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| U.S. extends Keystone XL comment period, delaying final decision Friday, Apr 18, 2014 12:52 PM PDT By Patrick Rucker WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department announced on Friday it is extending the government comment period on the Keystone XL pipeline, a move that likely postpones a final decision on the controversial project until after the November 4 mid-term elections. President Barack Obama has said he will make a final decision on whether to allow the pipeline connecting Canada's oil sands region to Texas refiners and several government agencies had been given until the end of May to weigh in. This had raised expectations of a final decision by mid-year. Full Story | Top |
| Lawmakers, green groups weigh in on Keystone XL delay Friday, Apr 18, 2014 12:52 PM PDT (Reuters) - The Obama administration said on Friday it would extend the period of time for federal agencies to weigh in on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, giving no new deadline. The move, which likely delays a final decision beyond November mid-term elections, angered Republican and some Democrat lawmakers who have urged President Barack Obama to make the final decision on TransCanada's project after more than five years of government reviews. Here is a selection of key comments from various groups: LAWMAKERS: Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the Senate: "It is crystal clear that the Obama administration is simply not serious about American energy and American jobs. At a time of high unemployment in the Obama economy, it's a shame that the administration has delayed the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline for years. Full Story | Top |
| Top Hollande aide quits in conflict of interest row Friday, Apr 18, 2014 12:43 PM PDT  By Julien Ponthus and Nicholas Vinocur CLERMONT-FERRAND, France (Reuters) - A senior adviser to French President Francois Hollande quit on Friday over accusations of past conflict of interest linked to his work for pharmaceutical firms, adding to pressure on the unpopular Socialist leader weeks before European elections. Aquilino Morelle, Hollande's chief communications adviser, speechwriter and a main political strategist, has denied investigative website Mediapart's report that he had failed to obtain clearance for lobbying work when he was an employee of the public health inspectorate. The furore deals another blow to Hollande after heavy losses for his party in town hall elections at the end of March. Hollande, speaking during a visit to Clermont Ferrand in central France, said his aide had "taken the only option open to him". Full Story | Top |
| Italy PM Renzi cuts taxes for 10 million low earners Friday, Apr 18, 2014 12:34 PM PDT  By Steve Scherer and Gavin Jones ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Friday cut taxes for 10 million low earners to try to boost household spending after a two-year recession, making good on a promise he made after taking office two months ago. Renzi's cabinet passed a decree to reduce taxes for those earning between 8,000 and 26,000 euros a year by about 80 euros per month, starting next month. The 6.9 billion euros in tax cuts will be funded by a mix of spending reductions, one-off windfalls and a "review" of spending on Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet, Renzi told reporters. Italy is still struggling to recover from a recession that drove youth unemployment to over 40 percent. Full Story | Top |
| Russia says U.S. treating it like 'guilty schoolboy' over Ukraine Friday, Apr 18, 2014 12:20 PM PDT The Kremlin on Friday described as unacceptable a U.S. threat to impose sanctions if Russia fails to fulfil its side of an international deal on Ukraine, accusing the White House of treating Moscow like a "guilty schoolboy". President Barack Obama said Thursday's deal in Geneva between Russia, Ukraine and Western powers to reduce tensions in the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine was promising but that Washington and its allies were prepared to impose more sanctions on Russia if the situation fails to improve. "Statements like those made at a high level in Washington that the United States will follow in detail how Russia fulfils its obligations ... are unlikely to help dialogue," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. threatens Russia with further sanctions over Ukraine Friday, Apr 18, 2014 12:20 PM PDT The White House warned Russia on Friday that Moscow would face tougher sanctions if it failed to abide by a new international deal on Ukraine or moved to send Russian forces into the eastern part of the country. "Those costs and sanctions could include targeting very significant sectors of the Russian economy," Susan Rice, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, told reporters. She said Washington would be watching very closely "in coming days" to see whether Russia met its obligations to use its influence to get pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine to disarm and abandon public buildings they had seized. Full Story | Top |
