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Mexico captures Knights Templar drug cartel leader

Mexican police captured most-wanted drug lord Servando Gomez, a former schoolteacher whose Knights Templar cartel tormented western Michoacan state, smuggled drugs to the US and illegally shipped iron ore to China. The man nicknamed "La Tuta" was detained by federal officers without a shot fired as he exited a house in Morelia, Michoacan's capital, following months of intelligence work, officials said. Gomez, 49, was taken to Mexico City and frogmarched in front of television cameras, wearing a black sweater and jeans as two masked federal police officers held him down by the neck and led him into a helicopter. The balding, goateed kingpin had eluded authorities last year despite a massive manhunt in the mountains of Michoacan with help from a "rural defense" force comprised of former vigilantes, who had taken up arms against the Knights Templar.

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China bans ivory carving imports for one year

Beijing has imposed a one-year ban on the import of ivory carvings, amid international criticism that rapidly-growing Chinese demand could push wild African elephants to extinction within a generation. The move, which took effect Thursday, was announced by China's State Forestry Administration in a statement posted on its website. It comes days ahead of a visit to China by Britain's Prince William, who has campaigned against illegal wildlife trafficking. China is a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, but regulated sales of ivory carvings are legal in the country.

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Putin 'destabilizing' Ukraine, Kerry says

US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of destabilizing Ukraine through "land grabs," warning Moscow and the rebels had failed to meet the terms of a tattered ceasefire. "In Luhansk, and Donetsk, and now in Debaltseve, he has empowered, encouraged, and facilitated directly land grabs in order to try to destabilize Ukraine itself." For a long time "the respect for international boundaries, and lines, and not taking territory by force, and subterfuge has been the standard for which nations have been trying to fight," Kerry told the House foreign affairs committee on Wednesday. Top US officials have lashed Putin and his ministers in recent days as the fighting has continued in Ukraine, with Kerry on Tuesday directly accusing Russian leaders of lying "to my face" over the conflict. "To date, neither Russia nor the forces it is supporting have come close to complying with their commitments," Kerry said Wednesday in a prepared statement to lawmakers on the second day of intense congressional hearings.

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Clinically depressed three times more likely to commit violent crime

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - People diagnosed with major depression are around three times more likely than the general population to commit violent crimes such as robbery, sexual offences and assault, psychiatric experts said on Wednesday. "One important finding was that the vast majority of depressed persons were not convicted of violent crimes, and that the rates ... are below those for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and considerably lower than for alcohol or drug abuse," said Seena Fazel, who led the study at Oxford University's psychiatry department. Andrea Cipriani, a clinical researcher and consultant psychiatrist at Oxford who was not directly involved in the study, said the results show how important it is to talk directly to depressed patients about how violent thoughts and behaviour can be part of their illness. Fazel's team, whose work was published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal, tracked medical and crime records of 47,158 people in Sweden diagnosed with depression and compared them with 898,454 non-depressed people matched for age and gender.

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US, Iran see progress in nuclear talks, but ways to go

The United States and Iran said Monday they had made progress in the latest round of talks on Tehran's nuclear programme, but warned there was still a long way to go to seal a final deal. Negotiators for Iran and six world powers had been meeting in Geneva since Friday, and plan further talks in Switzerland next week, a senior US administration official said. "These were serious, useful and constructive discussions," the official said after US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrapped up two days of meetings in the lakeside city. As a March 31 deadline looms for reaching a political framework for a deal, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters in Washington that Kerry "could certainly participate at some point" in next week's negotiations, but she had nothing concrete to announce.

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Mitsubishi Heavy shares rise on $3.4 bln Qatar subway deal

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' shares rose Monday morning after a consortium led by Japan's top heavy machinery maker struck a $3.36 billion deal to build Qatar's first subway system. The Tokyo-listed stock climbed 1.21 percent to 658.0 yen ($5.50) on news the five-member consortium, which includes Hitachi and French defense contractor Thales, had received the order from Qatar Railways to build "Doha Metro". The deal to build the nation's first subway system in Qatar's capital is worth 400 billion yen ($3.36 billion), a Mitsubishi Heavy spokesman said. The metro system -- covering 241 kilometres (150 miles) with 106 stations -- will connect the main areas of Doha, including the Hamad International Airport, the Old City and newly developing inner city areas such as West Bay and Lusail, they said.

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Suicide bomber kills 4 in Assad clan's hometown

A suicide bomber driving an ambulance killed four people on Sunday in an unprecedented attack on a hospital that took Syria's civil war to the ruling Assad clan's hometown for the first time, a monitoring group said. The attack came as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that troops had executed 48 people earlier this week in a northern village, among them 10 children. Four people were killed in the attack," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman. The attack, the first explosion to hit the heart of the western town since the outbreak of Syria's civil war in 2011, killed a nurse, a hospital employee and two soldiers, said Observatory director Abdel Rahman.

