South Africa Police FireTeargas as Mine Unrest Spreads

By Ed Cropley

JOHANNESBURG | Tue Sep 4, 2012 2:56am EDT

(Reuters) - South African police fired teargas and rubber bullets to disperse striking miners at a gold mine near Johannesburg on Monday, the latest outbreak in a wave of labor militancy spreading from platinum mining into other parts of the sector.

The unrest occurred less than three weeks after police shot dead 34 striking miners at Lonmin's Marikana mine, the bloodiest security incident since the end of white-minority rule in 1994.

The Marikana shooting shocked South Africa and marred the image of the continent's biggest economy, as the full extent of a breakdown in labor relations in the mines became apparent.

South Africa is home to 80 percent of known platinum reserves and the price of the precious metal, used in jewellery and car catalytic converters, has risen more than 10 percent since the violence erupted.

In Monday's incident, mine owner Gold One International Ltd said about 60 workers at its Modder East site went on a wildcat strike, blocking half its employees from reporting for their shifts.

"The group, however, refused to disperse. The South African Police Service had to use teargas and rubber bullets to disperse the group," it said in a statement.

Police spokeswoman Pinky Tsinyane said four people were injured in the incident, which she described as a "shoot-out" between protesting ex-miners, miners and security guards.

"Police are investigating a case of attempted murder," she said, adding that four arrests had been made. "We understand that the ex-miners were assaulting the miners who were coming to work this morning."

In a separate dispute - but one born of similar social conditions - an illegal strike involving a quarter of the 46,000-strong workforce at the KCD East gold mine, owned by world No. 4 bullion producer Gold Fields, entered its third working day.

MARIKANA MINERS RELEASED

The Marikana unrest stemmed ultimately from a turf war in the platinum sector between the dominant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the small but militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU).

The government has been trying to broker a peace accord to cool off the feud before it does lasting damage to the platinum industry and spreads across the mining sector, which accounts for 8 percent of South African economic output.

On Monday, the first of 270 miners detained at the Marikana shootings were released from police custody after prosecutors withdrew murder charges brought under an obscure apartheid-era security law for the police killing of their colleagues.

The public outcry at the murder charges soured the already testy relationship between the unions, Lonmin management and the government, which has been trying to put a lid on the mess and end a wildcat strike approaching its fourth week.

However, three-way talks ended without any progress on Monday. The Department of Labor said the negotiations would resume on Wednesday.

Lonmin shares rose nearly 4 percent in early trade on hopes for a resumption of mining, but lost most of those gains as hopes of a breakthrough faded. Lonmin said only 4.5 percent of its shift workers turned up on Monday.

"An indefinite strike will ultimately threaten the jobs of more than 40,000 workers. We cannot go on indefinitely without normalizing operations and still escape the consequences of the mine not being operational," it said in a statement.

Many of the AMCU-affiliated miners accuse the NUM of caring more about its political connections to the ruling African National Congress than about the plight of workers deep underground.

The 3,000 striking Marikana workers are mostly rock drill operators demanding 12,500 rand ($1,500) a month in basic wages, more than double what they receive now.

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Hezbollah: Iran Will Strike US if Israel Hits

By Laila Bassam

BEIRUT | Tue Sep 4, 2012 1:51am EDT

(Reuters) - Iran could hit U.S. bases in the Middle East in response to any Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities even if American forces played no role in the attack, the leader of Lebanon's Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said on Monday.

"A decision has been taken to respond and the response will be very great," Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview with the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen television.

"The response will not be just inside the Israeli entity - American bases in the whole region could be Iranian targets," he said, citing information he said was from Iranian officials. "If Israel targets Iran, America bears responsibility."

Heightened Israeli rhetoric about Tehran's nuclear facilities, which the West says could be part of a weapons program, has stoked speculation that it may attack Iran before U.S. elections in November.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged world powers on Sunday to set a "clear red line" to convince Iran they would prevent it from obtaining nuclear arms.

Israel, thought to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, views Iran's nuclear program as a threat to its regional dominance and to its very existence. Tehran says the atomic work is for peaceful purposes only.

But Netanyahu's cabinet is divided over the wisdom of attacking Iran, and Israeli officials have dropped heavy hints of a climbdown strategy, under which Netanyahu would shelve threats of an attack now in return for a stronger public pledge from President Barack Obama on conditions that would provoke U.S. action in future.

