World News Headlines - Yahoo! News UK

Syria shelling killed over 90 - opposition

Sat, 26 May 2012 08:33:02 +0100

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The death toll has risen to at least 90 from Syrian shelling on the town of Houla on Friday, an opposition group said on Saturday. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said residents continued to flee the town, in central Homs province, in fear that artillery fire would resume. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the accounts from Syria, which has restricted access for journalists during a 14-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad. ...

Afghan parliament approves U.S.-Afghan security pact

Sat, 26 May 2012 07:28:21 +0100

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's parliament approved on Saturday a strategic pact between Kabul and Washington, clearing the way for a U.S. presence in the country for at least a decade after most foreign combat troops leave in 2014. "This was done for the interest of Afghanistan," said Daoud Kalakani, an MP from Kabul. Around 180 MPs were present and only four voted against, Kalakani said. The deal, signed by U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai in Kabul on May 2, sets out a long-term U.S. role in Afghanistan, including aid and advisers. ...

Hollande makes surefooted start before assembly vote

Sat, 26 May 2012 05:55:18 +0100

PARIS (Reuters) - Socialist President Francois Hollande has defied critics who considered him an inexperienced lightweight by starting with a burst of globetrotting activity and standing up to Berlin and Washington on euro and foreign policy. Placid and slow-paced by nature, Hollande has packed in visits to Berlin, Washington, Camp David, Chicago, Brussels and Kabul in his first 10 days in office, a timetable worthy of his hyperactive conservative predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy. ...

China cancels Britain visit 'over Dalai Lama meet'

Sat, 26 May 2012 03:30:05 +0100

China's top legislator cancelled a visit to Britain in anger over a meeting between British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, a source said.

Russian arms shipment en route to Syria - report

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:14:34 +0100

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A Russian cargo ship loaded with weapons is en route to Syria and due to arrive at a Syrian port this weekend, Al Arabiya television said in a report that Western diplomats in New York described on Friday as credible. Syria is one of Russia's top weapons customers. The United States and European Union have suggested the U.N. Security Council should impose an arms embargo and other U.N. sanctions on Syria for its 14-month assault on a pro-democracy opposition determined to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. ...

French left ahead in parliament vote - poll

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:40:17 +0100

PARIS (Reuters) - The French left will comfortably beat the conservative UMP party in next month's parliamentary election, a poll showed on Friday, as rivalries triggered by Nicolas Sarkozy's defeat in the race for the presidency risk splitting the right-wing vote. President Francois Hollande's Socialists and other left-wing partner parties could together win 44 percent of the vote in the June 10 first round of the election, compared with just over a third for the UMP. ...

Hollande makes surefooted start before assembly vote

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:40:17 +0100

Syrian forces kill 50 in Homs province - opposition group

Fri, 25 May 2012 21:12:36 +0100

BEIRUT (Reuters) - At least 50 people, including 13 children, were killed when Syrian forces attacked the town of Houla in Homs province on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and activists said. Activists said clashes erupted in the town when Syrian forces opened fire on a protest against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad and killed one protester. "The soldiers are shelling Houla right now, the casualties are huge," said activist Ahmad Kassem. He said opposition fighters fired back, inflicting casualties on the soldiers and destroying five tanks. ...

Turkmen leader sacks oil and gas minister

Fri, 25 May 2012 20:25:55 +0100

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov sacked his oil and gas minister, citing his poor performance on state television on Friday, just two days after the Central Asian nation agreed landmark deals to supply natural gas to Pakistan and India. The deals agreed on Wednesday offer major economic benefits but depend on building and defending a U.S.-backed pipeline across violence-wracked Afghanistan, including a 735-km (450-mile) leg through the provinces of Herat and Kandahar. ...

US says China's yuan undervalued, not manipulated

Fri, 25 May 2012 18:26:10 +0100

The Obama administration on Friday rejected calls from Congress to brand China a currency manipulator, but said its "significantly undervalued" currency was a key brake on global growth.

