Looks like the internet connection was interrupted while Minion was loading. What happens if you close Minion and start it again? Is your firewall blocking the communication?
Code:
<record>
<date>2014-04-03T08:59:57</date>
<millis>1396479597770</millis>
<sequence>4</sequence>
<logger>org.apache.http.impl.execchain.RetryExec</logger>
<level>INFO</level>
<class>org.apache.http.impl.execchain.RetryExec</class>
<method>execute</method>
<thread>25</thread>
<message>I/O exception (org.apache.http.NoHttpResponseException) caught when processing request: The target server failed to respond</message>
</record>
<record>
<date>2014-04-03T08:59:57</date>
<millis>1396479597771</millis>
<sequence>5</sequence>
<logger>org.apache.http.impl.execchain.RetryExec</logger>
<level>INFO</level>
<class>org.apache.http.impl.execchain.RetryExec</class>
<method>execute</method>
<thread>25</thread>
<message>Retrying request</message>
</record>