Nasrallah said there were divisions in Israel over attacking Iran. "Personally I do not expect the Israeli enemy - at least in the coming months or foreseeable future - (to wage) an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said.

Nasrallah pointed to the fragile global economy, which would be weakened further by any sharp rise in crude oil prices stemming from conflict in the Gulf, and to likely Israeli casualties in any war with Iran.

"Netanyahu and (Defence Minister Ehud) Barak inflate the benefit and play down the cost," he said, referring to Barak's estimates that Israel could suffer up to 500 fatalities in any conflict aimed at wiping out Iran's nuclear facilities.

Hezbollah guerrillas fought a 34-day war with Israel six years ago in which 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 people in Israel, mostly soldiers, were killed.

War with Iran would be more deadly, Nasrallah said. "We don't know what will happen in the region."

NO CHEMICAL WEAPONS

He repeated a warning he made last month that Hezbollah could cause widespread destruction if it came into conflict with Israel again, but denied that the Shi'ite Islamist guerrilla and political movement would ever use chemical weapons.

"We do not have chemical weapons and we will not use chemical weapons," Nasrallah said. "The use of chemical weapons is forbidden - for us that is absolute.

Unrest in neighboring Syria, which acknowledged for the first time in July that it possessed chemical or biological weapons, has led to Western fears that those weapons might fall into the hands of Islamist groups including Hezbollah.

"I do not need chemical weapons - regardless of the religious or practical position," Nasrallah said, addressing Israel. "You have factories, and you have bases, and compounds, and I have rockets."

Israel had several "weak points" which could be targeted, including "economic, industrial, electrical, chemical and nuclear" sites, the Hezbollah leader said.

Even if Israel launched a first strike attack on Lebanon, destroying a large part of Hezbollah's missile arsenal, the militant group would retain the capacity to hit back with deadly force, he added.

Two weeks ago Nasrallah said Hezbollah could kill tens of thousands of Israelis by hitting targets with what he described as precision-guided missiles.

"Hitting these targets with a small number of rockets will turn ... the lives of hundreds of thousands of Zionists to real hell," he said at the time.

(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alison Williams)

WORLD

ISRAEL

Google And Apple's Wars Not Over yet

By Reynolds Holding

Fri Aug 31, 2012 12:16pm EDT

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Apple may bury the hatchet with Google - just not quite yet. It's no shock their chiefs, Tim Cook and Larry Page, are talking. The iPhone maker's sweeping U.S. patent win over Samsung is a blow to the search giant, too. But the rivals' clashing business models make peace difficult.

The court filings read Apple v. Samsung, but the target was really Google. That's because an unprecedented 68 percent of smartphones - largely Samsung's - that shipped in the second quarter ran on Google's Android software, according to research firm IDC. Apple's iPhones garnered only a 17 percent market share. Steve Jobs, the late Apple founder, insisted that Android included "stolen" features, and his successors have pursued that line in more than 50 lawsuits against smartphone makers in 10 countries.

The suits don't name Google, perhaps because damages are simpler to win against consumer products vendors. The strategy paid off last week, when a California jury awarded Apple $1 billion for Samsung's infringement of U.S. patents, including some involving Android features. That may have intensified Page's dialogue with Cook. But a deal needn't be imminent. Apple sells elegant devices at a high profit. Google makes money from advertising, and essentially gives Android away as a means to that end. Both companies' success could make compromise unpalatable.

And Apple, for now, is winning. Though not as one-sidedly as in California, courts worldwide have found Android-based devices violate the company's patents. And the iPhone maker is targeting the software in another case before the judge who presided over its Samsung victory. Agreeing peace with that kind of battlefield advantage would make Sun Tzu turn in his grave.

But outright victory is no certainty. Samsung recently nicked the Cupertino-based company in cases in Japan and Korea. U.S. Judge Richard Posner all but laughed Apple out of court in June. Even the California judgment could be vulnerable on appeal. There's also a question of cost. News reports suggest Apple spent tens of millions of dollars on the Samsung case alone. That's peanuts for a $625 billion company. But at some point, settling the fight from a position of strength will be Apple's best option.

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Obama Tours Hurricane-Stricken Louisiana

By Mark Felsenthal

LAPLACE, Louisiana | Tue Sep 4, 2012 3:04am EDT

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama toured hurricane-stricken Louisiana on Monday and promised federal recovery help as he sought to show his administration was on top of the disaster response on the eve of his Democrats' national convention in North Carolina.

