Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Syrian air force on offensive after failed truce

Syrian air force on offensive after failed truce

Syrian air force on offensive after failed truce

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 04:51 PM PDT

Smoke rises after a Syrian Air Force fighter jet loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad fired missiles at Hamouria, near DamascusAMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian warplanes bombed rebel targets with renewed intensity on Tuesday after the end of a widely ignored four-day truce between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and insurgents. State television said "terrorists" had assassinated an air force general, Abdullah Mahmoud al-Khalidi, in a Damascus suburb, the latest of several rebel attacks on senior officials. In July, a bomb killed four of Assad's aides, including his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and the defense minister. ...

Afghanistan presidential election set for April 2014

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 11:08 PM PDT

Afghanistan's President Karzai speaks during a news conference in KabulKABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan will hold its next presidential election on April 5, 2014, the Election Commission announced on Wednesday. President Hamid Karzai, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, had denied speculation that security problems and the exit of foreign troops that year would delay the poll. The credibility of the vote will be vital to the security and stability of Afghanistan after the final foreign combat troops have left by the end of 2014. Karzai's re-election in 2009 was blighted by allegations of fraud. ...

U.S. and EU push for progress in troubled Balkans

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 02:47 PM PDT

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks next to Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic during a news conference following meetings at the Palace of Serbia in BelgradeSARAJEVO (Reuters) - Europe and the United States teamed up on Tuesday to press Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo to overcome the legacy of Yugoslavia's bloody collapse as a condition of closer integration with the West. "If you do not make progress you will be left behind," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned at the start of a trip to the region with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. NATO member Croatia will follow Slovenia in joining the 27-nation EU next year, but accession is a very distant prospect for the other five countries carved from federal Yugoslavia in the 1990s. ...

EU will lose Turkey if it hasn't joined by 2023: Erdogan

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 03:36 PM PDT

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan attends the opening session of the 28th session of the COMCEC in IstanbulBERLIN (Reuters) - The European Union will lose Turkey if it doesn't grant it membership by 2023, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday. It was the first time Erdogan has given an indication of how long Ankara might continue down the path towards EU entry, and his comments came at a time of growing alienation between Turkey and a political entity it feels has cold-shouldered it. ...

Myanmar opium output rises despite eradication effort

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 10:36 PM PDT

Local villager walks after assisting authorities to destroy a poppy field above the village of Tar-Pu in mountains of Shan State(Reuters) - Opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar has risen for the sixth consecutive year despite a state eradication campaign, a United Nations report said on Wednesday, throwing doubt on government assertions the problem would be over by 2014. Unprecedented eradication efforts managed to destroy almost 24,000 hectares (59,280 acres) of poppy fields in the 2012 season, running from the autumn 2011 to early summer this year, more than triple the previous year's total. But the U.N. ...

Greek government gets key backing to pass reforms

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 02:42 PM PDT

Banking sector employees march in front of the parliament during a rally against planned reforms at their pension fund in central AthensATHENS (Reuters) - An overwhelming majority of Greek Socialist lawmakers have agreed to vote in favor of contested austerity reforms, party officials told Reuters on Tuesday, sharply increasing the odds of securing parliamentary approval for the measures. Near-bankrupt Greece needs to push through spending cuts and tax measures worth 13.5 billion euros as well as a raft of reforms to appease EU and IMF lenders and secure bailout money needed to avoid running out of cash next month. ...

UK government report criticizes growth strategy

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 07:39 PM PDT

Demonstrators carry placards during a protest march in central LondonLONDON (Reuters) - Britain's growth strategy of tax cuts and deregulation will not provide a fast track to economic prosperity and needs to be reassessed, according to a government-commissioned review published on Wednesday. Lord Heseltine, the former Conservative Party deputy prime minister, warned in his six-month study on the government's economic policy that "continuing as we are is not an acceptable option. ...

Yemen LNG gas pipeline blown up again

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 10:12 PM PDT

Flames rise from Yemen's main gas pipeline after it was blown up by unknown attackersDUBAI (Reuters) - A gas pipeline feeding Yemen's only liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal was blown up again on Tuesday night, the operating company said on Wednesday. "Yemen LNG confirms the sabotage of the 38 inch gas pipeline that links the block 18 to the Balhaf terminal on the Gulf of Aden," said the company, run by France's Total. "The explosion occurred at 2200 on October 30, 2012 at 295 km north of Balhaf Liquefaction Plant. ...

Pakistan says protects rights, West disagrees

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 12:12 PM PDT

Pakistani soldiers guard a street in GilgitGENEVA (Reuters) - Pakistan, plagued by Islamists militancy, sectarian violence and frequent disasters that push its people deeper into poverty, told the United Nations on Tuesday it is a democratic and progressive state working to protect human rights. But Western countries and the normally anti-Western Belarus countered that in Pakistan religious minorities were persecuted, that dissent was often brutally suppressed by the army, and that little was done to tackle human trafficking. Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told the U.N. ...

