World Latest Breaking News

20 January 2015

Canada special forces clash with IS in Iraq

Ottawa (AFP) - Canadian special forces exchanged gunfire with Islamic State fighters in Iraq in recent days, in the first confirmed ground battle between Western troops and IS, a senior officer said Monday.

Rouleau said the melee had taken place in the previous seven days and was "the first time we've taken fire and returned fire" in Iraq, where the extremists have overrun large areas.The Canadians came under mortar and machine gun fire while training Iraqi troops near front lines and shot back in what Canadian special forces commander Brigadier General Michael Rouleau described as self-defense, killing the IS fighters.

"My troops had completed a planning session with senior Iraqi leaders several kilometers behind the front lines," Rouleau told a regular media briefing on the conflict.

"When they moved forward to confirm the planning at the front lines in order to visualize what they had discussed over a map, they came under immediate and effective mortar and machine gun fire."

The general said the Canadians used sniper fire to "neutralize both threats" and there were no Canadian injuries.

The United States has previously reported having launched an unsuccessful hostage-rescue operation against the IS group in neighboring Syria, but Western forces have not officially engaged in ground combat.

A US-led international coalition has been carrying out air raids on IS extremists in Iraq and Syria since last year. Canada is only involved in Iraq operations.

Beastie Boys lawyers: Bills top $1.7M in Monster Energy suit

NEW YORK (AP) — The Beastie Boys want to force the maker of Monster Energy drink to pay nearly $2.4 million in legal fees and costs so the rappers' $1.7 million jury award is not dwarfed by expenses in a copyright violation case, lawyers say.

A Manhattan federal court jury awarded the group most of the $2 million it requested at a June trial, but that was not enough to cover costs that lawyers said were worsened by the actions of the Corona, California-based Monster Energy Co., the musicians' lawyers said in papers filed in Manhattan federal court.

They said more than two years of litigation punctuated by Monster's failure to engage in good-faith negotiations, an eight-day trial and Monster's effort to overturn the verdict ran up the legal bill.

"Monster's tactics significantly increased the costs for Beastie Boys to vindicate their intellectual property rights, such that, absent an award of attorney's fees and costs, plaintiff's success at trial would become a Pyrrhic victory," they wrote in a filing Saturday.

Monster had admitted wrongly using the group's songs in a video that was online for five weeks. But the beverage maker said at trial it should owe no more than $125,000. The company's lawyers did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Monday.

The Beastie Boys, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, have turned out four No. 1 albums and sold more than 40 million records as they helped bring hip-hop to the mainstream over the last three decades. In 1986, they topped the charts with their debut, "Licensed to Ill," which include the anthem "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)"

TLC looks to fund final album through Kickstarter campaign

ATLANTA (AP) — Grammy-winning R&B group TLC is depending on fans to fund the release of their

final album through a Kickstarter campaign.

The group, which currently consists of T-Boz and Chilli, launched the campaign on Monday. It's been nearly 13 years since their last album, "3D," which was released seven months after the death of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes in 2002.

"We've always been known to do things differently," said T-Boz, who was born Tionne Watkins. "We've always been trailblazers and trendsetters. We've always been outspoken, and this seems like the perfect opportunity."

TLC released back-to-back hits, including "Creep," ''Waterfalls" and "No Scrubs." Their Grammy-winning sophomore album, "CrazySexyCool," sold more than 10 million units. The group once filed for bankruptcy in 1996, despite having two multiplatinum albums.

T-Boz and Rozanda "Chilli" Thomas have already begun the writing phase and production of their fifth album, expecting to release it in May when their tour starts. The group is hoping to collect at least $150,000 through the campaign to fund the recording process from paying for studio time, production, compensating the musicians and promoting the album.

"People may say, 'Hey, you are celebrities. Why can't you just pay for it yourself?'" Chilli said. "But it doesn't work that way. There's a lot that goes into it. We want to bring our fans into the process and see how it's done."

TLC's campaign efforts follow Neil Young, who used Kickstarter to raise $6.2 million through 18,000 supporters last year to fund his digital music project PonoMusic.

With donations starting at $5, supporters will receive an exclusive digital track and communicate with them during their recording process. Higher pledges will include VIP concert tickets, a recorded custom voicemail by T-Boz and Chilli, an in-person fitness class taught by Chilli and wardrobe pieces worn by TLC during their music videos.

Chilli said using Kickstarter would allow them to have more control over the direction of the album.

"We could knock out two birds with one stone," Chilli said. "We can have them involved in our album. Then also, we can have control over everything. That's a perfect combination."

