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ERMELO, South Africa -- In a country cursed by one of the world's highest murder rates, being a white farmer makes a violent death an even higher risk. Whether attacks have been motivated by race or robbery, a rising death rate from rural homicides is drawing attention to the lack of change on South Africa's farms nearly two decades after the end of apartheid -- and to the tensions burgeoning over enduring racial inequality. Some of South Africa's predominantly white commercial farmers go as far as to brand the farm killings a genocide. 'Potentially explosive' issue On the other side...

Roughly 5 percent of respondents in Reuters/Ipsos polls said they chose the Republican contender in 2008 and will switch to Obama in 2012. Who are these defectors? The McCain-to-Obama switchers are 55 percent male, and 34 percent of them are 55 or older. (Overall, Obama trails Romney 34 percent to 52 percent among white men over 50.) About 72 percent of them are white. They are largely from the East Coast; nearly 4 in 10 live in the mid- or South Atlantic. Nearly 3 in 10 finished their education after high school, and nearly 2 in 10 have a bachelor's...

Two shocking photos coming off the wire of Benjamin Netanyahu addressing the United Nations moments ago.

Scientist and children’s television personality Bill Nye, in a newly released online video, panned biblical creationism and implored American parents who reject the scientific theory of evolution not to teach their beliefs to their youngsters. “I say to the grownups, ’If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we’ve observed in the universe that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it,’” said Nye, best known as host of the educational TV series “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” The video, titled “Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children,” was posted on Thursday by...

FAYETTEVILLE, North Carolina (Reuters) - They call it "rahowa" - short for racial holy war - and they are preparing for it by joining the ranks of the world's fiercest fighting machine, the U.S. military. White supremacists, neo-Nazis and skinhead groups encourage followers to enlist in the Army and Marine Corps to acquire the skills to overthrow what some call the ZOG - the Zionist Occupation Government. Get in, get trained and get out to brace for the coming race war. If this scenario seems like fantasy or bluster, civil rights organizations take it as deadly serious, especially given recent...

(Reuters) - In his first week as a Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan has quietly moved away from the Medicare reform plan that has defined his political career. At campaign stops, Ryan has made little mention of the Medicare and budget savings that conservatives cheered when presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced his running mate. When Medicare comes up, it's more often than not in an attack on Democratic President Barack Obama. "Do you think raiding Medicare to pay for Obamacare is an achievement? Why don't we just get rid of Obamacare all together?" Ryan said at a rally...

Abdelbasset Sida, head of the Syrian National Council, said the United States had realized that the absence of a no-fly zone to counter Assad's air superiority hindered rebel movements... A no-fly zone imposed by NATO and Arab allies helped Libyan rebels overthrow Muammar Gaddafi last year. The West has shown little appetite for repeating any Libya-style action in Syria, and Russia and China strongly oppose any such intervention... Rebels who seized swathes of the city three weeks ago have been fighting to hold their ground against troops backed by warplanes, helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery... Aleppo and the capital Damascus,...

For Tea Party activists uninspired by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the choice of fiscally conservative Congressman Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate might allow them to vote in November without holding their noses. Hours after Romney's announcement on Saturday, Tea Partiers' reactions ranged from "Wow!" to "a step up from Romney" to "this doesn't change a thing for me" - what one would expect from a notoriously fragmented coalition bound by a desire for smaller government. Many hailed the selection of as a sign of fiscally conservative movement's growing influence on the Republican Party platform. Others said...

Three women who protested against Vladimir Putin in a "punk prayer" on the altar of Russia's main cathedral went on trial on Monday in a case seen as a test of the longtime leader's treatment of dissent during a new presidential term. The women from the band 'Pussy Riot' face up to seven years in prison for an unsanctioned performance in which they entered Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral wearing masks, ascended the altar and called on the Virgin Mary to "throw Putin out!" Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, were brought to Moscow's Khamovniki court...

Protesters broke windows of least a half-dozen storefronts in Anaheim on Tuesday and five people were arrested in the second major clash between police and demonstrators since an officer shot dead an apparently unarmed man. Tom Tait, mayor of the southern California city, had called on Monday for a state and federal review of the shooting of the man, a suspected gang member. Over 600 demonstrators gathered at City Hall on Tuesday, where officials were holding a regular meeting, police said. Some threw patio chairs through the windows of a Starbucks, according to a Reuters witness. No one in the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a law that will tighten controls on civil rights groups funded from abroad, the his press office said on Saturday, a step opponents say is part of a campaign to suppress dissent. The law, which was cleared by the upper house of parliament earlier in July, will force non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaging in "political activity" to register with the Justice Ministry as "foreign agents" and to file a report to officials every quarter. Opposition groups say Putin is trying to silence groups whose criticism of his human rights record has undercut his credibility and...

