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| Ukrainian opposition accuses Yanukovich of stealing EU dream Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:54 AM PST  By Thomas Grove and Pavel Polityuk KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's political opposition said on Friday that President Viktor Yanukovich had 'stolen the dream' of closer integration with Europe as his supporters hailed his decision to spurn an EU free trade deal. In a sea of blue and gold, the colors of both the EU and Ukrainian flags, some 10,000 protesters chanted "Ukraine is Europe" in Independence Square, the theatre of the Orange Revolution of 2004-5 that thwarted Yanukovich's first presidential bid. Yanukovich's decision to suspend a deal that would have aligned Ukraine's economy more closely with Europe's by opening borders to goods, and set the stage for an easing of travel restrictions, was for many an opportunity lost. Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine wants financial, economic aid package from EU: Yanukovich Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:49 AM PST KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich said on Friday that Kiev still intended to sign an association and trade agreement with the EU in the future, but he wanted the bloc to take 'decisive steps' to draw up an economic aid package for Ukraine. Justifying his decision not to sign the agreement on Friday at an EU summit in Lithuania's capital, he told EU leaders in a closed summit session: "Unfortunately, Ukraine in the last while has turned out to be alone in dealing with serious financial and economic problems. ... Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine's Yanukovich vetoes EU push to save trade deal Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:49 AM PST  By Justyna Pawlak and Adrian Croft VILNIUS (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich vetoed last-minute attempts by the European Union to rescue a trade deal that could have been signed at a summit on Friday and would have signaled a historic shift away from Russia, EU diplomats said. Under pressure from Moscow, Yanukovich abandoned plans last week to sign the agreement, preferring closer ties with Ukraine's former Soviet master and dealing a blow to EU efforts to build closer relations with its eastern neighbors. As EU leaders gathered on Vilnius on Thursday for a summit with six countries in eastern Europe and the southern Caucasus, officials from the EU and Ukraine tried to work out a last-minute compromise that could have allowed Yanukovich to sign the trade deal in the near future. EU diplomats told Reuters a preliminary understanding had been reached, but Yanukovich had refused to sign off on it. Full Story | Top |
| Benin says frees Nigerian ex-militant after Jonathan intervenes Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:12 AM PST Benin freed a former militant leader from Nigeria's oil-rich Delta region on Friday after a personal intervention by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, a government spokesman said. Mujahid Dobubo-Asari had been arrested in the West African nation's capital Cotonou on Tuesday. Like Jonathan, Asari is from the Ijaw ethnic group. He is best known for staging attacks on oil infrastructure in the swampy creeks of OPEC member Nigeria that drove up oil prices to record highs in 2004. Full Story | Top |
| Libya's coastguard picks up almost 300 African migrants Friday, Nov 29, 2013 10:28 AM PST Libya stopped three boats off its coast packed with almost 300 African migrants apparently trying to reach Europe, the state news agency Lana said on Friday. The migrants were taken to detention centers for processing by Libya's department for illegal migrants. Hundreds of people have died in the past two months in the stream of refugees trying to enter the European Union by boat from North Africa through Lampedusa, an Italian island south of Sicily. Many come via Libya, which is struggling with growing anarchy two years after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Full Story | Top |
| EU carbon down 9.4 percent in November as supply curbs seen distant Friday, Nov 29, 2013 09:35 AM PST EU carbon fell 9.4 percent in November as lawmakers advanced a plan to cut supply but were unable to move fast enough to block an influx of government permits depressing the market. The December 2013 EU Allowance ended on Friday at 4.36 euros on ICE, down 7 cents on Thursday's settlement and 51 cents down month-on-month. "It's a case of the auctions and EIB (European Investment Bank) sales coming and coming. Germany's sale of 4 million spot permits on Friday morning was almost three times subscribed, a sale typical of the near-daily government auctions that feed permits into the market at a rate of around 80 million a month. Full Story | Top |
