Markets reward China’s reform ambition, await follow-up
HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) – Investors rewarded Beijing on Monday for its ambitious reform plan, sustaining a stocks rally led by consumer goods shares seen as direct beneficiaries of the promised easing of China’s one-child policy and efforts to boos…
Bachelet reforms hinge on deft handling of Chile’s tricky Congress
SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Presidential favorite Michelle Bachelet fell just short of a decisive first-round victory and her center-left bloc failed to gain major ground in Congress on Sunday, possibly snarling her ambitious plans to curb Chile’s steep incom…
Israel secretly holding suspected Qaeda man over three years
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel has secretly detained a suspected al-Qaeda biological weapons expert for more than three years, court documents disclosed on Monday, after the man appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court to free him.
Syrian army besieges town in strategic Qalamoun mountains
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian forces are besieging a key town in the Qalamoun mountains, activists said on Sunday, a region used by rebels to cross from Lebanon and which links the capital to government strongholds along the coast.
Wedding murder exposes Kurdish divisions in Turkey
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) – When gunmen stormed a wedding and shot dead a guest in southeastern Turkey, they stirred fears of a new outbreak of bloodshed in a region increasingly destabilized by Syria’s civil war.
‘Alarming exploitation’ of workers in Qatar: Amnesty
(Reuters) – Qatar’s construction industry is rife with abuse of migrant workers who are “treated like cattle” and live in squalid accommodations, Amnesty International said on Sunday while calling on world soccer’s governing body to help with the situa…
Nepal’s revolutionary leader loses his appeal as nation limps to the polls
CHAPAGAUN, Nepal (Reuters) – – Widow Narayan Kumari Ghimire has lost faith in Nepal’s powerful Maoists: the only reason they will get her vote in Tuesday’s election is because her son died fighting for them during the insurrection that ended seven year…
Australian spies tried to tap Indonesian president’s phone calls: media reports
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s spy agencies attempted to listen in on the mobile phone conversations of Indonesia’s president and targeted the mobile phones of his wife and senior ministers, Australian media reported on Monday, citing documents leaked …
Top Syrian rebel commander dies from wounds
AMMAN (Reuters) – A prominent Syrian rebel leader has died from wounds suffered in an air raid on the city of Aleppo, in a blow to the armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, activists said on Monday.
Egypt train crash kills 20 people
CAIRO (Reuters) – More than 20 people died and another 20 injured when a train crashed into a pickup truck and a minibus near Cairo, the state news agency MENA said early on Monday.