At 8:42 PM Central, it was already certain to any sentient human being that incumbent Republican Scott Walker had romped contender Tom Barrett in the Wisconsin recall election. Yet, despite the crater-sized percentage gap, here is what CNN, via Reuters, was reporting:Maybe this is why CNN is hemmorhaging viewers like nobody's business. But it's Fox that invents news, right?But what interested me was the main photo on this Reuters page. What the $^*@ is that doing hanging there like some third world Commie dictator's poster in a voting location???

Reuters is worried that new tough anti voter fraud laws will hurt Barack Obama’s chances of reelection next November. Complaining that such laws “could” reduce Obama’s supporters by “hundreds of thousands” the media outlet apparently sees no irony in its own position. Reuters doesn’t feel at all self-conscious about the implication that only fraudulent applicants have to be concerned about these new laws and honest people would not be disadvantaged in the least. “Republican” led Legislatures Further exposing its support for voter fraud the media giant cites “Republican-led legislatures” in 12 states as the culprits who are sharply restricting fraudulent...

They’re ladies first – Ninjas second There are now reportedly 3,500 black lady ninjas in Iran ready and willing to defend the evil regime. MSNBC, CNN and Reuters reported on these female trained killers last month. The dreaded Iranian she-ninjas sued Reuters today on defamation charges. Iran Press TV reported: Last month, Reuters showed a number of Iranian girls training martial arts in a city near Tehran, claiming Iran was training more than 3,000 female ninjas to kill any possible foreign invaders. The distorted Reuters report was picked up by other British media outlets. Following the strong reaction of Iranian...

More than half of Americans support President Barack Obama's apology for U.S. troops burning copies of the Koran, an incident that triggered a spate of bloody protests and attacks on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday, 56 percent of those surveyed backed Obama, who has been criticized by U.S. Republican presidential candidates for apologizing to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Twenty-three percent disagreed. While the spasm of violence that erupted following the incident on a NATO base in Afghanistan does not appear to have significantly altered Americans' perspective on the war, 66 percent of those polled...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stepped up pledges to curb Jewish zealotry in Israel on Sunday after an 8-year-old girl complained of being menaced by ultra-Orthodox men who deemed her dress immodest. While his conservative government insists such incidents are fringe phenomena in the mostly secular country, Netanyahu's repeated announcements on the matter reflected concern about widening religious and political schisms. "In a Western, liberal democracy, the public realm is open and safe for all, men and women both, and neither harassment nor discrimination have any place there," he told his cabinet in broadcast remarks. Netanyahu said he had ordered law...

The days of unbiased reporting are well behind us. What we have now are news agencies who are bent on furthering a political agenda. Proof positive comes in the form of a Reuters story with a somewhat confusing title: “Alabama immigration law decried, applauded as some flee state.” (Click here for original story) The title is somewhat ambiguous as to who is “decrying” and who is “applauding” but the article leaves little doubt as to the ideological leanings of the author(s): (Reuters) – A climate of fear and panic has taken hold in Alabama’s immigrant community since a federal judge...

Obama said the U.S. recovery suffered setbacks this year due to problems around the world, including the Arab Spring uprisings that drove up energy prices and worries about the financial health of European countries. "They have not fully healed from the crisis back in 2007 and never fully dealt with all the challenges that their banking system faced. It is now being compounded with what is happening in Greece," Obama told an audience of about 400 in Mountain View in California's Silicon Valley. "So they are going through a financial crisis that is scaring the world and they are trying...

Feinstein campaign sues bank, ex-treasurer over missing fundsBy Mary Slosson LOS ANGELES | Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:59pm EDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Senator Dianne Feinstein's campaign sued its former treasurer and the First California Bank on Friday, seeking the return of millions of dollars in missing funds the campaign believes were embezzled. Campaign officials said the action came after the bank failed to provide the campaign access to its own account records when a tangle of unauthorized money transfers and co-mingling of funds was unearthed. The irregularities were spread across 400 bank accounts and dozens of organizations over a...

President Barack Obama on Tuesday hailed the end of the policy banning gays from serving openly in the armed forces, as the Pentagon vowed "zero tolerance" for harassment of homosexuals in the military. "Today, the discriminatory law known as 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' is finally and formally repealed," Obama said in a statement. "As of today, patriotic Americans in uniform will no longer have to lie about who they are in order to serve the country they love." The repeal went into effect on Tuesday, ushering in a new era in the armed forces. The law had allowed gay men...