WorldNews

By Chris Arsenault ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Expanding agriculture is the biggest driver of deforestation around the world, and giving local residents greater control over forested land leads to better environmental management, forest researchers said on Wednesday. Expanding agriculture accounts for 73 percent of the world's forest loss, the report, released at the United Nations Forum on Forests, said. "There are countries that are achieving food security while at the same time reducing the rate of deforestation," Eva Muller, a senior forestry official at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, though she declined to give examples. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21324[/attach] By Laura Zuckerman SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday predicted an above normal wildfire season for vast swaths of the western and northern United States due to drought and higher-than-average temperatures. The forecast indicating large and possibly more damaging fires comes as parched portions of the U.S. West have already experienced blazes weeks before the usual start of wildland fire season in late spring. "We expect 2015 to continue the trend of above average fire activity," Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said in testimony to a U.S. Senate panel in Washington. "Above normal wildland fire potential exists across the north central United States and above normal wildland fire potential will threaten many parts of the West this summer," Tidwell added. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21323[/attach] South Africa's record goalscorer and Champions League winner Benni McCarthy was robbed at gun point Tuesday while having a hair cut in Johannesburg, his agent said. Three gunmen stormed a barber's shop in Johannesburg's Melrose suburb robbing the 37-year-old of his wedding ring, watch and other valuables. McCarthy's agent Percy Adams said the robbers targeted just the striker - who helped Portugal's Porto to win the 2004 Champions League under Jose Mourinho - in a packed salon. Continue reading...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican says Cuban President Raul Castro will visit Pope Francis this Sunday at the Vatican. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21320[/attach] WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is offering rewards of up to $20 million for information leading to the whereabouts of four top leaders of the Islamic State group. Continue reading...

BOSTON (AP) — Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers called a Russian historian and a psychiatrist to the stand Tuesday in a bid to save the Boston Marathon bomber from the death penalty by portraying him as the product of a dysfunctional family from a turbulent corner of the world. Continue reading...

LIMA, Peru (AP) — A more than month-long protest against a copper mining project in southern Peru has claimed a second life, a 35-year-old protester who a local mayor says was killed by a police bullet. Continue reading...

HOUSTON (AP) — States fighting President Barack Obama's plan to spare millions of immigrants from deportation say they agree with a Texas judge who has temporarily blocked the president's action. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21316[/attach] RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Yemen's Shiite rebels fired rockets and mortars into Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, killing at least two civilians and reportedly capturing five soldiers in an attack showing the insurgents' ability to launch assaults despite weeks of airstrikes targeting them. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21315[/attach] Saudi Arabia's King Salman said Tuesday that Gulf leaders must stand up to Iran, as Yemeni rebels backed by Tehran attacked a Saudi border town with mortar shells. Salman's call came at a meeting of Gulf monarchs in Riyadh that was also attended by French President Francois Hollande, who said his country was "by the side" of Gulf nations. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit came amid mounting international concern about the impact on civilians of Saudi-led air strikes targeting Yemeni rebels. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21314[/attach] BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A debate about restoring the death penalty has been a recurring issue with Hungary's prime minister since a 2002 bank robbery in which eight people were murdered. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21313[/attach] MADRID (AP) — Maria Sharapova advanced to the third round of the Madrid Open by beating Mariana Duque-Marino of Colombia 6-1, 6-2 on Tuesday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21312[/attach] Scandal-hit global bank HSBC on Tuesday posted rising quarterly profits, but added regulators have requested more information about its controversial Swiss division. Continue reading...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — An official says Turkey's Culture Ministry has launched an inquiry following reports that priceless ancient mosaics had been ruined while being restored and moved to a new museum in southern Turkey. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21305[/attach] PADANG BESAR, Thailand (AP) — Police found two more camps Tuesday believed to have held human trafficking victims in southern Thailand — one recently abandoned and the other containing a buried skeleton — days after the grim discovery of 26 bodies at a separate location exposed a thriving human smuggling network in the country. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21304[/attach] The Islamic State group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for its first attack on US soil in which two gunmen were killed after opening fire at an event in Texas showcasing cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed. "Two of the soldiers of the caliphate executed an attack on an art exhibit in Garland, Texas, and this exhibit was portraying negative pictures of the Prophet Mohammed," the jihadist group said. "We tell America that what is coming will be even bigger and more bitter, and that you will see the soldiers of the Islamic State do terrible things," the group announced. Police said two men drove up to the conference centre Sunday in Garland, where the right-wing American Freedom Defense Initiative was organising the controversial cartoon contest, and began shooting at a security guard, who was wounded in the ankle. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21303[/attach] ROME (AP) — The Save the Children aid group reported another Mediterranean migrant tragedy Tuesday, with survivors saying "dozens" of their fellow passengers fell out of their rubber boat and likely drowned as a rescue vessel neared. Continue reading...

By Nidhi Verma and Manoj Kumar NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will push ahead this week with plans to build a port in southeast Iran, two sources said, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi keen to develop trade ties with Central Asia and prepared to fend off U.S. pressure not to rush into any deals with Iran. India and Iran agreed in 2003 to develop a port at Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, near Iran's border with Pakistan, but the venture has made little progress because of Western sanctions on Iran. Continue reading...

By Yeganeh Torbati WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States must redirect spending from wasteful solar power tax credits and prepare the electricity grid for large-scale solar energy use if the industry is to play a significant role in lowering carbon emissions, a report led by MIT researchers said on Tuesday. Current tax incentives aimed at encouraging users to install solar technologies fail to reward actual energy produced, said the authors of the report, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative, which promotes adoption of renewable energy. Solar energy received approximately $5.3 billion in federal support in the 2013 fiscal year, up from about $1.1 billion in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21302[/attach] AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) — International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach says there's no reason a small nation such as New Zealand shouldn't aspire to host the Olympics. Continue reading...

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — An official says nine police officers were kidnapped by a criminal gang in northern Mexico and later rescued, though one was killed in the confrontation. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21301[/attach] WASHINGTON (AP) — Since 2006, the FBI has been able to recognize the voice of Elton Simpson — one of the men suspected in the Texas shootings outside a contest featuring cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. Continue reading...

[attach=full]21300[/attach] It promised to turn the page on five years of austerity that brought Greece to its knees, but the first 100 days of the radical government of Alexis Tsipras has seen that hope disappear into the yawning gulf between it and the country's creditors. With the state coffers all but empty, the youthful Tsipras came face to face with the harsh financial reality less than a month after his election victory on January 25 shook Europe. Continue reading...

By Rory Carroll SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has cited Plains All American Pipeline LP's Bakersfield crude by rail terminal with a series of violations, according to a notice made public on Monday. The federal agency said in the notice the facility's owner failed to obtain valid emissions permits, install best available control technologies or provide emissions offsets as required by the local air district, according to the notice. Plains spokesman Brad Leone said the company would not comment until it receives a formal notice of the violations from the EPA. The EPA notice does not, however, bring operations at the facility to a halt, noted Elizabeth Forsyth, an attorney with environmental group Earthjustice, but it will rack up daily fines if it continues to operate. Continue reading...

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) — Authorities in the U.S. Virgin Islands say an elderly couple visiting from the U.S. mainland has been found stabbed to death in a rental home. Continue reading...