| Special Report: How the U.S. made its Putin problem worse Friday, Apr 18, 2014 11:59 AM PDT  By David Rohde and Arshad Mohammed WASHINGTON AND NEW YORK (Reuters) - In September 2001, as the U.S. reeled from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vladimir Putin supported Washington's imminent invasion of Afghanistan in ways that would have been inconceivable during the Cold War. He agreed that U.S. planes carrying humanitarian aid could fly through Russian air space. He said the U.S. military could use airbases in former Soviet republics in Central Asia. And he ordered his generals to brief their U.S. counterparts on their own ill-fated 1980s occupation of Afghanistan. Full Story | Top |
| Italy gives wife, daughter, of wanted Kazakh banker refugee status Friday, Apr 18, 2014 11:48 AM PDT The wife and daughter of a Kazakh tycoon who is wanted in three countries for alleged fraud have been granted refugee status in Italy, their lawyer said on Friday. Lawyer Anton Giulio Lana said in statement that an interior ministry committee had granted Alma Shalabayeva and daughter Alua a five-year, renewable permit of stay. Shalabayeva is the wife of oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, a political adversary of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev who has ruled for more than two decades and tolerates no dissent. Kazakhstan wants the return of Ablyazov from France, where he is currently being held, although on April 9, a French appeals court blocked his extradition from France to Ukraine or Russia, overturning a lower court ruling. Full Story | Top |
| Avalanche kills 12 guides in deadliest incident on Mount Everest Friday, Apr 18, 2014 11:40 AM PDT  By Gopal Sharma KATHMANDU (Reuters) - An avalanche sweeping down Mount Everest killed 12 Nepali guides on Friday at the start of the main climbing season, the tourism ministry said, in what may be the deadliest single incident on the world's highest peak. Friday's avalanche was the first major one on Mount Everest during this year's climbing season, when hundreds of foreign and Nepali climbers will flock to the mountain to attempt to reach its 8,850 meter (29,035 feet) peak. More than 4,000 climbers have scaled Everest's summit since it was first climbed by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953. Nearly 250 people have died on Everest, which is on the border between Nepal and the Chinese region of Tibet and can be climbed from both sides. Full Story | Top |
| East and west, Ukraine rival camps dig in Friday, Apr 18, 2014 11:29 AM PDT By Alastair Macdonald and Aleksandar Vasovic KIEV/DONETSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - If armies march on their stomachs, then Ukraine's rival protest camps could be in for a long campaign, judging by the cooks hard at work behind the barricades in Kiev and Donetsk on Friday. A day after Ukraine and Russia agreed that protest sit-ins must end, pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine said they would not quit occupied public buildings and pro-Western activists in the capital insisted they would not dismantle their Maidan camp, which helped topple the Kremlin-backed president. Their camp kitchen sits in the middle of Khreshchatyk, the elegant main boulevard of Kiev, barricaded since November. In Donetsk, the coal and steel hub 700 km (400 miles) to the east near the Russian border, another pensioner, Alina, was also hard at work feeding men on the frontline of what has become the gravest face-off between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine agreement built on fragile foundations Friday, Apr 18, 2014 11:28 AM PDT By Arshad Mohammed and Tom Miles WASHINGTON/GENEVA (Reuters) - The agreement designed to pull Ukraine back from the brink of civil war had been floundering around lunchtime on Thursday, so U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia's Sergei Lavrov, a smoker, stepped outside for a private word in the open air. The agreement in Geneva was the first positive shift after weeks of mounting confrontation between the Western-backed Ukrainian government and Russian-speaking regions in the east that are challenging Kiev's rule. For the United States, it was a pull-back of the pro-Russian armed militants who have seized public buildings in eastern Ukraine, including early and measurable signs that it was going to happen. For Russia, it was a commitment from the Ukrainian government to reforming the constitution so protections are enshrined for Ukraine's Russian-speaking community. Full Story | Top |