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Shipping firms, dockers union reach tentative deal on US ports

US West Coast dockworkers and port operators have reached a tentative deal on a new labor contract, officials said, averting a shutdown that would have hit about half the country's trade. The new agreement, details of which were not immediately available, could free up operations at the ports that have slowed significantly since the labor contract expired in July at key ports for trade with Asia. The Pacific Maritime Association, representing management for all 29 West Coast ports, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), representing 20,000 dockworkers, must still approve the deal. "After more than nine months of negotiations, we are pleased to have reached an agreement that is good for workers and for the industry," PMA president James McKenna and ILWU president Bob McEllrath said late Friday in a joint statement.

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Japan Display in talks with Apple to build $1.7 billion plant: Nikkan Kogyo

Japan Display Inc is considering building a new plant to supply smartphone screens for Apple Inc, which may shoulder much of the 200 billion yen ($1.68 billion) investment, Japan's Nikkan Kogyo newspaper said on Friday. The company declined to confirm the report but said it was constantly pursuing opportunities to strengthen its competitiveness, including building a new plant. The proposed plant in Ishikawa, central Japan, would start operations in 2016 and is expected to produce panels mainly for Apple but also for other companies, the paper said without disclosing its sources. The news sent shares in Japan Display to as high as 528 yen in early Tokyo trade, up 14 percent, before they retreated to 501 yen by 0214 GMT.

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Thousands rally in Buenos Aires over Nisman death

Tens of thousands of people demanding justice marched in symbolic silence Wednesday in soaking Buenos Aires to mark a month since the suspicious death of a prosecutor who was ready to accuse the Argentine president of a massive cover-up. "I am here because I want to see justice done for someone who gave his life for the truth," said teacher Marta Canepa, 65, among those traipsing the 1.7 kilometers (just over a mile) under the banner "Homage for Prosecutor Alberto Nisman." Drenched in driving rain and led by prosecutors and opposition figures, the rally is the first major public show of defiance in a murky case that has ignited a political firestorm in Argentina and piled the pressure on President Cristina Kirchner, 61, in her last year in office. Among those who braved the relentless deluge in the capital were Nisman's two young daughters and his ex-wife, Judge Sandra Arroyo Delgado. There were contrasting figures for the number at the rally in Buenos Aires: local police said 400,000 people attended, but federal police said it was nearer 50,000.

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Japan Post makes $5.07 billion bid for Australia's Toll

Japan Post flexed its muscles with a $5.07 billion takeover bid for Australia's Toll Holdings Wednesday in a move set to bolster its appeal ahead of what could be one of the world's biggest IPOs later this year. Under the proposal, the Melbourne-based transport logistics giant will be run as a division within Japan Post and retain the Toll name, with the company's chief executive Brian Kruger reporting to his counterpart Toru Takahashi. Toll has a global network spanning road, air, sea, and rail routes with significant operations in Asia, and Takahashi said it was a perfect fit for Japan Post as it looks to expand its international footprint. "We believe the combination of Japan Post and Toll will be a transformational transaction for both our companies and we are very pleased we have been able to reach agreement," he said.

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Russian researchers expose breakthrough U.S. spying program

By Joseph Menn SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world's computers, according to cyber researchers and former operatives. Kaspersky said it found personal computers in 30 countries infected with one or more of the spying programs, with the most infections seen in Iran, followed by Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria. The targets included government and military institutions, telecommunication companies, banks, energy companies, nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists, Kaspersky said.

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Greece, confident as EU meeting looms, sticks to no-austerity pledge

By Jeremy Gaunt and Karolina Tagaris ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece said on Sunday it was confident of reaching agreement in negotiations with its euro zone partners but reiterated it would not accept harsh austerity strings in any debt pact. A day before a euro zone finance ministers' meeting in Brussels to shore up Greece's dwindling finances and help keep it in the euro zone, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told Germany's Stern magazine that Athens needed time to implement its reforms and shake off the mismanagement of the past. "I promise you: Greece will then, in six months' time, be a completely different country." The Eurogroup of finance ministers meets in Brussels on Monday to try to find common ground with Tsipras' new government, elected on a pledge to scrap the austerity strictures of Greece's international bailouts, on issues such as debt management, financing, privatisation and labour reform. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker held a phone conversation on Sunday with Tsipras at the Greek prime minister's request, an EU official said, speaking on condition of anonymity and providing no details.

