Huntsman to Drop Out of Republican Race for US President

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is one step closer to securing the U.S. Republican Party nomination for president after news broke late Sunday that former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman plans to drop out of the race and endorse his rival.

The news came hours after the southern state of South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State, endorsed Huntsman's candidacy.

Officials with Huntsman's campaign told media outlets the formal announcement will come late Monday morning.  A campaign spokesman said Huntsman "did not want to stand in the way" of Romney - a fellow Mormon who is considered a moderate conservative - on his way to challenge the Democratic incumbent, President Barack Obama.

Huntsman had decided against competing in the first state to vote - Iowa in the Midwest - and instead focus most of his campaign resources on the second contest in the northeastern state of New Hampshire.  However, he placed third in that primary, behind Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

Source: Jon Huntsman to drop out of presidential race

Republican candidate Jon Huntsman will drop out of the presidential race on Monday and endorse front-runner Mitt Romney, a senior official with the former Utah governor's campaign told CNN.

Huntsman finished third in last week's New Hampshire primary, a state in which he had staked his entire campaign, behind Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

"Governor Huntsman did not want to stand in the way of the candidate best prepared to beat Barack Obama and turn our economy around. That's Mitt Romney," the official said.

The former governor and U.S. ambassador to China made headlines when he decided to take his campaign to compete in the South Carolina primary, where he struggled to build support.

An American Research Group poll released Friday showed Huntsman with just 1% of likely GOP primary voters in the state.

"Jon Huntsman made a basic calculation here, let's be honest. If you look at the polling, he's doing miserable in South Carolina. He's not going to win the state next Saturday and so if he wants to run in 2016 ... this is a chance ... to try to get a little bit of goodwill in the party, a little bit of leverage," said CNN Chief National Correspondent John King.

Guinea-Bissau Mourns Late President, Looks to Future

Sunday's funeral of President Malam Bacai Sanha in Guinea-Bissau could mark the beginning of a turbulent few months for the politically-troubled West African country.

All flags fly at half-staff in Guinea-Bissau’s capital as Guineans mourn the loss of their president.

Malam Bacai Sanha died on January 9 in a Paris hospital of a prolonged, unspecified illness. He was 64 years old.

Though in office just two years, Sanha was viewed as a head of state who brought relative stability to a country where democracy has proved elusive.

Now, some in the population are feeling unease about what could happen next.

Nigerian labor unions, government resume talks to end fuel strikes

Nigerian labor unions resumed talks with the government Sunday in a bid to reach a deal to stop a national strike over soaring fuel prices, sources close to the negotiations said.

President Goodluck Jonathan participated directly in the discussions, they said. Late-night wrangling ended earlier in the day without a compromise.

Oil labor unions will not shut down production of crude as planned, according to union sources who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the talks.

Last week, a major oil union, Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, threatened to halt production Sunday in solidarity with protesters if the two sides don't reach an agreement.

Syria toll rises to 25; monitors cheered in besieged town

Crowds in a Syrian town surrounded by government troops cheered Arab League monitors who visited Sunday as others fled the town on foot to escape the fighting inside.

Residents of Zabadani, about 50 km (30 miles) northwest of Damascus, lifted one of the monitors onto their shoulders and passed him around the crowd during Sunday's visit. They told CNN that their water and electricity had been cut off for the past three days, and they showed off wounds they said had been inflicted by pro-government forces.

The monitors got a different reception from Syrian soldiers, who berated them as the soldiers carried off the body of one of their comrades they said had been shot by opposition forces.

The visit came as another 32 people were killed by government troops trying to crush a 10-month-old uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an opposition umbrella group. The toll included 13 in Homs, the scene of some of the worst fighting to date; 10 in the city of Idlib; and three people, inlcuding a child, in Hama.

During a visit to neighboring Lebanon, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon delivered a blunt message to al-Assad: "Stop killing your people." Meanwhile, al-Assad announced that he was granting amnesty to anti-government demonstrators for "all crimes committed" since the uprising began last March, Syrian state-run media reported.