| Men tried to behead soldier on London street, court hears Friday, Nov 29, 2013 09:25 AM PST  By Michael Holden and Costas Pitas LONDON (Reuters) - Two men tried to behead a British soldier in broad daylight on a London street, hacking at his body "like a butcher attacking a joint of meat" in what one said was "eye for an eye" revenge for Britain's wars against Muslims, a court was told on Friday. Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, dragged the lifeless body of Fusilier Lee Rigby, a veteran of the Afghan War, into the middle of the street so that horrified members of the public could see what they had done, prosecutor Richard Whittam said at the start of the men's trial. They deny committing what Whittam called a "cowardly and callous murder" by knocking Rigby down with a car as he crossed a street in Woolwich, southeast London, on the afternoon of May 22 before setting upon his unconscious body with a meat cleaver and knives. Full Story | Top |
| China scrambles jets to new defense zone, eyes U.S., Japan flights Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:58 AM PST By Ben Blanchard and Roberta Rampton BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China scrambled jets on Friday in response to two U.S. spy planes and 10 Japanese aircraft, including F-15 fighters, entering its new air defense zone over the East China Sea, state news agency Xinhua said, raising the stakes in a standoff with the United States, Japan and South Korea. Japan and South Korea flew military aircraft through the zone, which includes the skies over islands at the heart of a territorial dispute between Japan and China, the two countries said on Thursday, while Washington sent two unarmed B-52 bombers into the airspace earlier this week in a sign of support for its ally Japan. Full Story | Top |
| Spain's anti-protest bill criticized as anti-democratic Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:56 AM PST  By Elisabeth O'Leary and Andrés González MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's conservative government agreed on Friday to toughen penalties for unauthorized street protests up to a possible 600,000 euro ($816,000) fine, a crackdown that belies the peaceful record of the anti-austerity protests of recent years. But Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose People's Party (PP)has an absolute majority in parliament, has said the Citizens' Security Law guarantees freedom and will have the support of a majority of Spaniards. Street protests and strikes have became increasingly frequent in recent years following huge cuts to education and health spending aimed at shrinking Spain's public deficit to adhere to European Union demands. But in contrast to Greece and elsewhere, where many similar protests have turned violent, Spain's have remained largely peaceful, despite unemployment of 26 percent, rising poverty, and changes in labor laws that make firing easier. Full Story | Top |
| Quake did not damage nuclear plant, Iran tells IAEA Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:26 AM PST Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency an earthquake near the city of Bushehr did not damage the country's sole nuclear power plant and it continues to operate normally, the IAEA said on Friday. At least seven people were killed in Thursday's earthquake that hit a region near the Bushehr nuclear power plant, state news agency IRNA reported. The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 5.6, struck about 40 miles northeast of Bushehr on the Gulf coast, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. "Iran informed the IAEA's Incident and Emergency Centre (IEC) yesterday that no damage had been found at Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant," the U.N. agency said. Full Story | Top |
| Governments seek to raise the EU cap on food-based biofuels Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:25 AM PST By Charlie Dunmore BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union governments are trying to raise a planned limit on the use of transport fuels made from food crops, despite warnings that the fuels can harm the environment and push up food prices. Last year in response to such warnings, the European Commission, the EU executive, proposed capping the bloc's use of crop-based biofuels at 5 percent of total transport fuel demand. That was a U-turn from three years before, when the European Union had set a legally binding target to source 10 percent of its transport fuel from renewable sources by 2020, mostly crop-based biofuels. On Friday, EU ambassadors meeting in Brussels drew up a draft compromise that would raise the proposed cap to 7 percent. Full Story | Top |
| Earthquake shakes San Salvador, no major damage reported Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:17 AM PST SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - An earthquake rattled buildings in San Salvador on Friday morning, although there were no immediate reports of damage. Mexico's national seismological agency reported that a quake of 5.2 magnitude had been registered in El Salvador. (Reporting by Nelson Renteria) Full Story | Top |