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Rare ray of hope in UN climate talks

The detente achieved at UN talks that concluded with a framework for a world climate pact is only temporary, achieved by kicking the difficult decisions down the road, parties and observers say. He pointed to broad consultations held with country representatives by the talks' joint chairmen ahead of the six-day session in Geneva -- one of four official meetings this year to prepare for the December conference in Paris that must adopt a universal climate pact. "This is the parties' text, they own it now." An official framework text prepared for the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, which failed to produce an agreement, had exceeded 300 pages and was challenged by a number of alternative drafts. The 86-page Geneva blueprint, the product of years of negotiations, seems manageable by comparison, and represents the first-ever proposal with buy-in from all the world's nations.

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North Carolina Muslims call for calm as students buried

The families of three Muslim students shot dead by a white neighbor said an emotional farewell to their loved ones Thursday, reiterating calls for the killings to be treated as a hate crime. More than 5,000 people gathered for the funeral of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her 19-year-old sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, who authorities say were killed by a neighbor. The alleged shooter, Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, was believed to be strongly opposed to religion, as his Facebook page showed dozens of anti-religious posts, including proclamations denouncing Christianity, Mormonism and Islam. "We are definitely certain that our daughters were targeted for their religion," the father of the sisters, Mohammad Abu-Salha, told AFP.

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Six inmates in Taiwan hostage standoff commit suicide

Six prisoners at a southern Taiwan jail committed suicide on Thursday, ending a standoff after they took several staff hostage to complain about unfair trials and demand their freedom, officials said. The prisoners shot themselves inside Kaohsiung city prison in the early morning, the justice ministry said, adding that the prison chief and another senior staffer who were being held after a hostage swap were unharmed. We regret that six people took their lives," said Wu Hsien-chang, chief of the ministry's corrections agency. The standoff began Wednesday when the inmates -- jailed for a variety of crimes including murder, robbery and drugs -- broke into a weapons storage room, obtained four rifles and six handguns, and took three staff hostage.

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Australia foils 'imminent' terror attack

Australia has thwarted an "imminent" terror attack, arresting two men and seizing an Islamic State flag, a machete and a video detailing the alleged plot during a raid in Sydney, police said Wednesday. New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn said the planned attack was "consistent with the messaging coming out of IS", while New South Wales state Premier Mike Baird described it as "beyond disturbing". Asked whether it involved a beheading, Burn said police were as yet unsure, but that it had been due to happen Tuesday in Sydney, and would likely have involved a knife. The men, Omar Al-Kutobi, 24, and Mohammad Kiad, 25, were arrested in a raid on a property in Sydney's western suburbs by the Joint Counter Terrorism Taskforce on Tuesday after a tip-off, and charged with making preparations for a terrorist act.

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China January inflation plunges to five-year-low 0.8%

China's inflation plunged to 0.8 percent in January, its lowest level for more than five years, official data showed on Tuesday, fuelling fears the world's second-largest economy is on the brink of a deflationary spiral. The rise in the consumer price index (CPI) was sharply down from the 1.5 percent recorded in December, and was the weakest since 0.6 percent recorded in November 2009, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Moderate inflation can be a boon to consumption as it encourages consumers to buy before prices go up, while falling prices encourage shoppers to delay purchases and companies to put off investment, both of which can hurt growth. The drop in CPI was driven by tumbling international crude prices and warmer January temperatures than average, causing vegetable, fruit and fish prices to fall, senior NBS analyst Yu Qiumei said in a statement.

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HIV-positive migrants denied care at Thai public hospitals

By Alisa Tang BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Zaw, an illegal Burmese migrant dying of AIDS-related illnesses, spent a weekend hunched over in waiting rooms at three Thai hospitals near Bangkok – each denying him care as he gasped for breath, his lungs full of fluid. Zaw died 40 days later - a death the Bangkok-based HIV Foundation that was helping him says could have been prevented with timely care. "That's the story we have once every six to eight weeks: people in this situation, and we can't get them the care they need in time," Scott Berry, an Australian adviser for the HIV Foundation, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The country has had a health package for migrants for more than 10 years, officials say, but an August 2013 policy expanded the migrant health insurance benefits – at a cost of 2,100 baht ($64) per person – to include HIV prevention, care and antiretroviral (ARV) drugs.

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Indonesia police chief row sparks crisis for Widodo

A feud between Indonesia's law enforcement and its corruption watchdog over the nomination of a police chief has escalated into a full-blown crisis for Joko Widodo, testing the new president's pledge to usher in cleaner governance. Barely 100 days into his term, Widodo sparked an outcry last month when he nominated Budi Gunawan, a politically-connected figure with a murky financial record, to be head of the national police. The situation snowballed several days later when the anti-corruption agency, known as the KPK, named Gunawan as the subject of a bribery investigation, prompting Widodo to postpone -- but not cancel -- his appointment as police chief. The notoriously corrupt police -- who have in the past clashed with the hugely popular KPK -- retaliated by arresting the agency's deputy chairman on years-old perjury allegations, triggering angry protests.

