France keeps up Mali air strikes, African troop plan advances

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• France keeps up Mali air strikes, African troop plan advances
• Exclusive: Brazil wants Venezuela election if Chavez dies - sources
• Pakistan government will not bow to cleric: minister
• U.S. delegation seeks to calm spats between Japan, South Korea
• Senate Republican leader wants 10,000 troops in Afghanistan
• Obama meets new Saudi interior minister at White House
• Train carrying army recruits derails in Egypt, 19 killed
• Cuban dissidents cleared for travel under new law
• Netanyahu conundrum faces Iranian riddle
• Syria war envelops region in "staggering" crisis: aid agency
• France girds for new threats after Mali operation
• French lead all-night bombing campaign in Diabaly
• Thousands rally for 2nd day in Pakistani capital
• 19 killed in Egypt train crash
• Russia plans unmanned moon mission in 2015
• Venezuela struggles with sporadic food shortages
• Lines at Cuba travel agencies on day 1 of new law
• Severe Beijing smog prompts openness from government
• Al-Qaida carves out own country in Mali
• Mubarak's new trial could answer a key question
• Good Reads: Thick financial fog, unskilled workers, self-helped Americans, and a forgiveness that heals
• French government unfazed by massive anti-gay marriage protest
• French public backs Mali intervention, but for how long?
• What is Pakistan's 'million-march'?
• Back in Afghanistan, Karzai shifts tone on US troop immunity
• Kremlin: Adoption ban needed to create 'Russia Without Orphans'
• Mali Islamists threaten to retaliate 'at the heart of France'
• Havana scraps exit visas, but most Cubans won't be going abroad

France keeps up Mali air strikes, African troop plan advances Posted: 15 Jan 2013 12:25 AM PST BAMAKO (Reuters) - France kept up its air strikes against Islamist rebels in Mali as plans to deploy African troops gathered pace on Tuesday amid concerns that delays could endanger a wider mission to dislodge al Qaeda and its allies. France has already poured hundreds of troops into Mali and carried out days of air strikes since Friday in a vast desert area seized last year by an Islamist alliance that combines al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM with Mali's home-grown MUJWA and Ansar Dine rebel groups. ...

Exclusive: Brazil wants Venezuela election if Chavez dies - sources Posted: 14 Jan 2013 06:09 PM PST SAO PAULO/BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil is urging Venezuela's government to hold elections as quickly as possible if President Hugo Chavez dies, senior officials told Reuters on Monday, a major intervention by Latin America's regional powerhouse that could help ensure a smoother leadership transition in Caracas. Brazilian officials have expressed their wishes directly to Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro, the officials said on condition of anonymity. Chavez has designated Maduro as his preferred successor if he loses his battle with cancer. ...

Pakistan government will not bow to cleric: minister Posted: 14 Jan 2013 10:18 PM PST ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces fired shots in the air on Tuesday to quell supporters of a populist Muslim cleric calling for the resignation of the beleaguered government while the interior minister dismissed his demands as unconstitutional. Sufi cleric Muhammad Tahirul Qadri, believed to be backed by Pakistan's powerful military, has brought tens of thousands of followers to the capital Islamabad to demand the resignation of top political leaders in the civilian government and electoral reforms to stamp out corruption. ...

U.S. delegation seeks to calm spats between Japan, South Korea Posted: 14 Jan 2013 10:02 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States sent its top Asian diplomacy and security officials to South Korea and Japan to calm tensions between two U.S. allies whose squabbling has frustrated efforts to deal with a troublesome North Korea and an increasingly assertive China. The high-powered delegation from the White House, Pentagon and State Department departed on Monday and will be visiting the region shortly after the election of a new nationalist-leaning Japanese government in December and before Seoul inaugurates a new president in February. ...

