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 the late Hugo Chavez's corpse. Maduro, who was sworn in as acting president after Chavez succumbed to cancer last week, is seen as the favorite to win the April 14 election, bolstered by an oil-financed state apparatus and a wave of public sympathy over Chavez's death.

Syrian government "uses militias" for mass killings: U.N.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The Syrian government is reportedly using local militias known as Popular Committees to commit mass killings which are at times sectarian in nature, U.N. human rights investigators said on Monday. The uprising in Syria erupted two years ago with largely peaceful protests but escalated into a civil war pitting mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite faith is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Cardinals hold last discussions before Vatican lockdown

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Cardinals held final discussions on the troubled state of the Roman Catholic Church on Monday, the day before they seclude themselves from the world to elect a new pontiff, with no frontrunner in view. Stunned by the abdication last month of Pope Benedict, the red-hatted cardinals have met repeatedly this past week, sketching out the qualities of the person needed to face the huge challenge of leading the scandal-plagued church.

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.

With death of Chavez, Castro says Cuba has lost its best friend

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's Fidel Castro praised the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday as a champion of the poor and said Cubans had lost their best friend ever, in his first comments on the death last week of his socialist ally. Castro said the news, although not unexpected, had been a hard blow.

Congo government keen to sign peace deal; rebels cool

KINSHASA (Reuters) - The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo said on Monday it hoped to sign a peace deal with eastern rebels on March 15, but a rebel leader said more talks were needed. The proposed agreement is similar to previous attempts at ending the recurrent conflicts in Congo's mineral-rich east, where local politics, ethnic rivalries and tensions with neighboring Rwanda have simmered for nearly two decades.

Bulgaria protesters struggle to unite for election challenge

SOFIA (Reuters) - Leaders of protests that felled the Bulgarian government are struggling to unite to form a single political party that can challenge the old order at May's election. Despite hundreds of thousands of people protesting in the past months over what they see as a corrupt political class that has failed to improve living standards, that impetus is now waning and their leaders are squabbling among themselves.

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.

Italy center-right lawmakers protest against Berlusconi trial

MILAN (Reuters) - Dozens of parliamentarians from Silvio Berlusconi's center-right party demonstrated on Monday outside a Milan court against the former Italian prime minister going on 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.

Key accused in India gang rape found dead in cell

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The driver of the bus in which a young Indian woman was gang-raped and fatally injured in December hanged himself in his jail cell on Monday, prison authorities said, but his family and lawyer said they suspected "foul play". Ram Singh, the main accused in India's most high-profile criminal case, killed himself just before dawn in a cell he shared with three inmates in New Delhi's Tihar jail, prison spokesman Sunil Gupta said.

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

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