with weapons, which activists say were taken from forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar Al Assad, after clashes in Saida near DeraaAKCAKALE, Turkey (Reuters) - Syrian rebels seized another border crossing with Turkey on Wednesday, consolidating their grip on a frontier through which they ferry arms for battles with President Bashar al-Assad's troops around the northern city of Aleppo. Turkey, Assad's ally turned enemy, confirmed the fall of the Tel Abyad border post, the third of seven main crossings along the Turkish-Syrian frontier to come under rebel control - though Syrian state media spoke only of bloody fighting in the area. ...

U.N. chief says anti-Islam filmmaker abused freedom of expression

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 02:42 PM PDT

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon listens to speech in the Swiss National Council during his visit in the Autumn Parliament Session in BernUNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday the maker of an anti-Islam film that triggered violent protests across the Muslim world abused his right to freedom of expression by making the movie, which he called a "disgraceful and shameful act." The film, posted on the Internet under several titles including "Innocence of Muslims," mocked the Prophet Mohammad and portrayed him as a womanizer and a fool. It sparked days of deadly anti-American violence in many Muslim countries, including an assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in Libya in which the U.S. ...

Actress sues California man behind anti-Muslim film

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 08:15 PM PDT

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is escorted out of his home by Los Angeles County Sheriff's officers in Cerritos, CaliforniaLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An actress in an anti-Islam film that triggered violent protests across the Muslim world sued a California man linked to its production on Wednesday for fraud and slander, saying she had received death threats after the video was posted on YouTube. Actress Cindy Lee Garcia, who also named Google Inc and its YouTube unit as defendants, asked that the film be removed from YouTube and said her right to privacy had been violated and her life endangered, among other allegations. ...

Extremists showing up on front lines in Syria

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:57 PM PDT

In this Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012, photo, Col. Abdel-Jabbar Aqidi, a top rebel commander for the Aleppo area, gestures during an interview with the Associated Press, in Dwaar Al Zeytoun, on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. Col. Aqidi told The Associated Press there were maybe 500 jihadis involved in the battle for Aleppo, while a report from the Quilliam Foundation, a London-based think tank studying extremism, estimated a total of 1,200-1,500 foreign fighters total in the whole country. (AP Photo)The bearded gunmen who surrounded the car full of foreign journalists in a northern Syrian village were clearly not Syrians. A heavyset man in a brown gown stepped forward, announced he was Iraqi and fingered through the American passport he had confiscated.

Defending graffiti, and debating Egypt's future

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 11:34 PM PDT

A veiled Egyptian woman walks past newly painted graffiti that reads in Arabic "erase more," on a wall that was whitewashed during a cleanup campaign to erase old murals, in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. Graffiti artists are repainting the walls in Mohammed Mahmoud Street, off Tahrir square, soon after municipal workers have whitewashed over a mural depicting the faces of victims of police brutality and violence over the past two years. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)Under cover of darkness, a few municipality workers quietly began to paint over an icon of Egypt's revolution: a giant, elaborate public mural on the street that saw some of the most violent clashes between protesters and police over the past two years.

Syrian TV: Helicopter crashes near Damascus

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 01:03 AM PDT

A Syrian military helicopter crashed Thursday near the capital, Damascus, state-run TV said.

New French cartoons inflame prophet film tensions

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 03:32 PM PDT

Publishing director of the satyric weekly Charlie Hebdo, Charb, displays the front page of the newspaper as he poses for photographers in Paris, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. Police took up positions outside the Paris offices of the satirical French weekly that published crude caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad on Wednesday that ridicule the film and the furor surrounding it. The provocative weekly, Charlie Hebdo, was firebombed last year after it released a special edition that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a "guest editor" and took aim at radical Islam. (AP Photo/MIchel Euler)France stepped up security Wednesday at its embassies across the Muslim world after a French satirical weekly revived a formula that it has already used to capture attention: Publishing crude, lewd caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

Paris' Louvre Museum unveils Islamic Art wing

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 01:42 AM PDT

The Louvre Museum is unveiling a new wing and galleries dedicated to the arts of Islam, culminating a nearly €100 million ($130 million), decade-long project coming to fruition amid tensions between the Muslim world and the West.

In protests, Mao holds subtle messages for Beijing

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 01:38 AM PDT

Revolutionary leader Mao Zedong was the rallying icon of nationalism in the latest round of anti-Japanese protests in China. But he also provided a safe cover for criticism.

Catholic official worried about Israel attacks

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 01:35 AM PDT

FILE- In this Sept. 4, 2012, file photo, a Catholic monk stands in a doorway of the Latrun Trappist Monastery where Israeli police say vandals spray-painted anti-Christian and pro-settler graffiti and set the monastery's door on fire, in Latrun, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel. After a series of attacks on Christian holy sites in Israel, Roman Catholic church officials recently issued a rare "declaration" calling on Israeli leaders to take action against vandalism and violence.(AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File)After a series of attacks by vandals on Christian holy sites in Israel, normally tight-lipped Roman Catholic officials are beginning to speak out, publicly appealing to authorities to take a stronger stand against the violence.

Doubts over Harvard claim of 'Jesus' Wife' papyrus

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 09:58 AM PDT

Karen King, a professor at Harvard Divinity School, is interviewed outside the Augustinianum institute where an international congress on Coptic studies is held in Rome, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. Scholars are questioning the authenticity and significance of a much-publicized discovery by a Harvard scholar who reported that a 4th Century fragment of papyrus has provided the first evidence that some early Christians believed Jesus was married. Karen King announced the finding Tuesday at an international congress on Coptic studies in Rome. Her paper, and the front-page attention it received in some U.S. newspapers, was very much a topic of conversation during the coffee breaks at the conference Wednesday. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)Is a scrap of papyrus suggesting that Jesus had a wife authentic?

Poles help Belarus, recalling own repressive past

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 12:25 AM PDT

In this photo taken Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012, Aliaksandr Atroshchankau, a democracy activist who was arrested in 2010 after working as the spokesman for presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, talks to The Associated Press in Warsaw, Poland on about Poland's efforts to promote democratic values in Belarus. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)Volha Starastsina saw no choice but to flush her work down the police station toilet.

Russia accuses USAID of trying to sway elections

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 03:36 PM PDT

Russia explained its decision to end the U.S. Agency for International Development's two decades of work in Russia by saying Wednesday that the agency was using its money to influence elections — a claim the U.S. denied.
Posted by Harshad at 1:59 AM

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