Senate Republican leader wants 10,000 troops in Afghanistan Posted: 14 Jan 2013 10:35 AM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday he thinks that 10,000 U.S. troops should remain in Afghanistan after 2014, when President Barack Obama wants to withdraw most combat troops. McConnell has just finished a visit to Afghanistan with a small group of his fellow Republican senators, his seventh trip there in the past decade. "I think we're going to need a minimum of about 10,000 troops here to provide adequate training and counterterrorism in the post-2014 period. ...

Obama meets new Saudi interior minister at White House Posted: 14 Jan 2013 01:16 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama met Saudi Arabia's new interior minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, on Monday to discuss security and regional issues, the White House said. Prince Mohammed, appointed in November after the death of his father, veteran Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, is best known as Saudi Arabia's long-time security chief and has garnered the praise of Western governments for his role in the campaign against al Qaeda. ...

Train carrying army recruits derails in Egypt, 19 killed Posted: 14 Jan 2013 07:19 PM PST CAIRO (Reuters) - A military train carrying young recruits to an army camp derailed in a Cairo suburb on Tuesday, killing 19 people and injuring 107, Egypt's health ministry spokesman said. The train was traveling from Upper Egypt to Cairo when it derailed in the Giza neighborhood of Badrashin, a security source said, adding that the train was a military vehicle carrying conscripted youth on their way to an army camp. The injured passengers were taken to hospitals, Ahmed Omar, the health ministry spokesman, told the state news agency MENA. ...

Cuban dissidents cleared for travel under new law Posted: 14 Jan 2013 06:16 PM PST HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's new, freer travel policy took effect on Monday and for some notable Cuban dissidents it turned out to offer greater freedom than they had expected. Well-known government opponents Yoani Sanchez and Guillermo Farinas were told they would be granted passports and allowed to come and go after years of being denied that right. Under laws put into effect to slow migration after the 1959 revolution, Cubans were required to get an exit visa from the government and a letter of invitation from someone in their destination country, but the new policy drops both. ...

Netanyahu conundrum faces Iranian riddle Posted: 14 Jan 2013 11:08 AM PST JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a simple message as he seeks a third term in office - he is a strong man and a vote for him at parliamentary elections on January 22 means Israel will be a powerful nation. The Hebrew word for strong, "hazak", peppers the television adverts of his right-wing Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu party like a compulsive mantra and is smeared across the blue-and-white campaign posters that dominate billboards around the country. ...

Syria war envelops region in "staggering" crisis: aid agency Posted: 14 Jan 2013 11:32 AM PST BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's civil war is unleashing a "staggering humanitarian crisis" on the Middle East as hundreds of thousands of refugees flee violence including gang rape, an international aid agency said on Monday. Opposition activists said an air strike on rebel-held territory southwest of Damascus killed 20 people, including women and children, adding to the more than 60,000 people estimated to have been killed in the 21-month-old conflict. ...

France girds for new threats after Mali operation Posted: 15 Jan 2013 01:05 AM PST PARIS (AP) — France's top security official says the country is ready to prevent new terror attacks after its military operation to push back al-Qaida-linked insurgents grabbing territory in Mali.

French lead all-night bombing campaign in Diabaly Posted: 15 Jan 2013 12:40 AM PST BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Residents of the besieged town of Diabaly say they are cowering inside their homes, after an all-night bombing campaign by French special forces, aimed at dislodging the Islamic extremists who seized the town on Monday.

Thousands rally for 2nd day in Pakistani capital Posted: 14 Jan 2013 11:51 PM PST ISLAMABAD (AP) — Thousands of anti-government protesters heeding the call of a firebrand cleric rallied in the streets of the Pakistani capital Tuesday for a second day despite early morning clashes with police who launched tear gas and fired shots into the air to push back stone-throwing demonstrators.

19 killed in Egypt train crash Posted: 14 Jan 2013 07:29 PM PST CAIRO (AP) — At least 19 people died and more than 100 were injured when two railroad passenger cars derailed just south of Cairo after midnight Monday, health officials said.

