Obama to be first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima

U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima later this month and become the first sitting U.S. president to do so since World War Two, but will not offer an apology for the United States' use of an atomic bomb on the city, the White House said on Tuesday.

The May 27 visit to the site alongside Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instead aims "to highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," the White House said in a statement.
"He will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II. Instead, he will offer a forward-looking vision focused on our shared future," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes wrote in a separate blog.
Obama's visit comes as part of a visit May 20-28 to Japan to attend a Group of Seven summit as well as Vietnam, his 10th to the region that has played a large role in the president's strategic "pivot" toward Asia.
A U.S. warplane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima 71 years ago at the end of World War Two, and there have been concerns that a U.S. presidential visit would be controversial in the United States if it were seen as an apology. [nL3N17P1Z2]
The bomb dropped on Aug. 6, 1945 killed thousands of people instantly and about 140,000 by the end of that year. Nagasaki was bombed on Aug. 9, 1945, and Japan surrendered six days later.
(Reporting by Megan Cassella and Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

Italy arrests three in probe into suspected planned attacks in Rome, London

Italian police on Tuesday arrested three people as part of an investigation into a militant cell suspected of planning attacks in Rome and London, authorities said on Tuesday.

The cell had been established in Puglia, in southeastern Italy, "to carry out violent attacks with the purpose of international terrorism, in Italy and abroad", the arrest warrant read.
Two Afghan citizens, one suspected of international terrorism and the other of aiding illegal immigration, were arrested, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said in a statement.
A third man, a Pakistani also suspected of aiding illegal immigration, was detained in Milan later in the day, a police source said.
Police confiscated the suspects' phones, on which they found footage of presumed targets including airports, ports, shopping centers and hotels in Rome, London and Bari, the main city in Puglia, the arrest warrant said. Investigators also found recordings of prayers and images of weapons and mutilated U.S. soldiers.
Italy has not suffered deadly Islamist attacks like those in France and Belgium, but a number of people have been arrested on suspicion of planning assaults.
In all, the warrant calls for the arrests of five people. They are all officially resident near Bari but two are currently in Afghanistan, the source said.
Three of the suspects are accused of international terrorism and two of aiding illegal immigration.
Bari prosecutor Giuseppe Volpe said at a news conference that there was "absolutely no indication of an imminent attack in Italy", but prosecutor Elisabetta Pugliese said at the same conference that the investigation was "worrying".
The group based in Bari is suspected of acting as a local unit or providing logistical support to an international organization linked to Islamic State, investigators wrote in the arrest order.
The group was also active in France and Belgium, the order said.
(Reporting by Vincenzo Damiani; Writing by Isla Binnie; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Angus MacSwan)

French government to impose labor reform by decree in face of rebellion

France's government decided on Tuesday to bypass parliament and impose a relaxation of the country's protective labor laws by decree, sidestepping a rebellion against one of socialist President Francois Hollande's flagship reforms.

The decision, announced by Prime Minister Manuel Valls, follows weeks of street protests against the bill which seeks to make hiring and firing easier and the realization that lawmakers within the ruling party looked certain to shoot down the proposal.
"Because the country must move forward ... the cabinet has authorized me to engage the government's responsibility, which I will do later on," Valls told lawmakers to boos and heckling from the some quarters and applause among ministers.
Defeat would have delivered a hefty blow to the unpopular Hollande, who has said he will only run for re-election next year if he lowers a jobless rate stuck above 10 percent. The government hopes the reform will encourage firms to recruit.
The government's decision not to compromise by watering down further the labor bill is also a strong signal to international investors and rating agencies, who have so far taken a welcoming but cautious approach toward Hollande's pro-business turn.
A rarely used clause in France's constitution - known as 49.3 - allows for reform by decree and underlines the strong powers wielded by the executive under France's presidential system, designed by World War Two leader Charles de Gaulle.
It is the second time in as many years Valls has used the clause, having last year rammed through parliament a law which loosened up Sunday trading rules and regulations in the transport and legal sectors.
Although Valls diluted parts of the labor bill in March following student protests, the proposal retains measures giving more flexibility to employers to agree in-house deals with employees on working time.
It also offers companies less restrictive conditions for layoffs made for economic reasons.
Rebel legislators in the Socialist Party accused the government of riding roughshod over parliament.
"It's a heavy-handed way of using the constitution to prevent the nation's representatives from having their say," Laurent Baumel, a rebel Socialist lawmaker told reporters, calling the decision "anti-democratic".
(Reporting by Brian Love, Leigh Thomas, Ingrid Melander and Michel Rose; editing by Richard Lough)

