CA-NEWS Summary

Train plot suspect rejects Canadian law, cites "holy book"

TORONTO (Reuters) - One of two men accused in an alleged al Qaeda-backed plan to derail a passenger train in Canada appeared in court on Wednesday and disputed the authority of Canadian law to judge him, saying the criminal code was not a holy book. Chiheb Esseghaier, a Tunisian-born doctoral student, faces charges that include conspiracy to murder and working with a terrorist group.

U.S. had more tips on Boston suspect; Congress asks questions

WASHINGTON/CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence knew more about the movements of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects than previously reported, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, raising more questions about the government's handling of the case and the sharing of information among agencies. U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the FBI was alerted when Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled to Russia last year. They also said Russia, which had tipped off the FBI about its concerns over Tsarnaev in early 2011, made a second, identical request to the CIA in late September 2011.

Iraq on edge after raid fuels deadly Sunni unrest

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - More than 30 people were killed in gun battles between Iraqi forces and militants on Wednesday, a day after a raid on a Sunni Muslim protest ignited the fiercest clashes since American troops left the country. The second day of fighting threatens to deepen sectarian rifts in Iraq where relations between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims are still very tense just a few years after inter-communal slaughter pushed the country close to civil war.

In Myanmar, cheap SIM card draw may herald telecoms revolution

YANGON (Reuters) - Introduced a decade and a half ago under Myanmar's former military rulers, SIM cards sold for as much as $7,000 apiece. Today, they still cost more than $200. From Thursday, lucky winners of a lottery-style sale may get one for as little as $2. This is telecoms deregulation, Myanmar-style.

Baghdad car bomb kills eight people: police

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least eight people were killed and 23 more wounded when a car bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad, police and medical sources said on Wednesday. No one claimed responsibility for the blast, but Iraq's al Qaeda wing and other Sunni Islamist insurgents often hit the capital in their campaign to undermine the country's Shi'ite-led government.

Analysis: Iran's unlikely al Qaeda ties: fluid, murky and deteriorating

LONDON (Reuters) - When al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri spoke in an audio message broadcast to supporters earlier this month, he had harsh words for Iran. Its true face, he said, had been unmasked by its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against fighters loyal to al Qaeda. Yet it is symptomatic of the peculiar relationship between Tehran and al Qaeda that in the same month Canadian police would accuse "al Qaeda elements in Iran" of backing a plot to derail a passenger train.

Egyptian judges accuse Mursi backers of attacking their independence

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian judges accused President Mohamed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday of trying to clamp down on judicial independence by conducting a campaign ostensibly aimed at rooting out corruption. A rift between Egypt's Islamist rulers and the judiciary is steadily widening amid a broader struggle over the future character of the country following the 2011 uprising that overthrew autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.

Syrian army seizes strategic town near capital

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad seized a strategic town east of Damascus on Wednesday, breaking a critical weapons supply route for the rebels, activists and fighters said. Rebels have held several suburbs ringing the southern and eastern parts Damascus for months, but they have been struggling to maintain their positions against a ground offensive backed by fierce army shelling and air strikes in recent weeks.

China's Xinjiang says "terrorist" ax, knife and arson attack kills 21

BEIJING (Reuters) - A confrontation involving axes, knives, at least one gun and ending with the burning down of a house left 21 people dead in China's troubled far-west region of Xinjiang, a government spokeswoman said on Wednesday, calling it a "terrorist attack". It was the deadliest violence in the region since July 2009, when Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, was rocked by clashes between majority Han Chinese and minority Uighurs that killed nearly 200 people.

Italy president names center-left's Letta as new premier

ROME (Reuters) - Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday asked center-left politician Enrico Letta to form a new government, signaling the end of a damaging two-month stalemate since elections in the euro zone's third largest economy in February. Letta, from the Democratic Party (PD), said he would start talks to form a broad-based coalition on Thursday. It is likely to go to parliament for a vote of confidence by early next week.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-news-summary-000009861.html

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