Russia plans unmanned moon mission in 2015 Posted: 15 Jan 2013 12:42 AM PST MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian Space Agency says it will send a spacecraft to the moon in 2015 from a new launch pad in the country's Far East.

Venezuela struggles with sporadic food shortages Posted: 14 Jan 2013 11:45 PM PST CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Mireya Bustamante spent most of the day trying in vain to find flour to bake a birthday cake for her 4-year-old son.

Lines at Cuba travel agencies on day 1 of new law Posted: 14 Jan 2013 06:49 PM PST HAVANA (AP) — Cubans formed long lines outside travel agencies and migration offices in Havana on Monday as a highly anticipated new law took effect ending the island's much-hated exit visa requirement.

Severe Beijing smog prompts openness from government Posted: 14 Jan 2013 07:28 PM PST BEIJING (AP) — One of Beijing's worst rounds of air pollution kept schoolchildren indoors and sent coughing residents to hospitals, but this time something was different about the murky haze: the government's transparency in talking about it.

Al-Qaida carves out own country in Mali Posted: 14 Jan 2013 11:49 AM PST BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Deep inside caves, in remote desert bases, in the escarpments and cliff faces of northern Mali, Islamic extremist fighters have been burrowing into the earth, erecting a formidable set of defenses to protect what has essentially become al-Qaida's new country.

Mubarak's new trial could answer a key question Posted: 14 Jan 2013 01:54 PM PST CAIRO (AP) — Hosni Mubarak's new trial may resolve key questions unanswered in his first one: Who ordered the crackdown that left some 900 protesters dead and who pulled the trigger?

Good Reads: Thick financial fog, unskilled workers, self-helped Americans, and a forgiveness that heals Posted: 14 Jan 2013 04:24 PM PST Here's the short answer to the question posed on the cover of the latest Atlantic Monthly, "What's inside America's banks?": No one knows. Not the regulators, not sophisticated investors, and not even the bankers themselves.

French government unfazed by massive anti-gay marriage protest Posted: 14 Jan 2013 02:33 PM PST Opponents to a government-sponsored bill that would legalize marriage and adoption for same-sex couples took the streets of Paris Sunday in the biggest demonstration over a social issue in France in nearly 30 years.

French public backs Mali intervention, but for how long? Posted: 14 Jan 2013 02:15 PM PST Despite the suddenness of France's military involvement in Mali, President François Hollande's decision to send troops to the troubled African nation has been well received across the French political spectrum. French politicians from nearly all the country's parties have thus far supported the campaign, which has seen early successes in stopping the southward advance of Mali's al-Qaeda-linked rebels who seized control of the country's north in the first half of last year.

What is Pakistan's 'million-march'? Posted: 14 Jan 2013 02:12 PM PST Tens of thousands of protesters, including women and children, are gathering in Islamabad, less than a mile away from the Parliament building, as police stand by to stop them from entering the heavily-guarded area where the Pakistani president, the prime minister, and foreign embassies are situated.

Back in Afghanistan, Karzai shifts tone on US troop immunity Posted: 14 Jan 2013 10:41 AM PST A diplomatic dance has commenced between the US and Afghanistan over a US request for legal immunity that would enable a contingent of American troops to stay on beyond 2014.

Kremlin: Adoption ban needed to create 'Russia Without Orphans' Posted: 14 Jan 2013 09:05 AM PST After some 20,000 Russians marched through the frigid streets of downtown Moscow Sunday to protest the Dima Yakovlev Act, which bans all adoptions of Russian orphans by US citizens, the Kremlin was moved to offer a rare public response.

Mali Islamists threaten to retaliate 'at the heart of France' Posted: 14 Jan 2013 06:02 AM PST • A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Havana scraps exit visas, but most Cubans won't be going abroad Posted: 14 Jan 2013 06:41 AM PST Havana's old town is a colorful though faded grid of dilapidated houses punctuated by chess games and 1950s-era American cars. Neighbors chat from their doorways, like Estrella, who sits on a knee-high box in in front of her home.

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