News Archive - 27 June 2015

>The government easily passed the 151-vote threshold needed to authorize the referendum, with deputies from the far right Golden Dawn voting with the government and pro-European opposition parties New Democracy, Pasok and To Potami and the KKE Communist Party voting against.Greeks are due to vote on whether to accept...

>HAVANA Three visiting U.S. senators said on Saturday they hoped Congress would support President Barack Obama's opening toward Cuba, including lifting a ban on U.S. citizens traveling to the Communist-run island.Democratic Senators Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Ben Cardin of Maryland joined Republican Dean Heller of Nevada...

>VIENNA An accord to curb Iran's nuclear program remains elusive due to disagreements on fundamental issues, France's foreign minister said on Saturday in Vienna, just days before the June 30 deadline for a deal. Laurent Fabius spoke to reporters upon arrival in the Austrian capital after top U.S. and...

>DENVER While some Republican presidential candidates urged action to counter the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling legalizing gay marriage, grassroots activists at a conservative conference this weekend said they preferred to focus on limiting the damage.Several presidential hopefuls at the Western Conservative Summit in the swing state of Colorado...

>LYON, France French authorities are questioning a 35-year-old delivery man of North African origin over a suspected Islamist attack involving the beheading of his boss and an attempt to blow up a U.S.-owned chemicals plant in southeastern France.President Francois Hollande, dealing with new security fears less than...

>SOUSSE, Tunisia Tour companies were evacuating thousands of foreign holidaymakers from Tunisia on Saturday, a day after a gunman killed 39 people at a beach hotel in an attack claimed by Islamic State.Tunisia's Prime Minister Habib Essid said most of the dead were British, and Britain's foreign office said...

>BEIJING China's central bank cut lending rates for the fourth time since November and trimmed the amount of cash that some banks must hold as reserves, stepping up efforts to support an economy that is headed for its poorest performance in a quarter century.Saturday's combined easing highlights Beijing's concerns...

>WASHINGTON Big business was on the winning side in the U.S. Supreme Court's two major cases of the year, with hundreds of employers pushing hard in favor of gay marriage and the healthcare industry backing the insurance subsidies available under Obamacare.The court on Thursday rejected a conservative challenge...

>WASHINGTON Barack Obama has reached the stage of his presidency where if he wants to break out in song publicly, as he did with “Amazing Grace” in a eulogy on Friday, then he’s going to do it.With a year-and-a-half left in office, Obama is shedding some of his trademark...

>BEIJING Changing position on China's claims over the South China Sea would shame its ancestors, while not facing up to infringements of Chinese sovereignty there would shame its children, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday.China has become increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, building artificial islands in...

>Islamic State launched an assault on government-held areas of Hasaka early on Thursday and the United Nations says the violence is estimated to have displaced up to 120,000 people.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the conflict using sources on the ground, said the Kurdish YPG militia fought...

>"Numerous arrests of (people)... suspected of having ties with the suicide bomber have been made," said the source. The bombing was the Gulf Arab country worst militant attack in years. (Reporting by William Maclean, Writing by Reem Shamseddine, Editing by John Stonestreet)...

>"With respect to strong projects, we hope to exit them once they come to market," Jin Qi, chief executive of Silk Road Fund Co Ltd, said at a conference in Shanghai."In the case of infrastructure projects that are long-term in nature, after the project is completed and put into...