Iran pulls back from nuclear bomb goal: Israeli defense minister

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 11:42 AM PDT

Israel's Defence Minister Barak attends cabinet meeting in JerusalemLONDON (Reuters) - Iran has drawn back from its ambitions to build a nuclear weapon, Israel's defense minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday, while warning that his country may still have to decide next year whether to launch a military strike against it. Tehran denies its nuclear work has any military dimensions but governments in Europe and the United States are increasingly concerned over its intentions. Diplomacy and successive rounds of economic sanctions have so far failed to end the decade-old row, raising fears of Israeli military action against its arch-enemy. ...

Greek journalists strike to protest austerity plan

Posted: 31 Oct 2012 12:52 AM PDT

A woman passes an array of displays at the Stock Exchange in Athens Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Shares recovered slightly from heavy losses Monday, amid continued uncertainty over a new austerity package due to divisions in the country's coalition government. Conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said Tuesday that the government had essentially ended negotiations on new austerity measures and warned of "chaos" if the reforms are not passed. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)Greek lawmakers are to vote Wednesday on a privatization bill that will be the first major test for the country's troubled governing coalition, while journalists have walked off the job at the start of rolling 24-hour strikes to protest austerity plans that will affect their healthcare funds.

Syria activists report 23 dead in Damascus suburb

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 02:13 PM PDT

In this Monday, Oct. 29, 2012 photo, a rebel sniper aims at Syrian army positions in the Aleppo Jedida district, Syria. Syrian fighter jets pounded rebel areas across the country on Monday with scores of airstrikes that anti-regime activists called the most widespread bombing in a single day since Syria's troubles started 19 months ago. (AP Photo/Narciso Contreras).Airstrikes by Syrian jets and shells from tanks leveled a neighborhood in a restive city near the capital of Damascus on Tuesday, killing 18 people, and at least five rebel fighters died nearby in clashes with regime troops, activists said.

Plague of office-buying wears at China's image

Posted: 31 Oct 2012 01:13 AM PDT

In this photo taken on Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012, retired employees of a government office have a light moment at an old hospital administration building in Xilinhot in northern China's Inner Mongolia. Buying and selling office is so rampant in China that it has eroded public trust in officialdom, undermining the ruling Communist Party's image as an institute that promotes the competent, not the connected. Even though Chinese leaders have vowed to eradicate the practice, it has showed no sign of abatement. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)In a small town in northern China's Inner Mongolia where sheep and cattle easily outnumber humans, Fan Chen paid a party boss three times an average urban resident's annual salary to become a local police chief.

In Sudan blast, signs of Iran and Israel's rivalry

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 11:36 AM PDT

FILE -Part of the Yarmouk military complex in Khartoum, Sudan seen in a satellite image made on October 25 2012, following an alleged attack. A U.S. monitoring group says satellite images of the aftermath of an explosion at a Sudanese weapons factory suggest the site was hit by an airstrike. The Sudanese government has accused Israel of bombing its Yarmouk military complex on Oct 23, killing two people and leaving the factory in ruins. Analysts speculate that the 40 shipping containers which were destroyed in the central area of the image may have contained Iranian missiles bound for Gaza. (AP Photo/ DigitalGlobe via Satellite Sentinel Project, File)A suspected Israeli airstrike against a weapons factory in Khartoum last week points to a possible escalation in a hidden front of the rivalry between Israel and Iran: The arms pipeline through Sudan to Islamic militants on Israel's borders.

French government gets anti-sexism lessons

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 10:30 AM PDT

FILE - In this May, 17, 2012 file photo, French President Francois Hollande, second right, and Prime Minister Jean-Luc Ayrault, center, pose with women of the cabinet after the first weekly cabinet meeting, at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has asked the French equality ministry to set up a series of 45 minute workshops, where politicians are given examples of sexism in daily life and with the aid of slide-shows taught how to avoid sexist stereotypes in political communication. First row from the left: Housing Minister Cecile Duflot, Women's Rights minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, Social Affairs Minister Marisol Touraine, Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, right. second row from the left: Deputy Justice Minister delphine Batho, Deputy Education Minister George Pau-Langevin, Sports Minister Valerie Fourneyron, Culture Minister Aurelie Filippeti, Family Affairs Dominique Bertinotti, State Labor Minister Marylise Lebranchu, Environment Minister Nicole Bricq. Top from the left: Minister for Small Business and the Digital Economy Fleur Pellerin, Deputy minister in charge of French citizen living abroad and French speaking countries Yamina Benguigui , second right, and Elderly People Minister Michele Delaunay. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)First there was Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who allegedly referred to women as "material," then catcalls in the French Parliament just because a female government minister wore a floral dress.

Iran orchestra finale rings of hard-line pressure

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 08:47 AM PDT

In this picture taken on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010, members of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra rehearse at the Roudaki hall in Tehran, Iran. Iran's national symphony orchestra has been disbanded for lack of funds, musicians said, another sign of the effects of Western economic sanctions. Orchestra members told the semiofficial ILNA news agency Monday Oct 29 2012 that they have not rehearsed together and have not been paid for three months(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)It was a VIP audience for what was likely the last performance of the venerable Tehran Symphony Orchestra. Watching from the front row in late August was Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in what was seen as an endorsement from the ruling theocracy, which once tried to stamp out all music as a violation of Islamic values.