| Trade deal eluding U.S., Japan, senior U.S. official says Friday, Apr 18, 2014 11:14 AM PDT U.S. and Japanese trade negotiators have been unable to reach a deal to open Japan's markets more widely to imports ahead of President Barack Obama's visit to Japan, a senior U.S. administration official said on Friday. Momentum behind the talks need not stall because negotiators have not struck a deal ahead of Obama's visit to Japan, the official said. Full Story | Top |
| Japan says trade talks with U.S. to resume on Monday, gaps remain Friday, Apr 18, 2014 11:14 AM PDT  By Krista Hughes and Kaori Kaneko WASHINGTON/TOKYO (Reuters) - Talks between the United States and Japan seen as vital to a broader regional trade pact are making progress and will resume again on Monday, Japan's economy minister said on Friday, as negotiators struggle to narrow gaps ahead of a summit between the countries' leaders. The TPP is central to U.S. President Barack Obama's policy of expanding America's presence in Asia. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, for his part, has touted the TPP as a main element of his strategy to reform the world's third largest economy and generate sustainable growth. "We still have big differences," Japan's Economy Minister Akira Amari told reporters in Washington after another round of talks with U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, according to Kyodo news agency. Full Story | Top |
| East Ukraine separatists stay put despite diplomatic deal Friday, Apr 18, 2014 11:07 AM PDT  By Pavel Polityuk and Thomas Grove KIEV/SLAVIANSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - Armed pro-Russian separatists were still holding public buildings in eastern Ukraine on Friday, saying they needed more assurances about their security before they comply with an international deal ordering them to disarm. The agreement, brokered by the United States, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union in Geneva on Thursday offered the best hope to date of defusing a stand-off in Ukraine that has dragged East-West relations to their lowest level since the Cold War. Enacting the agreement on the ground though will be difficult, because of the deep mistrust between the pro-Russian groups and the Western-backed government in Kiev, which this week flared into violent clashes that killed several people. Full Story | Top |
| Pakistani police arrest 6 suspected militant assassins Friday, Apr 18, 2014 10:57 AM PDT By Katharine Houreld ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani police said on Friday they have arrested six men suspected of being behind a string of high-profile killings and assassination attempts linked to a banned sectarian group. They are also thought to be behind an attack last month in which writer Raza Rumi, a vocal critic of the Taliban, was wounded and his driver killed. The men are connected to banned sectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the police statement said, and have admitted receiving instructions from its leader Malik Ishaq. The statement identified Abdul Rauf Gujjar as the main hitman in the killings. Full Story | Top |
| Erdogan challenges social media in top Turkish court Friday, Apr 18, 2014 10:50 AM PDT  By Orhan Coskun ANKARA (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan applied to Turkey's constitutional court on Friday to challenge the alleged violation of his and his family's rights by social media, a senior official in his office told Reuters. Erdogan's government blocked Twitter and YouTube in March, drawing international condemnation, after audio recordings, purportedly showing corruption in his inner circle, were leaked on their sites. The Twitter block was lifted earlier this month after the constitutional court ruled that it breached freedom of expression, a decision Erdogan has since said was wrong and should be overturned. YouTube remains blocked in Turkey. Full Story | Top |
| Bomb blast kills 14 at mosque in Syria's Homs - state TV Friday, Apr 18, 2014 10:19 AM PDT A bomb went off in front of a mosque and killed 14 people in Homs, Syrian state television said on Friday, with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad looking close to wresting the symbolic central city back from rebels. "Fourteen people were killed and dozens wounded in a terrorist bomb in front of the Bilal al Habshi mosque ... as people left the mosque," state television said. The mosque is in a government-controlled part of Homs. The Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV station, which has reporters in Syria, said it was a car bomb. Full Story | Top |
| Besieged Muslims face murder, starvation in Central African Republic town Friday, Apr 18, 2014 09:57 AM PDT By Emmanuel Braun BODA, Central African Republic (Reuters) - In normal times, the rickety wooden bridges at each end of the red-dirt main street in Boda were gateways to shops and a bustling market in the diamond-mining town in western Central African Republic. Today, they mark the fine line between life and death for hundreds of Muslims living under siege, encircled by Christian 'anti-balaka' militia fighters bent on chasing out the country's Islamic population. It's very expensive to buy food ... Our life is at a critical stage." Boda illustrates the chaos that has gripped Central African Republic since late 2012 when a battle for political power degenerated into clashes between Muslims and Christians that have forced about 1 million people from their homes. In the Muslim neighborhood, a banner praises French troops - recognition that their plight would have been far worse without the deployment. Full Story | Top |