| Dozens of firms interested in destroying Syrian chemicals: OPCW sources Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:17 AM PST By Anthony Deutsch AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - More than two dozen companies have expressed interest in destroying Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, sources at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), told Reuters on Friday. The global chemical weapons watchdog is seeking commercial firms to destroy toxins from Syria's poison gas arsenal, and is trying to find a Mediterranean port where the deadliest can be processed offshore after Albania abruptly backed out of its offer to have it done on its territory. Last week the OPCW asked companies to indicate whether they could destroy nearly 800 metric tons (about 882 tons) of chemicals and 7.7 million liters of effluent, or liquid waste, and set a deadline of November 29 for expressions of interest. The sources did not reveal which companies had expressed an interest, but Timo Piekkari, chief executive at Finland's state-owned Ekokem, said his firm had done so. Full Story | Top |
| German policeman held for death of man he met on cannibal website Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:12 AM PST  A German policeman has been arrested after the chopped-up body of a man he met on a fetishist website for cannibalism was found buried in his garden, police in the eastern city of Dresden said on Friday. "The victim had been fantasizing about being killed and eaten by someone else since his youth," Dresden police chief Dieter Kroll told a news conference. The investigation recalled the case of Armin Meiwes, dubbed the "Cannibal of Rothenburg", who killed and ate a man who had advertised on the Internet for someone to kill him "and leave no trace". Full Story | Top |
| Iran sees nuclear deal implementation starting by early January Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:07 AM PST  By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA (Reuters) - The implementation of a landmark deal between Iran and world powers to curb Tehran's nuclear program in return for some sanctions relief is expected to start by early January, its envoy to the U.N. atomic agency said on Friday. Israel, believed to be the region's only nuclear-armed state, has denounced the deal as an "historic mistake" since it does not dismantle its arch foe's uranium enrichment program. The Jewish state sees Iran as a threat to its existence. Israel's ambassador to the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency told an IAEA board meeting that "the increasing concerns regarding Iran's activities related to nuclear weapons should be thoroughly investigated and clarified". Full Story | Top |
| U.S. Plains young wheat crop at risk from arctic blast Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:01 AM PST Bitter cold conditions expected to move through the U.S. Plains wheat belt next week will put the young crop at risk of winterkill if the region does not see snow before then, an agricultural meteorologist said on Friday. But the chances of the region getting snow before then are good, Lerner said. Full Story | Top |
| Journal withdraws controversial French Monsanto GM study Friday, Nov 29, 2013 07:59 AM PST  Reed Elsevier's Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT)journal, which published the study by the French researcher Gilles-Eric Seralini in September 2012, said the retraction was because the study's small sample size meant no definitive conclusions could be reached. "Ultimately, the results presented - while not incorrect - are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology." At the time of its original publication, hundreds of scientists across the world questioned Seralini's research, which said rats fed Monsanto's GM corn had suffered tumors and multiple organ failure. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued a statement in November 2012 saying the study by Seralini, who was based at France's University of Caen, had serious defects in design and methodology and did not meet acceptable scientific standards. In its retraction statement, the FCT said that, in light of these concerns, it too had asked to view the raw data. Full Story | Top |
| UK takes aim at green levies, denies seeking energy price freeze Friday, Nov 29, 2013 07:42 AM PST By William James and Sarah Young LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged on Friday to cut energy bills by reducing green levies but denied a BBC report that he had asked the country's biggest gas and energy companies to hold prices steady until the 2015 election. In an unusually sharp reprimand for the publicly funded British Broadcasting Corporation, a spokesman for Cameron's office said the report which cited unidentified industry sources was utterly misleading. Details of a review of green levies, which include obligatory insulation for poor families and help with their bills, will be unveiled by finance minister George Osborne in his December 5 Autumn Statement, a government spokesman said. "I want to help households and families by getting sustainably low energy prices," Cameron told reporters on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Lithuania on Friday. Full Story | Top |