Chinese think tank urges end to one-child policy

Posted: 31 Oct 2012 12:41 AM PDT

A Chinese woman plays with her grandchild at the Ritan Park in Beijing Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012. A government think tank says China should start phasing out its one-child policy immediately and allow two children for every family by 2015. It remains unclear whether Chinese leaders are ready to take that step. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)A Chinese government think tank is urging the country's leaders to start phasing out its one-child policy immediately and allow two children for every family by 2015, a daring proposal to do away with the unpopular policy.

In workshops, fields, Egyptian children at work

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 05:51 PM PDT

In this Oct. 18, 2012 photo, Ezzat, an Egyptian child paints clay pottery in front of his house in old Cairo, Egypt. The Egyptian government estimates that some 1.6 million minors work - almost 10 percent of population aged 17 or under, often in arduous conditions. Other experts put the number at nearly twice that. Some child labor activists worry that protections for children could be loosened further under the new constitution still being written. Earlier this month, the Egyptian Coalition for Children's Rights warned that early drafts of the document did not include as firm prohibitions on child labor as past constitutions.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)It's early in the morning, and 13-year-old Ezzat is hard at work in one of Cairo's pottery workshops in an ancient part of the Egyptian capital. He sorts through the day's production. In the same area of workshops, three barefoot boys under the age of 12 carry clay pieces from inside the factory out into the sun to dry.

UBS slashes business in turnaround bid

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 11:43 AM PDT

FILE- City trader Kweku Adoboli, arrives at Court in London in this file photo dated Thursday Sept. 22, 2011, where he is accused of fraud and false accounting at Swiss banking giant UBS. Adoboli broke down in tears as he took the stand for the first time Friday Oct. 26, 2012, as he insisted he had acted purely to help save the bank he considered his family. Adoboli has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. (AP Photo/Sang Tan, File)Scarred by scandals and losses, Swiss bank UBS unveiled Tuesday a plan to overhaul its global operations that will see it cut thousands of jobs as it drops risky trading activities and restructures its investment banking unit.

Indigenous vs. multinationals in Mexico wind power

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 11:10 PM PDT

FILE - In this Jan. 22, 2009, file photo, people watch during the inauguration of a new $550 million wind farm project in La Ventosa, Mexico, located on the narrow isthmus between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Mexican President Felipe Calderon has made the inauguration of wind parks one of the main focuses of his administration's ambitious pledge to cut Mexico's carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2020, and once again Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, as he has done before, he stopped in the state of Oaxaca to inaugurate a new clutch of wind turbines. (AP Photo/Mark Stevenson, file)Mexico is putting up wind power turbines at a breakneck pace and the expansion is pitting energy companies against the Indians who live in one of the windiest spots in the world.

Hurricane Sandy puts renewed pressure on food supply in Haiti

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 12:45 PM PDT

Before turning its sights on the United States, Hurricane Sandy left a fresh disaster in Haiti, killing dozens and flooding cities and farmland. The storm set off fears of renewed challenges, including spiking food prices and a new cholera outbreak.

Iranian warships dock in Sudan after alleged Israeli airstrikes

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 10:45 AM PDT

Sudan's links to Iran came under scrutiny Tuesday as it welcomed two Iranian warships less than a week after an explosion at a Khartoum weapons warehouse that Sudanese officials blamed on an Israeli airstrike.

Prospect of show trial stirs some Russians' memories of Stalinism

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 09:31 AM PDT

Many Russian activists say they fear a big political show trial is being prepared by the Kremlin's powerful Investigative Committee, and some are calling it a creeping revival of Stalin-era methods of repression. The aim, they say, will be to intimidate all Russians who think about taking to the streets to protest against President Vladimir Putin.

What will the Afghanistan war legacy be?

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 07:54 AM PDT

There may be two years left on the clock for the war in Afghanistan, but NATO's ability to shape events has largely come to an end, with the fighting at a stalemate, stalled peace negotiations, and incidents of Afghan security forces turning against their international counterparts.

Neither heat nor gloom ... Afghan post office delivers

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 07:19 AM PDT

Ten years ago, the Afghan postal service lay in near total ruin, undone by the nation's civil war. Sending a letter usually meant having to find someone traveling in the direction of the recipient willing to carry a note and hoping for the best.

Yemenis suspect Iran's hand in rise of Shiite rebels

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 06:25 AM PDT

While the graffiti on the walls of Rayda's bullet-scarred Awadin Mosque condemns the United States and Israel, the clashes that briefly transformed this agrarian town into a war zone were fought between local foes.

Myanmar unrest threatens to destabilize democracy and region

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 06:03 AM PDT

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Pirate attacks off Somalia plummet thanks to navies, armed guards

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 05:56 AM PDT

Pirate attacks off Somalia have plummeted 65 percent, to their lowest level since 2009, but analysts warn that these gains could be reversed without sustained efforts to cement security onshore.

China's leadership shakeup: Am I an unfortunate casualty?

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 05:39 AM PDT

Take me back to the days of carrier pigeons and cleft sticks.
Posted by Harshad at 1:36 AM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)