| Bahraini man dies two months after being shot by police: family Friday, Apr 18, 2014 09:42 AM PDT A Bahraini man died on Friday from shotgun pellet wounds sustained during clashes with police almost two months ago, rights activists said, becoming the first person to be killed in such circumstances since February last year. Rights campaigners said Abdul-Aziz al-Abbar, 27, was hit by a teargas canister and shotgun pellets fired by riot police at a funeral procession. It is not uncommon in Bahrain for funerals to turn into public expressions of discontent, sometimes leading to clashes with police. Another group, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, said: "Initial reports indicate that the shooting of al-Abbar was by police officers standing at close range." Officials from the government's Information Affairs Authority (IAA) and the Public Prosecution office contacted by Reuters via telephone and email could not be reached for comment on Friday, a day off in Bahrain. Full Story | Top |
| Factbox: Algeria's Bouteflika, aging independence veteran, wins re-election Friday, Apr 18, 2014 09:41 AM PDT Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has won re-election for another five-year term with an officially tabulated 81.53 percent of the vote, despite suffering a stroke last year. He is seen by supporters as a symbol of stability after he helped to lead Algeria out of a civil war that lasted more than a decade. * Born on March 2, 1937, Bouteflika is a veteran of Algeria's war for independence from France. * Bouteflika's fortunes waned after the death of President Houari Boumedienne, and he went into self-imposed exile in 1981 to escape corruption charges that were later dropped. Full Story | Top |
| Algeria's Bouteflika wins re-election with 81.5 percent: official results Friday, Apr 18, 2014 09:23 AM PDT  By Patrick Markey and Lamine Chikhi ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the aging independence veteran already in power for 15 years, won re-election on Friday after a vote opponents dismissed as a stage-managed fraud to keep the ailing leader in power. Sitting in a wheelchair, Bouteflika had cast his vote on Thursday in a rare public appearance since suffering a stroke last year that raised doubts about whether he is fit enough to govern the North African oil-exporting state. Preliminary official results showed Bouteflika had won with 81.53 percent of the vote, Interior Minister Tayeb Belaiz told a news conference. His nearest rival, Ali Benflis, won 12.18 percent, and national turnout was 51.7 percent. Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine government pledges Russian language rights Friday, Apr 18, 2014 09:06 AM PDT By Alastair Macdonald and Pavel Polityuk KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's acting president and prime minister offered some of their strongest pledges yet on Friday to strengthen constitutional rights to use the Russian language in an effort to defuse separatist protests. In a joint televised address, acting President Oleksander Turchinov and Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk called for national unity, urged people to refrain from violence and said they would support constitutional change and decentralizing more power to local councils, including over their official language - a central demand of Russian-speaking protesters in the east. "The Ukrainian government is prepared to conduct comprehensive constitutional reform which will strengthen the powers of the regions," Yatseniuk said. "We will strengthen the special status of the Russian language and protect this language," the premier said. Full Story | Top |
| Powerful earthquake rattles Mexico, shakes buildings Friday, Apr 18, 2014 09:05 AM PDT By Dave Graham MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake struck Mexico on Friday, shaking buildings in the capital and sending people running out into the street, although there were no early reports of major damage. The magnitude 7.2 quake was centered in the southwestern state of Guerrero, close to the Pacific beach resort of Acapulco, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said. Luis Felipe Puente, head of the Mexican government's emergency services, said there were no immediate reports of damage and the U.S. Pacific Warning Center said it did not expect the quake to trigger a destructive tsunami. Nevertheless, residents of the capital were shaken by the quake, one of the biggest to hit Mexico in several years. Full Story | Top |