French left ahead in parliament vote - poll

Fri, 25 May 2012 18:33:18 +0100

Italy's Red Brigades calls for renewed violence

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:23:38 +0100

ROME (Reuters) - A letter purporting to be from Italy's radical left-wing Red Brigades called on Friday for new attacks against politicians, bankers and reporters, just days after the president warned the country risked a return to the political violence of the 1970s. "The dawn of the new revolution is here," read the letter, which was delivered to Il Giornale in Milan, the newspaper's website said. Il Giornale is owned by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's brother, Paolo. It is the second letter in as many days allegedly written by the Red Brigades and sent to the media. ...

Vatican bank president ousted; claims he is victim

Fri, 25 May 2012 16:50:05 +0100

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - In the type of drama that rarely filters out of the Vatican, the president of its bank has been ousted by a board of external financial experts who voted no confidence in his leadership. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who was shown the door on Thursday night as president of the Vatican bank formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), claimed he is a victim of his efforts to make the bank more open. Gotti Tedeschi told Reuters: "I have paid for my transparency". The Vatican denied this, saying he had been ineffective and divisive. ...

Berlusconi party girl says masqueraded as Obama

Fri, 25 May 2012 15:20:59 +0100

ROME (Reuters) - One of the young women who attended Silvio Berlusconi's "bunga bunga" parties told a court on Friday that she dressed up as a burlesque version of U.S. President Barack Obama to entertain the former Italian prime minister. In testimony during a trial against the 75-year-old Berlusconi on charges of paying for sex with an underage prostitute, Marysthell Polanco said she had also dressed as prosecutor Ilda Boccassini. ...

Spain's Catalonia seeks government help to pay debt

Fri, 25 May 2012 15:01:42 +0100

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's wealthiest autonomous region, Catalonia, needs financing help from the central government because it is running out of options for refinancing debt this year, Catalan President Artur Mas said on Friday. "We don't care how they do it, but we need to make payments at the end of the month. Your economy can't recover if you can't pay your bills," Mas told a group of reporters from foreign media. A spokesman for the Catalan government later emphasised that Mas was referring to payments that must be met routinely each month and not a specific deadline this month. ...

Hollande defends French exit in Afghanistan

Fri, 25 May 2012 13:58:02 +0100

President Francois Hollande on Friday defended France's imminent exit from Afghanistan, saying 2,000 combat troops will leave in a coordinated withdrawal this year but vowing not to abandon the country.

Exile Tibetans want EU to investigate self-immolations

Fri, 25 May 2012 13:29:29 +0100

VIENNA (Reuters) - The head of the Tibetan government in exile called on the European Union on Friday to send an investigative team to areas where dozens of Tibetans have set themselves ablaze in protest at Chinese rule. Prime Minister in exile Lobsang Sangay told a news conference that 35 Tibetans have set themselves on fire and 27 of them had died in what he said were attempts to seek freedom for Tibet and the return of its exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who was sitting beside Sangay. ...

France's Hollande defends early Afghan pullout

Fri, 25 May 2012 11:42:45 +0100

KABUL (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on Friday to visit some of the French troops he wants to pull out later this year, defending his plan for their early exit after meeting his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai. Hollande was strongly criticised at a NATO summit last weekend for accelerating France's withdrawal of its roughly 3,400 troops in Afghanistan to the end of this year, two years ahead of the timetable agreed by the alliance. ...

Both sides in Syria abuse human rights - U.N. report

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:51:58 +0100

GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) - A U.N. investigation on Thursday said both sides in the Syrian conflict had committed serious human rights abuses, with government forces executing entire families in their homes and rebels torturing and killing soldiers and government supporters. The United Nations report into the 14-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad said government forces routinely drew up lists of wanted people and their families before blockading then attacking a village or neighbourhood. ...

Cheers, Jeers And Tears Over Zuma's Spear

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:30:34 +0100

A crowd of the president's supporters chanted noisily outside Johannesburg's High Court as the Zuma Spear case (as it's now known) took another dramatic turn inside.

