| A fast 2014 start on presidential prep Posted: 22 Jan 2014 03:09 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — This is a year of auditioning, positioning, networking and just plain hard work for people who are considering running for president in 2016.
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| Australian minister slams Snowden's 'treachery' Posted: 22 Jan 2014 01:19 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — Australia's top diplomat on Wednesday accused former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden of "unprecedented treachery" for his leaks about secret government surveillance, and offered a staunch defense of her nation's intelligence cooperation with America.
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| Syria missile attack kills 10 as peace talks open Posted: 22 Jan 2014 12:40 PM PST  A missile attack Wednesday on an opposition area in northern Syria killed 10 people, including five children and three women, as peace talks opened in Switzerland, a monitoring group said. Fighting raged across much of Syria as regime and opposition delegates attended the international peace conference aimed at ending a nearly three-year civil war that has claimed more than 130,000 lives. "Two men, three women and five children were killed when a missile -- believed to be a surface-to-surface missile -- hit the Maasraniyeh area of Aleppo city," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group. Once Syria's commercial capital, Aleppo has been the scene of intense fighting since a rebel offensive there in July 2012.
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| Time to end al Qaeda presence in Falluja: Iraq's Maliki Posted: 22 Jan 2014 11:37 AM PST  By Ahmed Rasheed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Wednesday it was time to clear al Qaeda-linked militants out of the rebel-held city of Falluja, but set no deadline for any military assault. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al Qaeda offshoot also on the frontlines of Syria's civil war, overran Falluja with help from other Sunni Muslim groups on January 1. Iraqi troops and security forces have set up a loose cordon around the city, 50 km (31 miles) west of Baghdad, and have clashed sporadically with insurgents inside, but Maliki has said community leaders and tribesmen should force ISIL to withdraw, in order to spare Falluja more bloodshed and destruction. "The time has come to settle this issue and end the presence of this gang in this city and save its people from their evil," Maliki said in his weekly televised address to the nation.
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| Syria hails Aleppo airport reopening as a victory over rebels Posted: 22 Jan 2014 10:31 AM PST By Stephen Kalin BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria hailed the reopening of Aleppo international airport on Wednesday after a year's closure as a military victory over rebels, on the opening day of peace talks in Switzerland aimed at ending the civil war. Syrian state television reported that a passenger flight carrying a media delegation from Damascus, 300 km (200 miles) to the south, landed at 10:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. ET) in Aleppo, formerly Syria's commercial hub and its most populous city. A reporter for the government outlet said the flight was made possible by the army's control of the entire area around the airport, which he said had been achieved over the past week. Aleppo's airport was closed last year due to clashes and shelling but military aircraft continued to use it. |
| Iraq PM calls for 'stand' against Anbar militants Posted: 22 Jan 2014 10:05 AM PST  Iraq's prime minister called Wednesday for residents of restive Anbar province to "take a stand" against anti-government fighters, as air strikes were said to have killed 50 militants. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's call came as government forces pressed an offensive against militants, including those affiliated with the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who overran parts of the provincial capital Ramadi weeks ago.
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| Iraq oil exports dip in 2013 Posted: 22 Jan 2014 09:59 AM PST  Iraq's oil exports and revenues declined in 2013 compared to the previous year, official figures showed Wednesday, despite efforts to dramatically ramp up crude sales to fund much-needed reconstruction. Exports totalled 872.3 million barrels, or 2.39 million bpd, last year compared with 2.42 million bpd in 2012, according to oil ministry figures. Iraq relies on oil exports for nearly all of its government revenue, and crude sales account for most of GDP. But the ministry has trumpeted investment in export and storage infrastructure, which it said would pay off soon.
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| Insight: Europe worried as more and younger recruits join Syria battle Posted: 22 Jan 2014 08:10 AM PST  By Alexandra Hudson COLOGNE, Germany (Reuters) - Dashing to serve customers in the family restaurant in Cologne last month while tending skewers of meat on a charcoal grill, Haci Akarcorten only just got a hand to the ringing phone. The family had learned from a Facebook message that the younger son was in Syria. "I didn't want to let him go." Thousands of young men have left European countries to join Islamist rebels fighting in Syria. Not only are the numbers growing as the conflict drags on and President Bashar al-Assad's forces appear to be getting stronger, but those leaving are getting ever younger.
