CA-NEWS Summary

China's new premier pledges reform, sees risks

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Sunday ensuring economic growth was the top priority for his government, pledging to fight graft, tackle vested interests and calling for an end to a cyber-hacking row with the United States. Li's first news conference as premier, at the close of the annual meeting of China's rubber-stamp parliament that confirmed his appointment, covered topics that have been the principal focus of recent government rhetoric, with a strong emphasis on the necessity of reform to deliver long-term economic stability.

As drone monopoly frays, Obama seeks global rules

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, who vastly expanded U.S. drone strikes against terrorism suspects overseas under the cloak of secrecy, is now openly seeking to influence global guidelines for their use as China and other countries pursue their own drone programs. The United States was the first to use unmanned aircraft fitted with missiles to kill militant suspects in the years after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Al Qaeda claims assault on Iraqi justice ministry

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate said on Sunday it carried out a coordinated suicide bomb and gun attack on the country's justice ministry last week that killed at least 25 people in the centre of Baghdad. The assault near the heavily fortified Green Zone, where several Western embassies and government offices are located, fanned fears about Iraq's still fragile security a decade after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Ex-general Yaalon named as Israeli defense minister

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose Moshe Yaalon, a right-wing former armed forces chief, to be Israel's defense minister on Sunday, saying his experience was needed to tackle challenges in a turbulent Middle East. Yaalon, 62, belongs to Netanyahu's Likud party and spent the past four years in his inner circle of ministers, publicly backing his reluctance to give up the occupied West Bank and make way for a Palestinian state.

Show mercy, don't rush to condemn, new pope urges

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, speaking to an overflow crowd of more than 150,000 in St Peter's Square, urged the world on Sunday to be more forgiving and merciful and not so quick to condemn other people's failures. "A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just," he told the cheering crowd from the window of the papal apartments overlooking the square.

From teenage graffiti to a country in ruins: Syria's two years of rebellion

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - On a cold winter's night in early 2011, some Syrian schoolboys drew a few slogans on a wall in a town the world had barely heard of. Two years on, more than 70,000 people have died in the bitter conflict that ensued, and calls for the West to give more help to the Syrian rebels are rising. It was in the southern town of Deraa that 16-year-old Mohammad and five friends gathered to scrawl graffiti demanding the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad, whose family had ruled the country for 40 years. They chose to vent their anger at the pervasive fear and repression in the country at their school in the Hay al-Arbeen district.

Fifth French soldier killed in Mali campaign

PARIS (Reuters) - A fifth French soldier has been killed in the country's nine-week-old military campaign against Islamist rebels in Mali, the government said on Sunday. An explosive device went off under a vehicle carrying Corporal Alexandre Van Dooren during a search for rebel arms caches in northern Mali's Ifoghas mountains on Saturday, according to France's defense ministry and the president's office.

Albanian prisoner seizes hostages in third Greek escape bid

ATHENS (Reuters) - An Albanian murderer who has already used a helicopter to stage two prison breaks has seized hostages in a Greek jail and threatened to blow himself up with them if he is not allowed to escape, police said on Sunday. Alket Rijai, who is also a convicted robber, barricaded himself into part of the Malandrino jail in central Greece with around five guards late on Saturday, a source in the force told Reuters.

Cyprus parliament postpones vote on savings levy to Monday

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cyprus's parliament postponed an emergency session called to approve a levy on bank deposits on Sunday after signs lawmakers could block the surprise move agreed in Brussels to help fund a bailout and avert national bankruptcy. In a radical departure from previous aid packages, euro zone finance ministers want Cyprus savers to forfeit up to 9.9 percent of their deposits in return for a 10 billion euro bailout to the island, financially crippled by its exposure to neighboring Greece.

China's new premier seeks "new type" of ties with U.S.

BEIJING (Reuters) - New Chinese Premier Li Keqiang pledged on Sunday to work with U.S. President Barack Obama to forge "a new type of relationship" for the sake of peace in the Asia-Pacific region, and said the war of words about cyber-hacking must end. Li did not specifically mention the U.S. military "pivot" towards Asia which has concerned China nor Beijing's territorial spats with its neighbors, stressing instead the common interests between the world's top two economic powers.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-news-summary-000324387.html

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