CA-NEWS Summary

Capriles, Maduro at each other's throats in Venezuela election

CARACAS (Reuters) - Presidential candidates Nicolas Maduro and Henrique Capriles have begun Venezuela's election race with scathing personal attacks even as mourners still file past Hugo Chavez's coffin. Maduro, who was sworn in as acting president after Chavez died of cancer last week, is seen as favorite to win the April 14 election, bolstered by an oil-financed state apparatus and a wave of public sympathy over Chavez's death.

Canadian accused of dismembering, eating student appears in court

MONTREAL (Reuters) - A Canadian porn actor accused of murdering and dismembering a Chinese student then posting a video online of him eating part of the body appeared in court on Monday as his lawyers sought to close pre-trial proceedings to the press and public. Luka Rocco Magnotta, deported from Germany after an international manhunt, observed the hearing from a glass enclosure in the packed Montreal court room. During two to three weeks of proceedings, prosecutors will outline the case against Magnotta, 30, and seek to persuade a judge they have enough evidence for the case to go to trial.

Deadly abuses intensify in Syria as war worsens: U.N.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The Syrian government has stepped up indiscriminate, heavy bombardments of cities while rebels are executing prisoners condemned in their own makeshift courts without due process, U.N. investigators said on Monday. The independent investigators said they were looking into 20 massacres committed by one or the other side and hundreds of "unlawful killings", cases of torture and arbitrary arrests since September in the two-year-old conflict.

North Korea slams U.N. "plot" to investigate its human rights record

GENEVA (Reuters) - North Korea condemned a threatened U.N. investigation into its alleged human rights abuses on Monday and denounced a U.N. report as "faked material ... invented by the hostile forces, defectors and other rabbles". The U.N. Human Rights Council is likely to back a call by Japan and the European Union to set up a "Commission of Inquiry" later this month, meaning that the isolated Asian state will face much closer scrutiny.

China's Xi flexes muscle, chooses reformist VP: sources

BEIJING (Reuters) - A reformist member of China's decision-making Politburo, Li Yuanchao, is set to become the country's vice president this week instead of a more senior and conservative official best known for keeping the media in check, sources said. Li's appointment would be a sign that new Communist Party leader and incoming president Xi Jinping's clout is growing, a source with ties to the leadership said. Xi fended off a bid by influential former president Jiang Zemin to install propaganda tsar Liu Yunshan in the job, the source said.

ICC Case against Kenyatta's co-accused collapses

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court case against a man accused alongside Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta collapsed on Monday, prosecutors said, raising the chances that charges against the newly elected president will also fail to stick. Last week's election of Kenyatta, accused by the ICC of crimes against humanity, has complicated Kenya's ties its Western allies which see it as a major bulwark against the rise of Islamist militancy in east Africa.

Cardinals head to conclave, Church beset by woes

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Roman Catholic cardinals gather under the gaze of Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" on Tuesday to elect a new pope to tackle the daunting problems facing the 1.2-billion-member Church. The secret conclave, steeped in ritual and prayer, could carry on for several days, with no clear favorite in sight to take over the reins from Pope Benedict, who abdicated last month saying he was not strong enough to confront the Church's woes.

Italy center-right lawmakers protest against Berlusconi trial

MILAN (Reuters) - Dozens of parliamentarians from Silvio Berlusconi's center-right party demonstrated on Monday outside the Milan court hearing the former Italian prime minister's trial on charges of paying for sex with a minor. The demonstration came after the judges ordered checks to be made on Berlusconi to verify his claim that an eye problem meant he was unable to attend a hearing on Monday. Following a visit by three doctors, including a senior eye specialist and a cardiologist, the hearing was postponed until Wednesday.

Al Qaeda claims killing of Syrian soldiers in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for killing 48 Syrian soldiers and state employees in Iraq last week, saying their presence proved collusion between the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Unidentified gunmen last week attacked a convoy of Syrians who had fled across the border into Iraq from a Syrian rebel advance, and were being escorted back home through the western province of Anbar, Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland.

Two U.S. soldiers killed in "insider" attack in Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) - Two American soldiers were killed in a so-called insider attack when a person in an Afghan military uniform turned his weapon on U.S. and Afghan forces at a joint base in the restive east of the country, coalition forces said on Monday. Three policemen and two Afghan army officers were also killed in the attack, said a senior police official.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-news-summary-084011323.html

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