| Berlusconi accused of bribing witnesses in prostitution trial Friday, Nov 29, 2013 07:41 AM PST  By Emilio Parodi MILAN (Reuters) - An Italian court accused former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on Friday of bribing witnesses to give false testimony in a trial linked to the case in which he has been convicted for paying for sex with a minor. The accusation, two days after Berlusconi was stripped of his seat in parliament for tax fraud, came in a written judgment in the trial of three associates of the billionaire media tycoon who are charged with procuring prostitutes for parties at his home near Milan. The court said the evidence against Berlusconi and the others implicated had been sent to prosecutors who are expected to open a new investigation into the case, the court documents showed. His lawyers, Niccolo Ghedini and Piero Longo, who were also accused of inducing false testimony in the case, issued a statement saying the accusations were "totally disconnected from reality and from the facts". Full Story | Top |
| Russian prosecutors seek nine years for acid attack dancer Friday, Nov 29, 2013 07:01 AM PST  By Maria Tsvetkova MOSCOW (Reuters) - State prosecutors demanded a nine-year jail sentence on Friday for a dancer accused of ordering an acid attack that nearly blinded the Bolshoi Ballet's artistic director and exposed bitter rivalries at one of Russia's great cultural institutions. Pavel Dmitrichenko, a former soloist at the Bolshoi, showed no emotion as he sat still in a courtroom cage listening to the prosecution summary in a trial that lasted one month. The prosecution also asked for 10 years in prison for Yuri Zarutsky, who is accused of throwing the acid in artistic director Sergei Filin's face last January, and six years for Andrei Lipatov, accused of driving him to and from the scene. "Dmitrichenko's motive was a conflict between Filin and Dmitrichenko," prosecutor Yulia Shumovskaya told the Moscow court, saying the dispute was caused by the dancer's disappointment at not being given good roles by Filin. Full Story | Top |
| With new air zone, China tests U.S. dominance in East Asia Friday, Nov 29, 2013 06:59 AM PST By Greg Torode and Linda Sieg HONG KONG/TOKYO (Reuters) - China's new air defense zone, stretching far into East Asia's international skies, is an historic challenge to the United States, which has dominated the region for decades. For years, Chinese naval officers have told their U.S. counterparts they are uncomfortable with America's presence in the western Pacific - and Beijing is now confronting strategic assumptions that have governed the region since World War Two. China's recent maritime muscle-flexing in disputes over the Paracel islands and Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea and over Japanese-administered islands in the East China Sea has stirred concern and extensive backroom diplomacy in Washington. But it took the events of the last week to spark an immediate and symbolic response from the United States - the unannounced appearance in the zone of two unarmed B-52 bombers from the fortified island of Guam, the closest U.S. territory to the Chinese coast. Full Story | Top |
| Anti-government protesters break into Thai army compound Friday, Nov 29, 2013 06:55 AM PST  By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Pracha Hariraksapitak BANGKOK (Reuters) - Anti-government protesters briefly forced their way into the compound of Thailand's army headquarters on Friday in a dramatic escalation of city-wide demonstrations seeking to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Protesters burst into the army base Bangkok's historic quarter, waving flags and blowing whistles. In another district, about 1,000 people massed outside Yingluck's ruling party headquarters, shouting "get out". The invasion of army headquarters deepened a conflict broadly pitting the urban middle class against the mostly rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister who was ousted in a 2006 coup and who remains central to Thailand's eight years of on-off turmoil. Full Story | Top |
| In 'Teflon Thailand,' protests test a weak economy Friday, Nov 29, 2013 06:47 AM PST By Martin Petty BANGKOK (Reuters) - As anti-government protests roil Bangkok, the president of Thailand's largest petrochemical company is already seeing scattered disruptions to business. "We have taken into account the possibility of prolonged political problems and we think it could hurt our businesses next year," said Bowon Vongsinudom, president of PTT Global Chemical Pcl after days of protests including the occupation of the Finance Ministry since Monday. While Thailand's economy, Southeast Asia's second largest, typically shows remarkable resilience to political turbulence, there are factors this time around that suggest the unrest could exacerbate already softening business conditions. Consumer spending has slumped this year and exports, worth 60 percent of Thailand's $366 billion economy, are flagging amid weak global demand. Full Story | Top |
