Italy PM forges ahead with cuts even as coalition row rages
ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s cabinet passed a package of measures to trim public spending on Monday, undeterred by a row with Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right party that is threatening to bring down the prime minister’s coalition and has rattled markets.
Cuban state begins to move out of the restaurant business
HAVANA (Reuters) – More than 20 state restaurants in Cuba are about to become employee-run cooperatives as Raul Castro’s communist government continues its retreat from running just about everything on the Caribbean island.
Congo army battles M23 rebels near eastern city of Goma
GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – Congo’s army said it clashed with eastern rebels on Monday, ending a brief lull in days of fighting that has killed and wounded dozens.
India’s Sonia Gandhi falls ill in parliament, hospitalized
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Sonia Gandhi, the president of India’s ruling Congress party who is widely seen as the country’s most powerful politician, was taken to hospital on Monday after feeling unwell during a marathon parliament debate on a major new foo…
United Nations says it will contact United States over spying report
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Monday it plans to contact the United States over a report that the U.S. National Security Agency bugged its New York headquarters and warned that countries are expected to respect the world body’s …
Syrian Kurdish leader says Assad not to blame for attack
BERLIN (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would not be “so stupid” as to use chemical weapons close to Damascus, the leader of the country’s largest Kurdish group said.
Indian parliament approves $20 billion cheap grain plan for poor
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s lower house of parliament approved a plan worth nearly $20 billion on Monday to provide cheap grain to the poor, a key part of the ruling Congress party’s strategy to win re-election.
Nigerian Islamists kill 14 vigilantes in Bama raid
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Nigerian Islamists killed 14 pro-government youth vigilantes in an attack on the northeastern town of Bama, a local official who attended a mass funeral for the victims said on Monday.
Syria rebels seize strategic town, kill dozens of Assad fighters
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Rebel forces took control of a strategic town in northern Syria on Monday, killing more than 50 pro-government fighters and cutting off government forces’ only supply route out of the city of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human …
Israelis line up for gas masks over Syria war fears
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Thousands of Israelis are lining up for gas masks or ordering them by phone, spurred on by fears that any Western military response to last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria could ensnare their own country in war.