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RadioShack files for bankruptcy; Sprint to take over some stores

Electronics retailer RadioShack Corp filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection on Thursday and said it had a deal in place to sell as many as 2,400 stores to an affiliate of hedge fund Standard General, its lender and largest shareholder. Wireless company Sprint Corp would operate as many as 1,750 of those stores under an agreement with Standard General, Sprint said separately. RadioShack's bankruptcy, which has been expected for months, follows 11 consecutive unprofitable quarters as the company has failed to transform itself into a destination for mobile phone buyers. RadioShack said in a statement that the Standard General affiliate, called General Wireless, would acquire between 1,500 and 2,400 of its 4,100 stores.

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Egyptian court sends activist Ahmed Douma to jail for life

An Egyptian court sentenced prominent activist Ahmed Douma to life in prison on Wednesday, judicial sources said, part of a sustained crackdown on Islamist and liberal government opponents. Douma, a leading figure in the pro-democracy revolt that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak, was convicted of rioting, inciting violence and attacking security forces in late 2011. In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that the United States was "deeply troubled" by the life sentences. "It simply seems impossible that a fair review of evidence and testimony could be achieved under these circumstances." Last year in a case that provoked international outcry, the judge, Mohamed Nagi Shehata, jailed three Al Jazeera journalists, including Australian Peter Greste, and he has sentenced hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death.

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'Arabian Ark' helps save wildlife from extinction

Oryx, giraffes and cheetahs roam an "Arabian Ark" nature reserve on a desert Gulf island where species once facing extinction in the region are making a comeback. Since animals were first brought to Sir Bani Yas off the coast of Abu Dhabi more than four decades ago, their total population has soared to more than 13,000. Twenty-five species of mammals and 170 types of birds are found in a nature reserve covering an area of 1,400 hectares (3,500 acres). Some species are, or were, endangered in the region, or even extinct in the wild.

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Lenovo quarterly revenue jumps 31 percent, tops expectations

By Gerry Shih BEIJING (Reuters) - Lenovo Group Ltd, the world's leading PC maker, said on Tuesday its third-quarter revenue rose 31 percent to $14.1 billion, beating investor expectations, as its mobile division sales more than doubled following its acquisition of Motorola. The results, released before the Hong Kong Stock Exchange opened Tuesday, sent Lenovo shares 5.7 percent higher in morning trade to HK$10.76, compared with a 0.36 percent fall on the broader Hang Seng index. Lenovo paid $2.91 billion for Motorola, the U.S. handset brand with a long sales history in the United States and Europe, as part of an effort to diversify away from the shrinking PC market. Lenovo's results took into account two months of Motorola's performance - the acquisition closed Oct 31 - and the company said Motorola sold more than 10 million handsets during the quarter for the first time.

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China says 90 pct of cities failed to meet air standards in 2014

Nearly 90 percent of China's big cities failed to meet air quality standards in 2014, but that was still an improvement on 2013 as the country's "war on pollution" began to take effect, the environment ministry said on Monday. The Ministry of Environmental Protection said on its website (www.mep.gov.cn) that only eight of the 74 cities it monitors managed to meet national standards in 2014 on a series of pollution measures such as PM2.5, which is a reading of particles found in the air, carbon monoxide and ozone. Amid growing public disquiet about smog and other environmental risks, China said last year it would "declare war on pollution" and it has started to eliminate substandard industrial capacity and reduce coal consumption. Of the 10 worst-performing cities in 2014, seven were located in the heavy industrial province of Hebei, which surrounds the capital, Beijing, the ministry said.

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Gas-filled balloon completes record-breaking Pacific flight

A gas-filled balloon co-piloted by an American and a Russian touched down safely in the waters off Mexico on Saturday, completing a week-long trans-Pacific flight that unofficially broke two world records, a spokeswoman said. The balloon carrying Troy Bradley of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and his Russian co-pilot Leonid Tiukhtyaev, landed near La Poza Grande in the Mexican State of Baja California Sur after a flight that lasted six days, 16 hours and 38 minutes and covered 6,646 miles (10,696 km), organizers of the mission said in a statement. Bradley and Tiukhtyaev, known as the Two Eagles, left Saga in southern Japan on Jan. 25 in their attempt to surpass the world distance record for flying a gas-filled balloon, as well as the record for time in flight for that type of aircraft. "The pilots made a controlled descent to a gentle water landing about four miles off the Baja coast," said Kim Vesely, a spokeswoman for the ballooning mission.

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