| Turkish president rules out role swap with Erdogan Friday, Apr 18, 2014 08:48 AM PDT  By Orhan Coskun and Humeyra Pamuk ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's president appeared to rule out a job swap with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan when his term as head of state ends in a few months, signaling strains between the allies following months of political tension. President Abdullah Gul's comments on Friday threw open the question of who might succeed Erdogan if he runs for president in an August election as expected, and raised the prospect of him picking a close loyalist to cement his grip on power. Full Story | Top |
| Russian EU envoy says Kiev misinterpreted Geneva agreement Friday, Apr 18, 2014 08:40 AM PDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's envoy to the European Union said the authorities in Kiev had incorrectly interpreted an international deal to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, where rebellions have broken out in Russian-speaking eastern provinces. "If we are speaking about how the Geneva document is being interpreted in Kiev by the current authorities, then unfortunately they understood this incorrectly," Vladimir Chizhov told the Russian state television Rossiya-24. ... Full Story | Top |
| Russia criticizes Washington's assessment of accord on Ukraine Friday, Apr 18, 2014 08:31 AM PDT Russia voiced disappointment on Friday with the U.S. assessment of an international deal to defuse the crisis in Ukraine, saying the threat of new sanctions against Moscow by Washington was "completely unacceptable". The Foreign Ministry accused U.S. officials of seeking to whitewash what it said was the use of force by the Ukrainian government against protesters in the country's mainly Russian-speaking eastern provinces. Thursday's deal called among other things for all illegal armed groups to disarm and end occupations of public buildings in Ukraine's east. President Barack Obama said the meeting in Geneva between Russia, Ukraine and Western powers was promising but that Washington and its allies were prepared to impose more sanctions on Russia if the situation fails to improve. Full Story | Top |
| Poles most worried about their independence in at least 23 years: poll Friday, Apr 18, 2014 08:08 AM PDT  Poles are more worried about their national independence than at any time since at least 1991, soon after the collapse of communism in the region, and 80 percent name Russia as the main threat, a survey shows. Most of those surveyed would like NATO to increase its military presence in Poland, according to the CBOS poll, quoted by local media. The survey showed 47 percent saw a risk to national independence - the highest level in the poll's history dating back to 1991 - as a result of the Ukraine crisis. In December last year, before tensions in Ukraine escalated, the survey showed one in seven Poles saw a risk to independence. Full Story | Top |
| Vice-principal of South Korea school in ferry disaster commits suicide Friday, Apr 18, 2014 07:00 AM PDT By Jungmin Jang and Ju-min Park MOKPO/JINDO, South Korea (Reuters) - The vice-principal of a South Korean high school who accompanied hundreds of pupils on a ferry that capsized has committed suicide, police said on Friday, as hopes faded of finding any of the 274 missing alive. The Sewol, carrying 476 passengers and crew, capsized on Wednesday on a journey from the port of Incheon to the southern holiday island of Jeju. Kang Min-gyu, 52, had been missing since Thursday. Full Story | Top |
| Kiev warns separatists of 'actions' next week Friday, Apr 18, 2014 06:28 AM PDT By Pavel Polityuk KIEV (Reuters) - The Ukrainian government warned on Friday it could take "more concrete actions" next week if pro-Russian separatists do not end their occupations of public buildings under the terms of an international accord. Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia gave no details and Kiev has threatened to use force before to little effect. The minister also said that, despite demands from the separatists in the east, the government saw no need under its deal with Russia to dismantle the pro-European Maidan camp in Kiev. Full Story | Top |
| South Sudan deploys army to guard U.N. base after attack kills dozens Friday, Apr 18, 2014 06:25 AM PDT By Carl Odera NAIROBI (Reuters) - South Sudan sent troops to secure a United Nations base after armed civilians fired on displaced tribespeople sheltering there, in an attack that killed at least 48, the president's spokesman said on Friday. Locals pretending to be peaceful protesters delivering a petition forced their way into the camp on Thursday and opened fire before being beaten back by UN security personnel (UNMISS). They have been ordered to protect UNMISS so there will be no attack from anybody," Ateny Wek Ateny, President Salva Kiir's spokesman, told Reuters by phone. Thousands of people have been killed and more than one million displaced since fighting erupted in South Sudan in the middle of December, triggered by a power struggle between Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar. Full Story | Top |