| Suicide bomber wounds MP and bodyguards in Afghan capital Friday, Nov 29, 2013 06:45 AM PST By Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber wounded a prominent anti-Taliban Afghan legislator and his bodyguards in an attack in Kabul on Friday, intelligence officials said. The bomber detonated his device inside the house of Hameedullah Tokhi, a member of parliament for Zabul province, and wounded Tokhi and four of his bodyguards, the officials said. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, which came as President Hamid Karzai deliberates over an agreement allowing NATO forces to stay in the country beyond 2014. Full Story | Top |
| Liberals to lead Luxembourg as coalition talks succeed Friday, Nov 29, 2013 06:39 AM PST Luxembourg City's mayor Xavier Bettel will become the country's next prime minister, following the end of coalition talks on Friday that usher in a Liberal government for the first time in decades. The agreement between Bettel's Democratic Party, the Socialists and the Greens brings an end to the 19 years in office of Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Union's longest-serving head of government. "After 175 hours, we're done with the coalition talks," Bettel said on his Twitter account. The coalition agreement will be presented to the respective party congresses next week, after which the ministers will be announced and the new government can be sworn in. Full Story | Top |
| 'Security' swimming pool lands South Africa's Zuma in hot water Friday, Nov 29, 2013 06:37 AM PST  By Ed Cropley JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's top anti-corruption watchdog says President Jacob Zuma should repay some of a $21 million publicly funded "security upgrade" to his private home that included a swimming pool and cattle enclosure, a newspaper said on Friday. The Mail and Guardian weekly said a provisional report by the Public Protector entitled 'Opulence on a Grand Scale' found Zuma had derived "substantial" personal gain from the improvements to his private compound at Nkandla in the rolling hills of KwaZulu-Natal province. The leaked findings of Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's investigation will reinforce a perception of runaway corruption under Zuma and could hurt him and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in an election due in six months. Zuma's spokesman declined to comment, while Madonsela's office said the leak was "unethical and unlawful". Full Story | Top |
| Iraqi police find 18 men shot in head and seven decapitated Friday, Nov 29, 2013 06:29 AM PST By Kareem Raheem BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Police discovered the bodies of 18 men who had been abducted and shot in the head near Baghdad on Friday, and the decapitated corpses of seven men killed in a separate attack in northern Iraq. The 18 bodies were found together in an orchard in Meshahda, a predominantly Sunni Muslim area around 30 km (20 miles) north of Baghdad. A senior police source blamed al Qaeda. Such killings are on the rise in Iraq, alongside a growing insurgent campaign of bomb and gun attacks on security forces and civilians. Full Story | Top |
| Angola says Dos Santos is fine, denies cancer treatment report Friday, Nov 29, 2013 06:03 AM PST  Angola on Friday denied a report by Portuguese state TV that President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was undergoing cancer treatment, saying the long-serving 71-year-old was in good health. The RTP report on Thursday said Dos Santos had checked in to the oncology unit of a clinic in Barcelona. "He is in good health and will return within days." In power since 1979, Dos Santos is Africa's second longest-serving leader. He flew to Barcelona from Luanda on November 9 on a private visit. Full Story | Top |
| U.N. carbon offset market seen 'in a coma' for years after Warsaw Friday, Nov 29, 2013 05:55 AM PST  By Susanna Twidale LONDON (Reuters) - The U.N.'s carbon offset market is likely to remain "in a coma" for years, project developers said, after countries failed to agree on measures to encourage demand at last week's climate talks in Warsaw. Investment under the U.N.'s $315 billion Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has ground to a halt as the value of the credits they generate has plunged 95 percent in five years to around 0.30 euros, crushing profits that investors count on to set up carbon-cutting schemes in the developing world. CDM credits can be used by companies and governments to help meet emission targets, but prices have crashed as industrialized nations delay setting new emission reduction pledges, while registered projects pump out more offsets at minimal additional cost. The Warsaw talks were meant to advance a global climate accord to be agreed in 2015 and come into force after 2020, but no major nation offered to set or deepen emission targets, while Japan scaled down its 2020 goal. Full Story | Top |