Obama was preceded by his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, who diverted from the campaign trail to Louisiana on Friday to inspect the fallout from Hurricane Isaac a day after accepting his party's nomination for the November 6 election.

Flying into New Orleans on a hot, sunny day, Obama traveled by motorcade to nearby St. John the Baptist Parish, one of the hardest-hit communities, where he met federal, state and local officials and then surveyed the area.

He saw evidence of the storm's fury - twisted road signs, toppled trees, blown-down fences, debris piled high and pools of water beside the road. Stepping out of his limousine, he paused to comfort a few residents and hear their stories.

"There has been enormous devastation in St. John's Parish," Obama told reporters. He cited similar destruction in other parts of Louisiana as well as neighboring Mississippi and praised emergency officials for limiting the loss of life.

The White House has taken pains to depict Obama as deeply engaged in the government's handling of Isaac and its aftermath. His Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, was heavily criticized for the sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005.

Being cast in the role of consoler-in-chief could have political benefits for Obama, who is locked in a tight race with Romney and will accept his party's nomination in a prime-time speech on Thursday night in Charlotte, North Carolina. The convention begins on Tuesday.

"How y'all doin'?" Obama asked Trebor Smith, wearing shorts and high rubber boots, outside his storm-damaged house.

"Better now," Smith said.

One woman told Obama the water rose so fast that she and her family had to be rescued by boat.

Isaac was the first hurricane to strike the United States this year, hitting New Orleans almost exactly seven years after Katrina hit, causing an estimated 1,800 deaths.

But Isaac was a much weaker storm. It was blamed for six deaths in Louisiana and two in neighboring Mississippi, and both states suffered from widespread flooding.

ABOUT 125,000 STILL WITHOUT POWER

Even as the fading remnants of Isaac moved east, about 125,000 people remained without power in Louisiana, the governor's office said. With floodwaters not yet receded in some areas, about 2,600 people remained in emergency shelters. Obama has declared disasters in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Isaac's passage through the Gulf of Mexico last week forced cancellation of one day of the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida, and took some attention away from it.

Obama, staying away from the region while emergency officials were occupied with the height of the crisis, waited until Monday for his visit. He went ahead with a Labor Day rally with union workers in Ohio but freed up time in his campaign schedule by scrapping a second event in the battleground state.

Romney, a wealthy former private equities executive who has struggled to show that he can connect with ordinary Americans, detoured to the disaster zone the day after his convention.

Obama, overheard by news photographers allowed in for a few minutes while he was being briefed, said such presidential visits to disaster zones were "not just for photo-ops."

The White House sought to play down any political implications of the two visits at the height of election season, and highlighted the fact that Louisiana's Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, accompanied both of the men.

But White House spokesman Jay Carney, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, echoed Democrats who have pointed out that Romney's running mate, congressional fiscal hawk Paul Ryan, had earlier proposed sharp cuts in disaster relief spending.

"Our biggest priority is helping to house people who've been displaced ... to make sure they have the kind of support they need to get restarted," Obama said on the ground.

Carney's comments did not sit well with the Ryan camp, which expressed outrage that the administration would raise the subject of political differences during a disaster area tour.

"Apparently there's nothing the President's team won't politicize," said Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck. "Paul Ryan believes providing aid to victims of natural disasters is a critical obligation and should be treated as a high priority within a fiscally responsible budget."

Obama made a point of praising the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saying "in the past we haven't seen the kind of coordination that is necessary." FEMA was a focus of criticism for what was seen as the botched response to Katrina in 2005.

Obama also hailed the first successful test of New Orleans' new $14.5 billion flood defenses, a reinforced network of government-built levees. But he said flooding in St. John the Baptist Parish and elsewhere showed the need for further work and pledged federal efforts to find out what went wrong and expedite solutions.

Meantime, oil operations that had been interrupted along the Gulf Coast were coming back on line. The Energy Department said the Exxon Mobil Corp's joint-venture 192,500 barrel per day (bpd) Chalmette, Louisiana, refinery was restarting on Monday.

The department also said Exxon's 502,500 bpd Baton Rouge refinery has returned to normal production after reducing throughput because of Isaac. Only Phillips 66's 247,000 bpd refinery in Alliance, Louisiana, remained shut on Monday due to flooding and power loss from the storm, the agency said.

(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Eric Walsh)