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| A look at key fighting groups in Syria Posted: 22 Jan 2014 07:40 AM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — Here's a list of key fighting groups inside Syria:
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| Special Report: Amid Syria's violence, Kurds carve out autonomy Posted: 22 Jan 2014 06:40 AM PST  By Erika Solomon QAMISHLI, Syria (Reuters) - In the northeast corner of Syria, a pocket of stability is emerging amid the country's civil war. And so far they are fighting off the forces of both President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels who want to oust him. The people now in control here are Kurds, an ethnic group that forms the majority of the population in parts of northern Syria, eastern Turkey, northern Iraq and western Iran. Only the Kurds in Iraq, who displaced Iraqi forces in the 1990s when a U.S. and British no-fly zone was in place against Saddam Hussein, have managed to carve out an area of real autonomy.
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| Turkey warns Syria opposition of attack risk in Istanbul: sources Posted: 22 Jan 2014 06:39 AM PST Turkey has warned Syria's opposition in exile it could be the target of an attack in Istanbul by groups linked to al Qaeda or loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, opposition sources told Reuters. Turkey has been a strong supporter of the Syrian opposition, hosting the moderate National Coalition in Istanbul and maintaining an open border policy, providing a life line to rebel-held areas by letting aid in and refugees out. But the rise of al Qaeda-linked groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in parts of northern Syria near the border poses a growing threat. |
| Kurdish women fight for equality in Syria Posted: 22 Jan 2014 06:36 AM PST By Erika Solomon MALIKIYA, Syria (Reuters) - Like her five sisters before her, Ahin left school to help her mother at home. At a remote Kurdish militia base on the grassy rolling hills near Syria's border with Iraq, the stocky 19-year-old jumps and crawls with rows of women in olive green fatigues. The training camp is a powerful sign of the way Syria's Kurds are working to create an autonomous region. While both Islamist rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have sidelined women, in this Kurdish area, men are happy to fight alongside them. |
| Five Best Wednesday Columns Posted: 22 Jan 2014 06:25 AM PST  Little or nothing in Bob McDonnell's past as state attorney general or state legislator pointed to an extravagant lifestyle, serious personal debts, or blind spots in judgment. RELATED: Louie Gohmert Should Really Rethink Going Without Insurance
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| Where Al Qaeda Holds Its Hostages Posted: 22 Jan 2014 02:45 AM PST  Exclusive interviews reveal that jihadists are moving Western abductees deeper into Islamist-held territory in Syria, amid mounting fears for their safety.
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| Syrian warring sides to meet under world's gaze Posted: 22 Jan 2014 12:59 AM PST  By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Lesley Wroughton MONTREUX, Switzerland (Reuters) - Syria's government and its enemies come face to face on Wednesday for the first time as world powers try to set aside their own differences and push for an end to three years of civil war that is unsettling the entire Middle East. A day of formal speeches under U.N. auspices at a hotel on Lake Geneva has raised no great expectations, particularly among Islamist rebels on Syria's frontlines who have branded Western-backed opposition leaders as traitors for even agreeing to be in the same room as President Bashar al-Assad's delegates. A flap over a now withdrawn last-minute invitation to Iran, Assad's main ally, highlighted tensions between the West and Russia and the sectarian rift in the Middle East between Sunni Arabs who support the rebels and the Shi'ite rulers in Tehran. "The subject of the president and the regime is a red line for us and the Syrian people and will not be touched," Moualem, who will lead the Damascus delegation, was quoted by Syria's SANA news agency as saying.
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| Italy's art spooks show off stolen masterpieces Posted: 21 Jan 2014 06:43 PM PST  Italy's cultural police, who have taken a leading role in the fight against the smuggling of antiquities, put on show a trove of recovered stolen art in Rome from Etruscan funerary urns to Renaissance paintings. Dozens of works are being displayed in the presidential palace in the Italian capital in a special exhibition also intended to show off a police force that is called in to consult on art thefts around the world. "The turnover from the illegal trade in art is fourth in the world after arms, drugs and financial products," said Mariano Mossa, head of the cultural police force. Italy was the first country to equip itself with a special department to investigate art thefts in 1969 and its headquarters is in a Baroque palace in the centre of Rome that crowds of tourists pass every day.
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