| Key Bangladesh garments factory destroyed in blaze Friday, Nov 29, 2013 05:55 AM PST By Serajul Quadir DHAKA (Reuters) - A devastating fire ripped through a Bangladesh garment factory supplying major Western retailers in a blaze set by workers angered over rumors of a colleague's death due to police gunfire. But fire fighters were still battling to douse the fire in four nearby buildings, more than 15 hours after it had begun around midnight on Thursday, after workers finished for the day. "We are still struggling to control the flames," said fire official Mahbubur Rahman, adding that 22 fire service and civil defense units been thrown into the fire-fighting operation. At the scene, a Reuters photographer said burnt garments strewn on the floors bore brand names from U.S. retailers such as American Eagle Outfitters Inc, Gap Inc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Other brands on the clothes included Li and Fung Ltd, Marks and Spencer Group PLC, Sears Canada Inc, Fast Retailing Co Ltd's Uniqlo and Inditex S.A. brand Zara. Full Story | Top |
| Thailand's red-shirt heartland hides its strength Friday, Nov 29, 2013 05:34 AM PST  By Aubrey Belford HUA KHUA, Thailand (Reuters) - Squatting on flat feet, their faces drawn with exhaustion from harvesting rice, Chantee Sanwang and Nang Laor still had the energy to tussle over who loathes Thailand's anti-government protesters more. As thousands of largely middle-class Thais flood Bangkok streets in protests aimed at overthrowing the government of the populist Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, one volatile factor has been largely absent from the streets: the red-shirted protesters who helped bring her to power. Like the province it sits in, Udon Thani, the village of Hua Khua is part of the rural north and northeastern heartland that is the support base of Yingluck's Puea Thai Party and her self-exiled brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed as prime minister in a 2006 military coup. Hua Khua is one thousands of communities that movement leaders call "Red Shirt Villages". Full Story | Top |
| Analysis: Ukraine fiasco raises doubts about EU neighborhood policy Friday, Nov 29, 2013 05:23 AM PST  By Paul Taylor PARIS (Reuters) - The European Union's failure to conclude a landmark agreement with Ukraine this week raises questions about a policy designed to surround the bloc with a "ring of friends" that has done little so far to stabilize its neighborhood. The fiasco at an Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius has been blamed mostly on Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich's opaque post-Soviet governance, and on pressure from Russian President Vladimir Putin. But some critics, including one of the architects of the European Neighborhood Policy, say EU efforts to export democracy and the market economy to countries on the bloc's eastern and southern fringes have long been hampered by an unrealistic balance between carrots and sticks. Brussels set too high requirements for partners to adopt EU standards of business regulation, governance and human rights in return for too small financial and political rewards, says Michael Leigh, a senior adviser to the German Marshall Fund, a transatlantic think-tank. Full Story | Top |
| Italy PM Letta to call new confidence vote Friday, Nov 29, 2013 05:19 AM PST  Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta said on Friday he would call a new confidence vote in parliament to confirm his government's majority after the withdrawal of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party from the ruling coalition. Letta's comment came days after his government won a confidence vote on the 2014 budget in the Senate comfortably by 171 votes to 135, despite Forza Italia formalizing its move to the opposition by voting against the coalition. Speaking on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Lithuania, Letta said the vote would be held after his center-left Democratic Party elects a new leader on December 8 and would be based on a new agenda for 2014 which would be discussed with coalition partners. Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine holds key to Putin's dream of a new union Friday, Nov 29, 2013 04:46 AM PST  By Timothy Heritage MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ukraine's refusal to sign a trade pact drawing it into Europe's orbit marked a victory for Vladimir Putin, winning him time to lure Kiev into a project for a trade and political bloc stretching from the frontiers of China to the edge of the EU. The Russian president sees his "Eurasian Union", in which Ukraine would play a central role, as a future rival to China, the United States and the European Union. Some say he sees it as the president's personal political legacy - a strong force emerging from the ashes of the old Soviet Union. "The Eurasian Union is a very important project for Putin. Full Story | Top |
