Iran suggests will spare man who cheated the gallows
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s justice minister said a move to execute a convicted Iranian drug offender who has already survived a hanging is ill-advised, suggesting he would not face capital punishment again.
Fearing retribution, Syrian minorities keep low profile in exile
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – In a small park on the edge of old Istanbul’s Eminonu square, women sit begging, Syrian passports in their outstretched hands, “Please help in the name of God” on sheets of paper at their feet.
India issues final show cause notice to AgustaWestland-govt official
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s defence ministry has issued a final “show cause” notice to AgustaWestland seeking to cancel a deal to buy a dozen helicopters and has given the company 21 days to reply, a government official said on Wednesday.
Analysis: Lack of crop rotation slowly turns Argentine Pampas into ‘sand’
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina’s key resource, its agricultural soils, are being depleted by lack of crop rotation as soy farming encroaches on areas once used for corn, wheat and cattle grazing, according to local experts and a government source.
Kuwait wants Saudis to take up U.N. Security Council seat
KUWAIT (Reuters) – Kuwait is trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to take up the U.N. Security Council seat that Riyadh has spurned in protest at the world body’s failure to end the war in Syria, a senior Kuwaiti official said on Wednesday.
Monitors protest expulsion of 16 candidates for Afghan president
KABUL (Reuters) – The disqualification of 16 presidential candidates from Afghanistan’s presidential race prompted an outcry from independent monitors on Wednesday, while some victims accused the government of being behind the move.
Syria frees 10 women prisoners as part of three-way hostage swap
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian authorities have released 10 women jailed for helping the opposition, the first batch of 126 women expected to be freed in the final stages of a three-way hostage swap, activists said on Wednesday,
China, India sign deal aimed at soothing Himalayan tension
BEIJING (Reuters) – China and India signed a deal on Wednesday aimed at soothing tension on their contested border, as the two nuclear-armed giants try to break a decades-old stalemate on overlapping claims to long remote stretches of the Himalayas.
China’s top graft buster urges ‘shock and awe’ for offenders
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s top official battling deeply-ingrained corruption warned staff on Wednesday their jobs were on the line if they failed to root out abuses, telling them to “shock and awe” their targets.
Free our reporter, begs newspaper as China cracks down on journalists
BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese newspaper pleaded with police on Wednesday to release an investigative reporter accused of defamation in an unusual public rebuke amid a wider government crackdown on freedom of expression.
