Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• Factbox: Mexico's cross-party energy reform proposal
• Gunmen attack liquor stores in Baghdad, killing nine
• Gunmen kill nine at Baghdad alcohol shops
• Syrian Islamists seize Western-backed rebel bases: monitoring group
• Syrian airstrikes on rebel-held city kill 13
• Iraqi FM warns of jihadi 'emirate' in Syria
• Nelson Mandela: How US conservatives viewed him then – and now
• 2 bombings kill 4 people in Iraq
• Thad Cochran is in for the primary fight of his life
• Hagel outlines new weapons sale plan for Gulf
• US looks to manage, not end, China air rift

Factbox: Mexico's cross-party energy reform proposal Posted: 07 Dec 2013 04:28 PM PST Senators from Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the conservative National Action Party (PAN) presented a broad energy reform on Saturday aimed at lifting the country's lagging oil, natural gas and electricity interests into the modern age and driving growth in Latin America's second-largest economy. If approved by Congress next week, as is widely expected, the proposal would represent Mexico's most ambitious overhaul of its state-run energy monopolies since it expropriated the assets of British and American oil companies in 1938. The proposal would end the exploration and production monopoly held for decades by state-run oil and gas company Pemex, as well as the monopoly status currently held by national electric utility CFE. Below is a list of the main proposals in the bill: The proposal would keep Mexican oil and gas 100 percent in state hands but envisages rewriting articles 25, 27 and 28 of the constitution to allow profit- and production-sharing contracts, as well as licenses.

Gunmen attack liquor stores in Baghdad, killing nine Posted: 07 Dec 2013 01:29 PM PST Gunmen attacked 12 liquor stores in Baghdad on Saturday, killing nine people, police said, the latest in a series of assaults on alcohol sellers in the capital. Police said most of the victims were members of Iraq's Yazidi Kurdish minority who tend to staff alcohol stores. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but Shi'ite Muslim militias, who warn against practices they see as going against their strict interpretation of Islam, are believed to have been behind assaults on liquor stores and cafes earlier this year. Even though many Iraqis shun alcohol, forbidden under Islamic law, the country is a generally less conservative Muslim society than neighbours such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, thanks to its mix of Shi'ites, Sunnis, ethnic Kurds and Christians.

Gunmen kill nine at Baghdad alcohol shops Posted: 07 Dec 2013 11:05 AM PST Gunmen shot dead nine people at alcohol shops in the Iraqi capital on Saturday, security and medical officials said. The shootings in the Waziriyah area of Baghdad also wounded at least five people, the sources said. Militants have targeted Baghdad's liquor stores in the past, both because drinking is forbidden by Islam and because such shops are often run by religious minorities. Also on Saturday, a roadside bomb killed one person and wounded four in the Dura area of Baghdad, while a blast in the northern city of Mosul killed three people and wounded 12.

Syrian Islamists seize Western-backed rebel bases: monitoring group Posted: 07 Dec 2013 08:31 AM PST By Alexander Dziadosz and Dasha Afanasieva BEIRUT/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Syrian rebels from an Islamist alliance formed last month have occupied bases and warehouses belonging to a Western-backed rebel group on the Turkish border, rebels and activists said on Saturday. Fighters from the Islamic Front, a union of six major rebel groups, took control of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) bases at the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the northwestern border with Turkey late on Friday night, the opposition sources said. Louay Meqdad, an FSA spokesman, said the Islamic Front fighters had entered the bases after saying they wanted to help to secure them. They then asked officers and employees to leave and replaced an FSA flag with one of their own, he said.

Syrian airstrikes on rebel-held city kill 13 Posted: 07 Dec 2013 08:30 AM PST BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government aircraft on Saturday pounded a rebel-held city in the country's northeast, killing at least 13 people including five children, activists said.

Iraqi FM warns of jihadi 'emirate' in Syria Posted: 07 Dec 2013 07:07 AM PST MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Iraq's top diplomat warned Saturday that the "toxic" proliferation of extremist groups among Syria's rebels raises the prospect of a jihadist-ruled territory at the heart of the region.

Nelson Mandela: How US conservatives viewed him then – and now Posted: 07 Dec 2013 06:46 AM PST The world press is filled with encomiums for South African leader Nelson Mandela, laudatory statements by President Obama and other world leaders, editorials praising his courage in fighting against and then leading his country out of racial oppression. "My first political action, the first thing I ever did that involved an issue or a policy or politics was a protest against apartheid," President said when Mr. Mandela died this week. "Like so many around the globe, I cannot fully imagine my own life without the example that Nelson Mandela set." But it wasn't that long ago that many elected officials and political leaders in the United States –conservatives, mainly – were outspoken in their opposition to what Mandela represented, which to them was socialism (or worse yet, communism) and borderline terrorism since Mandela had advocated armed resistance to South Africa's white minority regime.

2 bombings kill 4 people in Iraq Posted: 07 Dec 2013 05:47 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi authorities say two separate bombings north of Baghdad have killed at least four people.

Thad Cochran is in for the primary fight of his life Posted: 07 Dec 2013 12:40 AM PST Thad Cochran, the six-term senior senator from Mississippi, bucked widely held assumptions that he would retire by announcing on Friday that he will seek another term. His announcement sets up a primary showdown between Cochran, who enjoys the support of establishment Republicans, and Chris McDaniel, a young state legislator aligned with the Tea Party. His closest race was in 1984 against William Winter. In 2010, he steered at least $500 million to Mississippi.

Hagel outlines new weapons sale plan for Gulf Posted: 07 Dec 2013 12:27 AM PST MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel opened the door for the U.S. to sell missile defense and other weapons systems to U.S.-friendly Gulf nations, with an eye toward boosting their abilities to counter Iran's ballistic missiles, even as global powers ink a nuclear deal with Tehran.

US looks to manage, not end, China air rift Posted: 06 Dec 2013 10:02 PM PST The United States has strenuously objected to China's new air zone over islands managed by Japan, but experts say its best hope is to contain rather than end tensions. After Beijing last month declared an Air Defense Identification Zone in the area of the East China Sea, asking foreign planes to identify themselves, the United States defiantly flew through B-52 jets. US allies Japan and South Korea followed suit. But in Washington, few are holding their breath that China -- where hostility toward Japan runs deep -- will reverse its decision.

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