| Burundi creates reconciliation body that divides public opinion Friday, Apr 18, 2014 05:59 AM PDT By Patrick Nduwimana BUJUMBURA (Reuters) - Burundi, locked in its worst political crisis since its civil war ended in 2005, has created a reconciliation commission that opposition parties say will shield the ruling party from accountability for past crimes. The ruling CNDD-FDD party voted late on Thursday to launch the commission and let President Pierre Nkurunziza pick its members, who are to establish the truth about conflicts wracking Burundi since independence from Belgium in 1962. Lawmakers from the CNDD-FDD's junior coalition partner parties, Uprona and Frodebu, boycotted the vote, a reflection of sharp differences over proposed constitutional changes they say will concentrate power in the ruling party's hands. Concern over the constitutional changes - which could upset the volatile country's delicate ethnic power balance and allow Nkurunziza to run for a third term - prompted the United States and the United Nations to warn against them last week. Full Story | Top |
| Japan will conduct Pacific whale hunt in wake of court ruling Friday, Apr 18, 2014 04:56 AM PDT  By Elaine Lies TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan said on Friday it would conduct a sharply scaled down form of its annual Northwest Pacific whaling campaign this year despite an international court ruling last month against the mainstay of its whaling program in the Antarctic. The decision to proceed with the hunt was certain to provoke international anger and promptly drew the fire of environmentalists. Tokyo's decades-old and disputed "scientific whaling" program suffered a blow last month when the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in a surprise ruling, ordered a halt to its annual hunts in the Southern Ocean. That prompted Japan to cancel whaling there for 2014-2015. Full Story | Top |
| Pro-Russian separatist leader says not bound by Geneva deal Friday, Apr 18, 2014 04:27 AM PDT By Aleksandar Vasovic DONETSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - The self-declared leader of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, Denis Pushilin, on Friday said he does not consider his men to be bound by an agreement between Russia and Ukraine requiring illegal groups to disarm and vacate buildings. The Geneva agreement, signed by the United States, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union on Thursday, requires all illegal armed groups to disarm and end the illegal occupation of public buildings, streets and squares. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov "did not sign anything for us, he signed on behalf of the Russian Federation," Pushilin, head of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, told journalists in Donetsk. Ukraine announced a military-backed operation last weekend to flush out pro-Russian rebels who have taken over state buildings including police stations in the Donbass region, though the operation faltered when pro-Russian forces seized several army troop carriers. Full Story | Top |
| Compensation battle rages four years after BP's U.S. oil spill Friday, Apr 18, 2014 03:36 AM PDT Four years after the Deepwater Horizon spill, oil is still washing up on the long sandy beaches of Grand Isle, Louisiana, and some islanders are fed up with hearing from BP that the crisis is over. Jules Melancon, the last remaining oyster fisherman on an island dotted with colorful houses on stilts, says he has not found a single oyster alive in his leases in the area since the leak and relies on an onshore oyster nursery to make a living. The British oil major has paid out billions of dollars in compensation under a settlement experts say is unprecedented in its breadth. Some claimants are satisfied, but others are irate that BP is now challenging aspects of the settlement. Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine says 'anti-terrorist' operation continues despite Geneva Friday, Apr 18, 2014 02:44 AM PDT Ukraine's military-led drive to root out pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country will continue despite the four-way agreement reached in Geneva, state security authorities said on Friday. "The anti-terrorist operation is still going on and how long it continues depends on how long terrorists remain in our country," Marina Ostapenko, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's State Security Service (SBU), told reporters. The Geneva agreement, brokered by the United States, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union, will require all illegal armed groups to disarm. Ukraine announced a military-backed operation last weekend to flush out pro-Russian rebels who have taken over state buildings including police stations in the Donbass region, though the operation faltered when pro-Russian forces seized several army troop carriers. Full Story | Top |