Brotherhood, Mubarak's last PM set for Egypt run-off -source

Fri, 25 May 2012 07:17:08 +0100

CAIRO (Reuters) - A Muslim Brotherhood official said on Friday the group's candidate in the first free presidential election in Egypt would enter a run-off vote next month with the last prime minister to serve Hosni Mubarak before he was ousted in a popular uprising. The vote marks the final step in a messy and often bloody transition to democracy, overseen by a military council that has pledged to hand over power to a new president by July 1. "It is clear that the run-off will be between (the Brotherhood's) Mohamed Mursi and Ahmed Shafiq," the official told Reuters. ...

Exclusive - China leadership rules Bo case isolated, limits purge - sources

Fri, 25 May 2012 07:04:52 +0100

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao has demanded senior Communist Party officials stifle tensions over the ousting of ambitious politician Bo Xilai and show unity as they prepare for a change of leadership, sources briefed on recent meetings said. Hu urged the party to close ranks at a meeting of about 200 officials early this month at a Beijing hotel, declaring the downfall of Bo - China's biggest political scandal in two decades - to be an "isolated case", the three sources said. ...

Syria envoy says U.N. mission can't get bank account

Fri, 25 May 2012 04:24:06 +0100

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Syria's U.N. ambassador complained on Thursday that his mission is unable to open a U.S. bank account due to sanctions imposed on his country because of its 14-month assault on an opposition determined to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Last year several U.S. banks suddenly closed the accounts of a number of diplomatic missions and foreign diplomats due to the high costs of monitoring financial activity to prevent money laundering and monetary support for terrorist activity. Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told the U.N. ...

U.S. looks forward to working with new Egyptian leader

Fri, 25 May 2012 03:34:04 +0100

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States pledged on Thursday to "stand with the Egyptian people" and said it looked forward to working with their democratically elected government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Egypt marked "another important milestone in their transition to democracy" by holding its first free election for president in two days of balloting. "We look forward to working with Egypt's democratically elected government," she said in a statement. ...

USTR Kirk plans to go in January, upbeat on EU-US trade

Thu, 24 May 2012 22:30:27 +0100

PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said on Wednesday that he expects to leave office at the end of President Barack Obama's first term, and also expressed enthusiasm about the potential for a trade agreement between the United States and the EU to boost jobs and growth on both sides of the Atlantic. ...

Vatican bank sacks president in no-confidence vote

Thu, 24 May 2012 22:10:35 +0100

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The president of the Vatican bank has been ousted by the board of directors, the Vatican said on Thursday, blaming him for a deterioration in standards of governance. The board unanimously passed a no-confidence vote in Italian Ettore Gotti Tedeschi for failing to carry out "various fundamentally important functions of his office", the Vatican statement said. ...

Brotherhood make claims as Egypt polls close

Thu, 24 May 2012 21:55:57 +0100

CAIRO (Reuters) - Millions of Egyptians, choosing their leader freely for the first time in their history, voted on Thursday with the Muslim Brotherhood saying their candidate had an early lead over fellow Islamists and rivals who served ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Counting started after polls closed at 9 p.m. (08:00 p.m. British time) with no reliable exit polls available. The Brotherhood said on its television channel that its candidate Mohamed Mursi was ahead based on the tally from some districts. ...

Opposition has failed Syrian people: outgoing leader

Thu, 24 May 2012 20:40:07 +0100

A deeply divided opposition has failed the Syrian people, its outgoing leader charged on Thursday, as a new parliament again dominated by the ruling Baath party held its first session in Damascus.

Factbox - Nigeria's draft Petroleum Industry Bill

Thu, 24 May 2012 20:59:17 +0100

(Reuters) - Nigeria's government task force will finalise a draft of the long-delayed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) this week before sending it to the oil minister and the national assembly for debate, industry sources told Reuters. The ambitious PIB has been years in the making and several other versions have been debated by parliament. In January, President Goodluck Jonathan ordered that a task force put together a definitive draft to speed up the process. ...

Greek anti-bailout left has four-point lead - poll

Thu, 24 May 2012 20:29:36 +0100

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's anti-bailout leftist SYRIZA party is maintaining its poll lead ahead of a June 17 election that is deemed critical to the country's continued membership of the euro zone, a poll showed on Thursday. Greece was forced to call a repeat election after a May 6 vote left parliament divided evenly between groups of parties that support and oppose austerity conditions attached to a 130 billion euro rescue agreed with lenders in March. ...