Catalan election weakens bid for independence from Spain

Separatists in Spain's Catalonia won regional elections on Sunday but failed to get the resounding mandate they need to push convincingly for a referendum on independence.Catalan President Artur Mas, who has implemented unpopular spending cuts in an economic crisis, had called an early election to test support for his new drive for independence for Catalonia, a wealthy region in northeastern Spain. Voters handed almost two thirds of the 135-seat local parliament to four different Catalan separatist parties that all want to hold a referendum on...

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Phone Sevices Ban To Prevent Attacks

Karachi: Cellphone and wireless services in the federal and two provincial capitals including Karachi were switched off till midnight on Friday over security fears. A minister said the cities could be targeted by terrorists. The ban came as security measures for the Muharram processions reached a peak. A complete ban on motorcycles was imposed in Hyderabad, the second-most populated city in the southern Sindh province. Interior Minister Rahman Malek after consulting the provincial government ordered the closure of mobile phone services in Karachi...

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Halle Berry’s Ex, Canadian Gabriel Aubry, Arrested After Fight With Her Fiancé

It was a great Thanksgiving at Halle Berry’s house. Good food, fun companionship, and a bloody, angry fight between two better-than-average-looking guys in the driveway. When Halle’s ex and baby daddy Gabriel Aubry dropped by to hand over daughter Nahla, Halle’s current love biscuit, Olivier Martinez, should probably have stayed quiet. In the house. But he made a different choice. TMZ reports that, “We’re told Gabriel was still in the motor court (a rich person’s word for a giant driveway)...

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Walmart Workers Strike On 'Black Friday'

Walmart workers are using the "Black Friday" to send a message.OUR Walmart - a coalition of current and former Walmart staff seeking better wages, benefits and working conditions - has staged months of protests outside stores and targeted Black Friday for action across the country.In Chicago, four busloads of protesters, including some Walmart workers, showed up at a store on the city’s South Side for a 7 a.m. protest. The crowd chanted “Walmart, Walmart you’re no good, treat your workers like...

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Mexican President Wants To Change His Country's Name

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has one non-urgent item pending on his agenda in the dying days of his presidency - he wants to change his country's name.Calderon sent a bill to Congress on Thursday to change the constitution to tweak his nation's official name from Estados Unidos Mexicanos, or United States of Mexico, to plain old Mexico - as the country is already known the world over.Mexico was given its name of Estados Unidos Mexicanos in the 19th century, when the country's post-revolutionary founders harked to the United States of America...

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Colombia FARC Rebels Free 4 Chinese Captives Held Since 2011

Colombia's FARC rebels freed three captive Chinese oil workers and their translator after holding them in jungle camps for more than a year, the Defense Ministry said on Thursday, an apparent goodwill gesture as the rebels seek to negotiate a peace accord to end five decades of war.The captives, who worked for a contractor hired by UK-based Emerald Energy, were taken hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in mid-2011 as they were driving in southern Colombia, the government...

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Israel Pulls Back From Gaza, Invasion Force Intact

Israel began withdrawing the army on Thursday that had been poised to invade the Gaza Strip to go after Hamas, with both sides declaring they had won their eight-day battle.Dust-covered tanks and armoured bulldozers were winched onto transporters and driven out of the same groves of straggly eucalyptus where they camped in January 2009 before going in.That conflict cost more than 1,400 lives, all but 13 Palestinian, while this time, some 160 Palestinians were killed in eight days of fighting,...

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Rivals Dispute Leadership Of France's Conservatives

The result of a tightly fought two-way contest to choose the next leader of France's conservatives remained unclear early on Monday, with both sides claiming they had won.Jean-Francois Cope, a disciple of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, announced his victory to reporters close to midnight, only for former prime minister Francois Fillon to say 20 minutes later that he was in the lead. Cope supporters said he was some 1,000 votes ahead, while Fillon said he had a lead of more than 200 votes.The...

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Israeli Air Strike Kills 11 Civilians In Gaza

An Israeli missile killed at least 11 Palestinian civilians including four children in Gaza on Sunday, medical officials said, apparently an attack on a top militant that brought a three-storey home crashing down.International pressure for a ceasefire seemed certain to mount in response to the deadliest single incident in five days of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.Egypt has taken the lead in trying to broker a ceasefire and Israeli media said a...

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Storm Victims Face Housing Crisis As Cold Snap Hits

A housing crisis loomed in New York City as victims of superstorm Sandy struggled without heat in near-freezing temperatures on Sunday and nearly 1 million people in neighbouring New Jersey remained without power.Fuel shortages and power outages lingered nearly a week after one of the worst storms in U.S. history flooded homes in coastal neighbourhoods, leaving many without heat and in need of shelter. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said 30,000 to 40,000 people in New York City alone would need shelter."We don't have a lot of empty housing in this city....

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Netanyahu Sceptical Of Abbas Hint Of No Return For Refugees

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced scepticism on Sunday over an apparent concession from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on a major sticking point in any future peace negotiations.Comments by Abbas on Thursday that he had no permanent claim on the town of Safed, from which he was driven during a 1948 war, were widely seen as hinting he was dropping a demand for a right of return of Palestinian refugees to homes now in Israel."I watched President Abbas's interview at the weekend, and I heard that since then he has already managed...

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Libya Militias Battle On Streets Of Tripoli

Rival Libyan militias fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades at each other in Tripoli on Sunday and set fire to a former intelligence building in one of the worst breakdowns in security in the capital since Muammar Gaddafi's fall.At least five people were wounded and a stray bullet entered a hospital in the heart of the city, where residents rushed to arm themselves, saying calls to police had gone unheeded. After more than 12 hours, the army moved in.The violence underscored the challenge faced by Libya's first freely-elected government, approved...

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French Left Hits Back At Catholic Church Over Same-sex Marriage

France's governing Socialist Party hit back hard at the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday for campaigning against its plan to legalise same-sex marriage, heralding a bruising debate over the issue.Paris Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois spoke against the proposed law on Saturday and encouraged Catholics to write to their elected officials and take to the streets in protest against the reform due to be voted on by mid-2013.Opinion polls show that backing for the plan, a campaign promise by President Francois Hollande, has slipped several points since leaders...

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In Islamist-led Egypt, Coptic Christians Name New Pope

Egypt's Coptic Orthodox church chose a new pope, Tawadros II, in a sumptuous service on Sunday and Christians hope he will lead them through an Islamist-dominated landscape and protect what is the Middle East's biggest Christian community.Christians, who make up about a tenth of Egypt's 83 million population, worry about political gains made by Islamists since Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year. Radical Islamists have been blamed for attacks on churches several times since, but Copts have long...

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China Wraps Up Key Meet With Expulsion Of Bo Xilai

Chinese leaders ended a key closed-door conclave on Sunday with a decision to formally expel disgraced politician Bo Xilai from the Communist Party, in a meeting which also promoted two senior military men and approved the party constitution's amendment.The secretive four-day meeting of 365 senior party officials ratified an earlier decision to expel Bo, former Chongqing party boss, as well as Liu Zhijun, one-time railway minister, sacked last year for "serious disciplinary violations", state...

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