| Japan to arm remote western island, risking more China tension Friday, Apr 18, 2014 02:41 AM PDT  By Nobuhiro Kubo TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is sending 100 soldiers and radar to its westernmost outpost, a tropical island off Taiwan, in a deployment that risks angering China with ties between Asia's biggest economies already hurt by a dispute over nearby islands they both claim. Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera will break ground on Saturday for a military lookout station on Yonaguni, which is home to 1,500 people and just 150 km (93 miles) from the disputed Japanese-held islands claimed by China. The mini-militarization of Yonaguni - now defended by two police officers - is part of a longstanding plan to improve defense and surveillance in Japan's far-flung frontier. Building the radar base on the island, which is much closer to China than to Japan's main islands, could extend Japanese monitoring to the Chinese mainland and track Chinese ships and aircraft circling the disputed crags, called the Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyu by China. Full Story | Top |
| The life of Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez Friday, Apr 18, 2014 02:36 AM PDT Colombian author and Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who crafted enchanting stories that blurred the line between magic and reality, died on Thursday at the age of 87. * Garcia Marquez was born in 1927 in Aracataca, a town near Colombia's Caribbean coast. * He spent almost two years writing "One Hundred Years of Solitude," the novel that made him famous. It helped him win the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature. Full Story | Top |
| Life and times of Gabriel Garcia Marquez Friday, Apr 18, 2014 02:36 AM PDT Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature and popularized the genre of magical realism, died on Thursday at the age of 87. Here are some important dates in his life and career: 1927 - Garcia Marquez is born on March 6 in Aracataca, a backwater banana-growing town near Colombia's Caribbean coast. The oldest child of a large family, he spends part of his childhood living with his grandparents and is especially close to his grandfather, a retired army man who inspired the novel "No One Writes to the Colonel." 1940 - Garcia Marquez moves to Barranquilla, a port city famous for its Carnival, to start high school. 1947 - He studies law at the National University in the Colombian capital Bogota and has two short stories published in the El Espectador newspaper. Full Story | Top |
| Nobel winner Garcia Marquez, master of magical realism, dies at 87 Friday, Apr 18, 2014 02:36 AM PDT  By Anahi Rama MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian author whose beguiling stories of love and longing brought Latin America to life for millions of readers and put magical realism on the literary map, died on Thursday. A prolific writer who started out as a newspaper reporter, Garcia Marquez's masterpiece was "One Hundred Years of Solitude," a dream-like, dynastic epic that helped him win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. Garcia Marquez died at his home in Mexico City, where he had returned from hospital last week after a bout of pneumonia. Known affectionately to friends and fans as "Gabo," Garcia Marquez was Latin America's best-known and most beloved author and his books have sold in the tens of millions. Full Story | Top |
| Reaction to the death of Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez Friday, Apr 18, 2014 02:36 AM PDT Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature and was a master of magical realism, died on Thursday. Tributes poured in from presidents, authors and pop stars: U.S. President Barack Obama: "With the passing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the world has lost one of its greatest visionary writers - and one of my favorites from the time I was young ... I offer my thoughts to his family and friends, whom I hope take solace in the fact that Gabo's work will live on for generations to come. Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, who also won the Nobel Prize and once punched Garcia Marquez during a dispute, leaving him with a black eye: "A great writer whose works brought wide knowledge and prestige to the literature of our language has died. His novels will outlive him and continue gaining readers from all over." Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who was a friend of Garcia Marquez: "I was always amazed by his unique gifts of imagination, clarity of thought, and emotional honesty. Full Story | Top |
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