| Protesting schoolchildren face expulsion in Bosnian language row Friday, Nov 29, 2013 04:21 AM PST  By Daria Sito-Sucic SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Several hundred children from the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia faced expulsion from school on Friday after camping out in Sarajevo for three months in protest at being denied lessons in their native Bosnian language. The protest has revived debate over Bosnia's highly devolved education system, split along ethnic lines between Serbs, Croats and Muslim Bosniaks since the end of the country's 1992-95 war. Muslim Bosniaks in two towns in Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic withdrew their children from school in early September, demanding they be taught language, history and geography classes in their own tongue. Bosniaks are a minority within the Serb Republic, one of two autonomous regions created under a 1995 peace deal that split power in Bosnia along ethnic lines after a war that killed 100,000 people. Full Story | Top |
| PetroChina, Longyuan strike first Chinese carbon offset deal Friday, Nov 29, 2013 04:13 AM PST By Kathy Chen and Stian Reklev BEIJING (Reuters) - State-owned PetroChina bought 10,000 Chinese carbon offsets from wind power producer Longyuan on Friday for 16 yuan ($2.62) each, six times higher than international prices, in the first publicly known trade in the country's fledgling carbon market. The deal was carried out on the China Beijing Environment Exchange and was the first transaction of Chinese Certified Emissions Reductions (CCERs), the exchange said. The CCERs are generated from emission reductions attributed to Longyuan's wind power project in Gansu province, western China. The trade comes a day after Beijing became the third of seven planned pilot carbon markets to launch in the country as China aims to limit its output of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Full Story | Top |
| Five Syrians killed as boat sinks off Turkey's coast Friday, Nov 29, 2013 04:00 AM PST Five Syrians died and nine others were rescued after a boat sank off the coast of Turkey while trying to cross to the Greek island of Lesbos, the Turkish Coast Guard Command said. The boat, carrying 14 Syrians believed to be fleeing the civil war in their homeland, sank in the early hours of Friday some five nautical miles (nine km) off the western province of Balikesir. A two-month-old baby was among the dead, a spokesman for the Coast Guard Command said. Some 700,00 Syrians have taken refuge in Turkey from the war and more than 400,000 of them are living outside refugee camps. Full Story | Top |
| Syrian forces re-take town in Qalamoun region Friday, Nov 29, 2013 03:50 AM PST By Mariam Karouny BEIRUT (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have recaptured a Christian town on the main highway north of the capital, the army said, putting them back on the offensive in the strategic region near the Lebanese border. Assad's forces have made advances in recent months and are trying to secure the highway linking Damascus to the coastal heartland of his Alawite minority sect, but faced a setback last week when they lost the town of Deir Attiya to al Qaeda-linked fighters. The town is in the mountainous Qalamoun area overlooking the highway near the Lebanese border, a region that has emerged as the main battleground as Assad and his opponents try to secure a strategic advantage ahead of a peace conference in January. Assad's military campaign in Qalamoun was jolted last week by twin suicide attacks from al Qaeda-linked groups on army posts in the nearby town of Nabak. Full Story | Top |
| Two men almost decapitated British soldier on London road, court hears Friday, Nov 29, 2013 03:28 AM PST  Two men who killed a British soldier in broad daylight on a London street in a "cowardly and callous murder" tried to behead their victim after they had deliberately run him over, a court was told on Friday. Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, knocked down Lee Rigby, 25, as he crossed a street in Woolwich in southeast London on the afternoon of May 22 before setting upon his unconscious body with a meat cleaver and knives. "He was repeatedly stabbed and it appears it was Michael Adebolajo who made a serious and almost successful attempt to decapitate Lee Rigby with multiple blows to his neck made with the meat cleaver," prosecutor Richard Whittam told London's Old Bailey criminal court at the start of the men's trial. Full Story | Top |
| Fallen baron fuels debate in Germany from NY exile Friday, Nov 29, 2013 02:59 AM PST  By Noah Barkin BERLIN (Reuters) - No German politician of the post-war era has had such a meteoric rise, and precipitous fall from grace, as Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the Bavarian baron who fled Berlin for New York in 2011, his career in tatters over accusations of plagiarism. At his peak in 2009, when he served as economy and then defense minister, Guttenberg was seen as a potential successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel. A private meeting between the two in the chancellery earlier this month has fed talk of comeback. ... Full Story | Top |
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