CA-NEWS Summary

Harper under cloud after chief of staff resigns

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was under intense pressure on Monday to reassure voters that his administration is above reproach amid questions surrounding a secret check paid to Senator Mike Duffy. "There's been nothing under this prime minister's watch that's tied him so closely to such a massive ethical scandal. We need to see him show leadership," opposition New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Charlie Angus told a news conference.

Dagestan bombs kill four, two dead in shootout near Moscow

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (Reuters) - Two car bombs killed at least four people and wounded dozens of others on Monday in one of the bloodiest attacks this year in Dagestan, a turbulent province in Russia's North Caucasus region where armed groups are waging an Islamist insurgency. Car bombs, suicide bombings and firefights are common in Dagestan, at the center of an insurgency rooted in two post-Soviet wars against separatist rebels in neighboring Chechnya.

Hezbollah in big Syria battle, Obama 'concerned'

AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas have fought their biggest battle yet for Syria's beleaguered president, prompting international alarm that the civil war may spread and an urgent call for restraint from the United States. About 30 Hezbollah fighters were killed on Sunday, Syrian activists said, along with 20 Syrian troops and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad during the fiercest fighting this year in the rebel stronghold of Qusair, near the Lebanon border.

Nigeria says has Islamists on defensive

MAIDUGURI (Reuters) - Nigeria claimed an early success for its military offensive against Islamist insurgents in the northeast on Monday, saying the militants' activities had been stifled by nearly a week of attacks on their bases. Military officers in the combat zone, deep in a semi-desert frontier region, said operations continued and that troops faced considerable opposition from well-armed Boko Haram fighters.

Mexican opposition dispute goes public, threatening reforms

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Divisions within Mexico's main conservative opposition party have erupted into a bitter public dispute that threatens to undermine the reform agenda of President Enrique Pena Nieto. Short of a majority in Congress, Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is likely to need support from the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, to see through plans to overhaul state oil giant Pemex and broaden the tax base.

Council of Europe tells Putin of concern over Russian NGO law

SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - The head of the Council of Europe told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday he was concerned a law requiring non-governmental organizations which received funding from abroad to register as foreign agents could have a "chilling effect". Prosecutors have conducted a wave of inspections at the offices of all kinds of NGOs in Russia this year citing the law which critics say is part of a campaign to smother dissent against Putin during his third term as president.

Bomb attacks kill more than 70 Shi'ites across Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - More than 70 people were killed in a series of car bombings and suicide attacks targeting Shi'ite Muslims across Iraq on Monday, police and medics said, extending the worst sectarian violence since U.S. troops withdrew in December 2011. The attacks increased the number killed in sectarian clashes in the past week to more than 200. Tensions between Shi'ites, who now lead Iraq, and minority Sunni Muslims have reached a point where some fear a return to all-out civil conflict.

Gay marriage law strains UK Cameron's leadership, government

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron's flagship gay marriage policy deepened a rift in his own party on Monday after many of his own lawmakers defied him in a sign of growing strains on his leadership and his coalition government. Almost 40 percent of Cameron's 303 lawmakers in the lower house of parliament voted for an ultimately unsuccessful amendment that would have allowed registrars to refuse to perform gay marriage ceremonies if they objected.

Qatar: Arab Spring makes Israeli-Palestinian peace more pressing

DOHA (Reuters) - Qatar's emir, who has thrown his state's riches behind Arab uprisings, said on Monday that the emergence of 'people power' had put Arabs in direct confrontation with Israel and made a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more pressing. "We heard in the past that reform (in the Arab world) must wait until a peaceful settlement with Israel is achieved, but everybody should realize that such belief is now unfounded after the Arab Spring revolts," Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani told a conference in the Qatari capital.

China offers India a 'handshake across the Himalayas'

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India and China will study new ways to ease tensions on their ill-defined border after an army standoff in the Himalayas, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday on his first official foreign trip. The number two in the Chinese leadership offered New Delhi a "handshake across the Himalayas" and said the world's most populous nations could become a new engine for the global economy if they could avoid friction on the militarized border.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-news-summary-025303104.html

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