Say goodbye to OPEC, powerful Putin pal predicts

MOSCOW | By Vladimir Soldatkin 

 Internal differences are killing OPEC and its ability to influence the markets has all but evaporated, top Russian oil executive Igor Sechin told Reuters in some of his harshest remarks ever about the oil cartel.Russia, which has been hit hard by the oil price collapse, was flirting with the idea of cooperating with OPEC in recent months until tensions between OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Iran ruined a global deal to freeze output.
Sechin - one of the closest allies of President Vladimir Putin - was the only Russian official to consistently oppose the deal with OPEC even after the Kremlin effectively endorsed the plan.
Now that his gloomy predictions about talking to OPEC have come to pass, Sechin feels vindicated and wants to help Russia avoid similar embarrassment in future.
"At the moment a number of objective factors exclude the possibility for any cartels to dictate their will to the market. ... As for OPEC, it has practically stopped existing as a united organization."
"The company (Rosneft) was skeptical from the very beginning about the possibility of reaching any sort of joint agreement with OPEC's involvement in current conditions," said Sechin, in comments over the weekend which were embargoed until Tuesday.
"Just to remind you, the only one question with which we responded to those who were interested to know our position: 'Who should we agree with, and how?' The development of the situation has clearly shown we were right."
Sechin's comments about the end of the era when OPEC could influence prices chime with those of Saudi Arabia's newly appointed energy minister Khaled al-Falih.
Falih, who took over on Saturday from long-serving Ali al-Naimi, has been very vocal in the past year about his views that the oil market needs to rebalance through low prices and that the Saudis have the resources to wait.
Falih's ultimate boss, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who oversees Saudi oil policies, has also signaled that the world is moving to a new era where supply and demand rather than OPEC will determine prices.
Sechin, who was born in 1960 - the same year as Falih - is also calling on Russia to abandon any hope that prices can be fixed by anything other than market rebalancing.
"At the moment, key factors which are influencing the market are finance, technology and regulation. We can see this with the example of shale oil which ... became a powerful tool of influence on the global market," Sechin said in the emailed comments.
(Writing by Katya Golubkova and Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Andrew Osborn and William Hardy)

6 killed by armed tribesmen in Darfur

Camp in Sortoni attacked by gunmen on camels and pickup trucks, claiming lives of 6 including 2 children.

Cattle rustling is a frequent source of conflict in Darfur DARFUR - An attack by armed tribesmen near a makeshift camp for displaced people in Sudan's conflict-hit Darfur region killed six civilians, including two children, a resident and a UN official said Tuesday. A peacekeeper from the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur was also wounded in the Monday attack near the makeshift camp in Sortoni in North Darfur where tens of thousands of people have taken refuge from an upsurge in fighting this year between the army and ethnic minority rebels. The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Marta Ruedas, "condemns the reported shooting and killing of six civilians, including two children, by armed local tribes in Sortoni," a statement said. A resident of the makeshift camp told AFP that gunmen riding camels and pick-up trucks had launched two attacks with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the attack followed a "reported rise in tensions between displaced people and armed tribesmen over cattle raiding". Cattle rustling is a frequent source of conflict in Darfur. Last month, as many as 20 people were killed in clashes between two rival Arab tribes in East Darfur that were sparked by the theft of livestock. Darfur has been gripped by conflict since 2003, when ethnic minority rebels rose up against President Omar al-Bashir, complaining that his Arab-dominated government was marginalising the region. Bashir launched a brutal counter-insurgency and at least 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict, the United Nations says. Another 2.5 million people have fled their homes. Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges related to Darfur, which he denies. Since 2003, parts of Darfur have been further destabilised by conflicts between the region's myriad of ethnic and tribal groups, as well as rising criminality.

