Asia

Four killed in Thai clashes; PM to face charges over rice scheme

(Reuters) – Gun battles erupted between Thai police and anti-government protesters in Bangkok on Tuesday and four people were killed and dozens wounded as authorities made their most determined effort yet to clear demonstrators from the streets. In a day of tangled developments in Thailand’s long-running political crisis, the country’s anti-corruption body announced it was filing charges against Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra relating to a rice subsidy scheme that has fuelled middle-class opposition to her […]

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Nokor’s Kim warned he might face charges over atrocities

(Reuters) – North Korean security chiefs and possibly even Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un himself should face international justice for ordering systematic torture, starvation and killings comparable to Nazi-era atrocities, U.N. investigators said on Monday. The investigators told Kim in a letter they were advising the United Nations to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC), to make sure any culprits “including possibly yourself” were held accountable. North Korea “categorically and totally” rejected the […]

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For South China Sea claimants, a legal venue to battle China

(Reuters) – When Philippine President Benigno Aquino compared China to the Germany of 1938 and called for global support as his country battles Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea, he put the focus on a case that Manila has filed in an international court. The Philippines has taken its dispute with China to arbitration under the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea and its lawyers say that the tribunal has discretionary […]

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Bombs kill at least 17 across Iraq: police and medics

HILLA, Iraq Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:52pm EST (Reuters) – At least 17 civilians and soldiers were killed in car and roadside bomb attacks across Iraq on Wednesday, police and medics said. No group claimed responsibility for any of the attacks, but Sunni Islamists and other insurgents have been regaining ground in a violent campaign to destabilize Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government. More than 1,000 people were killed in attacks across the country in January alone in […]

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Thailand Constitutional Court rejects opposition request to annul election

Thailand’s constitutional court has rejected an opposition call to annul elections held earlier this month. The court ruled there were insufficient grounds. The Constitutional Court said in a statement that it had declined to consider the petition by Wiratana Kalayasiri, an opposition Democrat Party lawyer, to nullify the February 2 vote because there were insufficient grounds. The opposition’s legal challenge was based on the failure to hold the entire election on the same day. “This […]

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North and South Korea seek better ties at rare high-level talks

(Reuters) – North and South Korea held their first high-level talks in seven years on their armed border on Wednesday, exploring ways to improve ties while the South and the United States geared up for large-scale military drills that have angered Pyongyang. The meeting was set up with unusual speed and great secrecy at the North’s suggestion last week, the latest example of conflicting signals coming from Pyongyang that included an abrupt cancellation of an […]

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China’s premier cements ban on new buildings in cost-saving drive

(Reuters) – Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has called for a complete halt to construction of new government buildings, training centers and hotels, throwing his weight behind a standing order that the authorities have had difficulty enforcing in recent months. Li’s call came during a meeting of China’s State Council, or cabinet, and was part of broad efforts to curtail government spending, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday. In July, the government ordered a […]

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China, Taiwan agree to open offices after historic talks

(Reuters) – China and Taiwan, at odds for more than six decades, agreed at historic talks on Tuesday to set up representative offices as early as possible, though sensitive political issues like a formal peace treaty were not up for discussion. The talks between Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Minister Wang Yu-chi and China’s Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun, who heads the Taiwan Affairs Office, were the first since the 1949 creation of the People’s Republic of […]

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Roadside bomb explodes near Iraqi parliament speaker’s convoy

BAGHDAD Mon Feb 10, 2014 3:22pm EST (Reuters) – The speaker of Iraq’s parliament narrowly escaped death on Monday when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy close to the northern city of Mosul, his office said. Usama al-Nujaifi, one of Iraq’s most senior Sunni Muslim politicians, was visiting al-Salam area south of Mosul when the bomb exploded, badly damaging a vehicle carrying his bodyguards, who were wounded, it said. No group immediately claimed responsibility […]

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Unpaid rice farmers protest as Thai government’s problems mount

(Reuters) – Hundreds of farmers rallied outside Thailand’s justice ministry on Monday to protest against the state’s failure to pay them for rice bought under a controversial subsidy scheme that the caretaker administration in Bangkok is struggling to fund. The rice program was a signature policy of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was swept to power in 2011 with the help of millions of rural votes, but has become one of the biggest threats to […]

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Convicted Australian drug trafficker Schappelle Corby released on parole

Indonesia released on parole convicted Australian drug trafficker Schapelle Corby on Monday (February 10) from a prison on the resort island of Bali despite calls from some legislators for the high-profile prisoner to serve out her full term. Corby, 36, was among nearly 1,300 convicts approved for parole, the Justice Ministry said in a statement, because she “fulfilled substantive and administrative requirements as laid out by the law”. Corby was sentenced to 20 years in […]

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