FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Thousands of mourners rallied on Saturday at funerals for Sunni Muslims shot by troops in demonstrations against Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Troops on Friday shot dead five people in Falluja, in the Sunni-dominated western province of Anbar. Sunnis have taken to the streets since December to protest what they call mistreatment of their minority sect, heightening fears Iraq may return to the Shi'ite-Sunni bloodletting that killed tens of thousands in 2006-2007. ...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Paul Ryan said Saturday that Republicans need to stick together and pick their fights during President Barack Obama's second term, rejecting some White House proposals outright and trying to infuse others with conservative principles.
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - EU leaders told Argentina and Brazil on Saturday to open up their markets and push ahead on a free-trade deal that would be a major prize for Europe as it tries to emerge from three years of economic crisis. Treading carefully in a region whose fortunes are markedly better than Europe's, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Buenos Aires and Brasilia not to revert to the kind of protectionism of the 1930s that deepened the Great Depression. ...
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Beef containing horse DNA that was supplied by an Irish company to major food companies like Tesco and Burger King originated in Poland, Ireland's agriculture department said on Saturday. The British food industry has been rocked by the revelation retailers sold beef products that contained horse DNA, a scandal that has also left Ireland's 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion) beef industry reeling from the knock-on effects. Results of tests showed that Polish ingredients used by Irish burger manufacturer Silvercrest contained 4. ...
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev used a prime-time TV interview on Saturday to dismiss concerns growing fallout from the 2009 death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky would damage Russia's business interests. Medvedev said the whistleblower's death in jail, for which no one has been brought to justice, was being used by Kremlin critics to score points but was of no import to business leaders. ...
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has criticized the lengthy pre-trial detention of hundreds of military officers, suggesting it was sapping army morale just as Ankara vows to keep up pressure on Kurdish militants. During his 10 years in power, Erdogan, whose party has moderate Islamist roots, has brought to heel the once all-powerful armed forces, which see themselves as guardians of secularism and regularly intervened in politics and carried out coups in previous decades. ...
PARIS (Reuters) - The number of people who support the legalization of same-sex marriage in France has risen despite major protests against the government's planned reforms earlier this month, a new poll by Ifop for news website Atlantico.fr showed. The proportion of those surveyed supporting the change in the law rose to 63 percent from 60 percent in early January and December. Support for adoption rights for gay couples also rose by 3 percentage points, although the country remains divided on the issue, with 49 percent in favor, according to the international marketing firm. ...
Activists from the hacker collective known as Anonymous assumed control over the homepage of a Department of Justice agency this morning. In a manifesto left on the defaced page, the group demanded reform to the American justice system and what the activists said are threats...
AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian opposition fighters have freed about 300 prisoners from a jail near the border with Turkey and found 30 others shot in the head, an opposition activist said on Saturday. Fighters from various brigades have been attacking the Idlib Central Prison for the last three days. They took over one of its two main buildings late on Friday and are surrounding the second building, which is located on a hilltop and is better defended, activist Abu Ali said. ...
BAKU (Reuters) - Police arrested about 40 activists demonstrating in Azerbaijan's capital on Saturday against President Ilham Aliyev's government and in support of residents of a northern town where protests were crushed this week. More than 100 protesters gathered in central Baku, some chanting "Freedom!" and calling for the resignation of Aliyev, who succeeded his father in 2003 and has tolerated little dissent in the oil-producing former Soviet republic. Police swiftly stopped the protest, forcing demonstrators out of a park and then arresting some in the street. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hackers sympathetic to the late computer prodigy Aaron Swartz claimed on Saturday to have infiltrated the website of the U.S. Justice Department's Sentencing Commission, and said they planned to release government data. The Sentencing Commission site, www.ussc.gov , was shut down early Saturday. Identifying themselves as Anonymous, a loosely organized group of unknown provenance associated with a range of recent online actions, the hackers voiced outrage over Swartz' suicide on January 11. ...
AMMAN (Reuters) - More than 20 people were killed in the Syrian city of Homs on Saturday, a doctor said, as fighting raged around a road junction on a supply line to government forces in the interior of the country. The opposition accuses shabbiha militia loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of killing some 200 Sunni Muslim civilians in Homs in massacres over the last two weeks, but a Syrian ban on most independent media makes such reports difficult to verify. ...
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's National Defence Council, headed by President Mohamed Mursi, on Saturday condemned street violence and called for national dialogue to resolve political differences, the information minister said after the council met. The council, which includes the defense minister, who is a general in charge of the army, could also consider declaring a state of emergency or a curfew in areas of violence if needed, Information Minister Salah Abdel Maqsoud said. ...
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Ten police officers, including the local counter-terrorism chief, were killed in a suicide bombing in northern Afghanistan on Saturday. Shortly after 5 p.m. (1230 GMT) a man driving a motorbike detonated a large bomb at a busy roundabout in the north city of Kunduz near a group of police officers, provincial police chief spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini said. "As a result of a suicide attack 10 policemen were killed, including the head of the traffic department and the head of the counter-terrorism office," said Hussaini. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa said on Saturday he will not seek re-election in 2014, saying he felt that after 40 years in Congress, it will be "somebody else's turn." Harkin, 73, is one of the most liberal senators and has focused much of his long congressional career on farm policy and legislation aiding people with disabilities. Iowa, site of the early presidential caucuses, is considered a political swing state, putting Democrats' long-held Senate seat at risk. Republican Charles Grassley is Iowa's other U.S. senator. ...
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore's long-dominant People's Action Party (PAP) lost heavily in a single-seat by-election on Saturday, a barometer of how the government is dealing with discontent in the wealthy Asian country over immigration and the high cost of living. The result in the Punggol East ward - 54.5 percent of the vote for the Workers Party and 43.7 percent for the PAP, with the rest split by two others - does not alter the balance of power in parliament, where the ruling party will still hold 80 of 87 elected seats. ...
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese fans were disappointed but still proud on Saturday after home-grown tennis heroine Li Na lost out once again on the Australian Open crown, saying she continued to be an inspiration for China. Li, affectionately known as "Big Sister Na" and "Golden Flower" in China, is seen by many Chinese as a role model, with her steely determination, broad smile and English language skills emblematic of a confident and rising country. ...
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's opposition submitted a petition to President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, demanding an investigation into the death of an activist who hanged himself in the Netherlands last week. Alexander Dolmatov, who had been under investigation for alleged involvement in violence at a protest against Putin last May, hanged himself after being refused asylum by Dutch authorities. He fled Russia in June after police raided his parents' apartment. ...
Even as the Obama administration and the Afghan government are locked in intense negotiations over the terms of the withdrawal of U.S. troops after a decade of war, the United States is approaching a sobering milestone. Jan. 27 will mark the 40th anniversary of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords ending America’s long war in Vietnam. By August of that year U.S. combat troops had pulled out of the country, though Washington continued to backstop South Vietnamese forces with airpower and other support.