Google to reportedly team with SpaceX to create a global satellite Internet service

Both Google and SpaceX are companies known for taking on huge projects that seem to come out of science fiction. Because of this, it’s all too appropriate that the companies will reportedly team up on a hugely ambitious project that could vastly expand access to the Internet across the world.

that Google is planning to invest in SpaceX “to support the development of SpaceX satellites that could beam low-cost Internet around the globe to billions who don’t have it.” Google has long been trying to come up with creative ways to spread Internet access across the world, including using weather balloons that would provide a floating hotspot in rural regions that don’t have strong wireline infrastructure.

Of course, the problem with this is that satellite Internet services have traditionally been unable to deliver high-speed services simply because the spectrum used for satellite transmissions isn’t as strong to delivering wireless Internet services as the spectrum used by wireless carriers.

Nadal, Murray cruise at Australian Open as Ivanovic crashes

Melbourne (AFP) - Big guns Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray successfully blasted their way into the Australian Open second round Monday but the Grand Slam dream of Ana Ivanovic was shattered.

It was different story for fifth seed Ivanovic, a former world number one who came into the tournament full of confidence after a stellar 2014 that saw her climb the rankings.Third seed Nadal and sixth seed Murray both enjoyed straight sets wins, with rising stars Simona Halep and Grigor Dimitrov also progressing comfortably on a cool and windy Melbourne day.

She started well against unheralded world number 142 Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic, easily winning the first set, but went to pieces during the match, eventually crashing 1-6, 6-3, 6-2.

"I really struggled to find my rhythm today, I was just a little bit lost," said the stunned Serb, a perennial crowd favourite in Australia where she has family.

Ninth seeded German Angelique Kerber also failed to live up to the hype, eliminated in three sets by Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu.

World number three Nadal had no such problems and was in full control against Russian Mikhail Youzhny, showing few signs of the injuries that disrupted his 2014 season

.

Shiite rebels clash with military in Yemen capital

A cease-fire halted intense clashes near the presidential palace in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Monday after Shiite rebels seized control of state-run media in a move that one official called "a step toward a coup."

The fighting, centered on the palace and a military area south of it, marked the biggest challenge yet to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi by the rebels, known as Houthis, who swept down from their northern strongholds last year and captured the capital in September.

The violence has plunged the Arab world's poorest country further into chaos and could complicate U.S. efforts to battle al-Qaida's Yemeni affiliate, which claimed responsibility for the attack on a Paris satirical magazine this month and which Washington has long viewed as the global network's most dangerous branch. (AP)

Pope says Catholics do not need to breed 'like rabbits'

Rome (AFP) - Pope Francis has said that good Catholics do not have to breed "like rabbits", defending the Church's stance on artificial contraception and appealing to the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics to practise responsible parenting.

"She said, 'I trust in God.' But God gave us the means to be responsible," the pope said. "Some think, and excuse the term, that to be good Catholics, they must be like rabbits."Speaking to journalists on his flight back from the Philippines, the pope said that he once asked a mother of seven children who was pregnant with her eighth if she wanted to "leave behind seven young orphans".

Francis said creating new life was "part of the sacrament of marriage" and in Manila strongly defended his predecessor Paul VI's outlawing of artificial contraception for Catholics in 1968.

Following the church's teachings did not mean "Christians should have children one after the other", he said.

His comments came at the end of a trip to the Philippines, the Catholic Church's Asian stronghold, which last year passed a family planning law after a 15-year battle by the Church to block state-sanctioned contraception.

The law allows the government to begin distributing free contraceptives to millions of poor Filipinos.

It was a rare loss for the Church, which has for centuries been one of the nation's most powerful institutions and continues to count more than 80 percent of the nation's 100 million people as Catholics.

- 'Responsible parenthood' -

The pope said that his predecessor had foreseen the rise in policies restricting childbirth.

"Paul VI was worried by the growth of neo-Malthusianism" (which advocates restricting the number of children the poor can have) which tried to "put a control on humanity... he was a prophet," he said.

"The key teaching of the Church is responsible parenthood. And how do we get that? By dialogue. There are marriage groups in the Church, experts and pastors," he added.

In 2013, six months after becoming pope, Francis urged the Church to drop its "obsession" with contraception, divorce, gays and abortion, in an interview signalling a dramatic shift in the Vatican's tone.

The Argentine pope has brought a series of fresh perspectives to the notoriously rigid Church since he took over, signalling a strong reformist drive.

He stressed at the time that the Church's official position had not changed, but said that it should "always keep in mind the individual".

Francis' papacy -- he is the first Jesuit pope and the first from South America -- has marked a series of breaks with Vatican tradition.

The pope has become known for his humility and concern for the poor, and has reached out to non-believers and those in other religions. He regularly picks up the phone to call ordinary people who write to him.

His latest comments are not the first this month to attract attention for their candour.

Last week when discussing the deadly attack by Islamist gunmen angered by French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo's depiction of the Prophet Mohammed, the pope said: "If a good friend speaks badly of my mother, he can expect to get punched."