US airstrike kills ISIS senior leader in Iraq’s Anbar province

Pentagon spokesman says May 6 strike near town of Rutba targeted Abu Wahib, ISIS's ‘military emir’ for vast western province.

Latest in series of attacks on senior ISIS leaders WASHINGTON - A US-led coalition air strike has killed a senior Islamic State leader in Iraq's Anbar province, along with three other ISIS jihadists, the Pentagon said Monday. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the May 6 strike near the town of Rutba -- deep in the Anbar desert -- targeted Abu Wahib, ISIS's "military emir" for the vast western province. Wahib was "a former member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq who has appeared in ISIL execution videos," Cook said, using an acronym for the ISIS group. "We view him as a significant leader in ISIL leadership overall, not just in Anbar Province," he added. "Removing him from the battlefield will be a significant step forward." The men were traveling in a vehicle when they were hit. Cook provided no additional details and did not specify if a warplane or a drone had carried out the strike. The killing of Wahib is the latest in a series of attacks on senior ISIS leaders in Iraq and Syria, where the jihadists still control huge tracts of land despite an intense US-led air campaign dating back to August 2014. Some other recent targets include Suleiman Abd Shabib al-Jabouri, an "ISIL war council member," Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli -- the IS group's second-in-command also known as Haji Imam -- and Omar al-Shishani, the man known as "Omar the Chechen," who was effectively ISIS's defense minister. In February, US special operations forces captured Sulayman Dawud al-Bakkar, also known as Abu Dawud, who was described as a chemical weapons expert. "Since the start of 2015, we've targeted and killed more than 40 high-value ISIL and Al-Qaeda external attack plotters. We have removed cell leaders, facilitators, planners and recruiters," Baghdad-based military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren wrote online last week. Despite many significant coalition gains against the ISIS group, the jihadists still control the key cities of Raqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, and assaults to recapture the towns are not expected for months.

Tunisians rally against closure of border with Libya

Around 1,000 people protest outside local government offices, against Libyan decision to close Ras Jedir border crossing.

Ras Jedir is the main frontier between western Libya and southeastern Tunisia BEN GUERDANE - Tunisian security forces used tear gas on Monday against hundreds of people in the southern town of Ben Guerdane protesting against the closure of the border with Libya, officials said. "Around 1,000 people rallied outside local government offices and set tyres ablaze in protest against a Libyan decision to close the Ras Jedir border crossing," interior ministry spokesman Yasser Mesbah said. Security forces fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, he added. Ras Jedir is the main frontier between western Libya and southeastern Tunisia, a region whose economy is largely dependent on cross-border trade, both legal and illegal. Tunisia's southern provinces are among the poorest in the country. Since April, Libyan border officials have stopped the flow of merchandise across the border, sparking anger among residents. A Libyan official, Hafedh Moammar, said at the time that the border was closed amid alleged "harassment" of Libyan travellers and to stop the flow of smuggled fuel. The governor of the Tunisian town of Medenine, Tahar Matmati, said Libya also wanted to impose a "unified tax" on all products crossing the frontier. In March, Tunisia closed two border crossings with Libya for two weeks in response to a deadly jihadist attack on Ben Guerdane. Tunisia has also built a 200-kilometre (125-mile) barrier stretching about half the length of its border with Libya in an attempt to prevent militants from infiltrating.