| National Puppy Day! Pamper your pooch Posted: 23 Mar 2014 02:33 PM PDT Dog lovers just celebrated National Puppy Day, but I will resist telling you about our pair of rapscallion Welsh corgis called Dodger and Dylan. See photos of Mr. Putin and his Karakachan (Bulgarian shepherd) "Buffy" here. |
| Turkey shoots down Syrian plane it says violated air space Posted: 23 Mar 2014 02:04 PM PDT  By Daren Butler ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish armed forces shot down a Syrian plane on Sunday that Ankara said had crossed into its air space in an area where Syrian rebels have been battling President Bashar al-Assad's forces for control of a border crossing. "A Syrian plane violated our airspace," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told an election rally in northwest Turkey. Because if you violate my airspace, our slap after this will be hard." Syria condemned what it called a "blatant aggression" and said the jet was pursuing rebel fighters inside Syria. One plane entered Turkish airspace at Yayladagi, east of the Kasab border crossing, it said.
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| Iraq attacks kill at least seven Posted: 23 Mar 2014 11:27 AM PDT  At least seven people were killed on Sunday in a series of attacks in Iraq, most of which were concentrated in predominantly Sunni areas north of the capital, officials said. The latest unrest is part of a sustained surge in bloodshed that is Iraq's worst since 2008, when it was emerging from a brutal sectarian war, and which has left more than 2,000 people dead already this year. Elsewhere in Iraq, a roadside bomb in Tikrit, also north of Baghdad, killed two civilians, while a university professor was shot dead in the Shiite-majority city of Kut, south of the capital.
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| Arab ministers approve summit resolutions, avoid rifts Posted: 23 Mar 2014 11:00 AM PDT  Arab League foreign ministers said they agreed on the draft resolutions Sunday for a summit in Kuwait this week, despite deep rifts among member states. Host country Kuwait in fact has smoothed relations," Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters at the end of a one-day meeting. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have recalled their ambassadors from fellow Gulf Cooperation Council member Qatar in protest at Doha's perceived support for the Muslim Brotherhood, branded a terrorist organisation by Cairo and Riyadh. Rifts between Qatar and the three other Gulf states as well as Egypt were expected to be tackled during the ministerial meeting and also at the two-day summit starting Tuesday.
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| Romney slams Obama for 'faulty judgment' on Russia Posted: 23 Mar 2014 09:46 AM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney said Sunday that President Barack Obama is naive when it comes to Russia, has shown "faulty judgment" about Moscow's intentions and could have done more to try to deter its annexation of Crimea.
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| Militants launch social support in an Iraqi city Posted: 23 Mar 2014 08:07 AM PDT  BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's al-Qaida-inspired militants who took over the city of Fallujah are now trying to show they can run it, providing social services, policing the streets and implementing Shariah rulings in a bid to win the support of its Sunni Muslim population.
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| Foreign policy rifts beset Arabs ahead of summit Posted: 23 Mar 2014 07:19 AM PDT  By Sami Aboudi and Sylvia Westall DUBAI/KUWAIT (Reuters) - Rifts over foreign policy will likely make it harder for Arab leaders meeting at a summit this week to forge a common stand on regional challenges, including what many of them see as a threat from Iranian-U.S. rapprochement. And while the Arab League meeting may agree more humanitarian action in response to Syria's war, any communique calling for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad will not reflect divergent views behind the scenes about the Syrian leader's handling of the conflict. Syria and Iran are not the only points of contention at the annual summit, scheduled to take place in Kuwait on March 25-26. The meeting follows an unprecedented row among members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) alliance of Gulf Arab states over support for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and a verbal spat between Iraq and Saudi Arabia over violence in Iraq's Anbar province.
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| Iraq papers protest killing of well-known reporter Posted: 23 Mar 2014 06:38 AM PDT  BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi newspapers have not printed Sunday's edition to protest the killing the previous day of a well-known radio journalist by a guard of the country's Kurdish president.
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| One dead as pro-, anti-Damascus gunmen clash in Beirut Posted: 23 Mar 2014 04:16 AM PDT  A firefight between pro- and anti-Damascus factions in Beirut killed one gunman and wounded 13 Sunday, a security official said, in the latest spillover of the conflict in neighbouring Syria. The gun battle raged from 3 am to 8:30 am (0100 to 0630 GMT) in a poor Sunni Muslim district in the south of the Lebanese capital, the security official told AFP. The battle pitted members of a small pro-Damascus Sunni group -- the Arab Movement Party (AMP) -- against gunmen opposed -- like most Lebanese Sunnis -- to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Witnesses said that the opposing gunmen were members of small Lebanese and Palestinian factions hostile to Shiite militant group Hezbollah, whose militants have intervened in Syria alongside Assad's forces.
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| Rebels battle for Syria border post near Mediterranean Posted: 22 Mar 2014 05:15 PM PDT  Islamist fighters in Syria battled President Bashar al-Assad's forces for control of a border crossing with Turkey close to the Mediterranean on Saturday, part of an offensive aimed at opening up a rebel link to the sea. They said heavy clashes continued around Kasab crossing and a nearby village of the same name - both about 5 miles from the coast - a day after rebels launched their assault. Assad's forces have already lost control of most border crossings with Turkey during the three year civil war but had held on to Kasab, gateway to the coastal province of Latakia which has remained an Assad stronghold. Syrian authorities accused Turkey of helping the fighters launch their attack on Kasab from Turkish territory, saying Ankara's army "provided cover for this terrorist attack" on the wooded and hilly border region.
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