Jan
04

Syrian forces bombard rebel areas near capital

 Syrian government warplanes and artillery pounded restive suburbs of Damascus on Friday and anti-regime activists said a car bomb targeted an intelligence building north of the capital.Fighting in Syria's civil war has flared in areas around Damascus as rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad try to push into the city itself. The rebel advances in the suburbs threaten the government's...
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Leaders of Sudan, South Sudan start talks to defuse tension

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The leaders of Sudan and South Sudan met late on Friday to try to defuse hostility that has simmered since the south broke away in 2011 and restart cross-border oil flows to rescue their crumbling economies.No details emerged as Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir and South Sudan's Salva Kiir met in the presence of Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn who is trying to mediate...
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Italy's Monti unveils alliance, rules out minister role

ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on Friday unveiled the alliance he will lead into February's parliamentary election and said he was unlikely to agree to serve as a minister in another premier's cabinet after the vote.The 69-year-old former European commissioner, who replaced Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister in November 2011 when Italy was scrambling to avert a financial crisis,...
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Chile: Couple dies defending home amid protests

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — An elderly couple whose family's vast landholdings have long been targeted by Mapuche Indians in southern Chile were killed in an arson attack early Friday while trying to defend their home. The president quickly flew to the scene and announced new security measures, including the application of Chile's tough anti-terrorism law and the creation of a special police anti-terror...
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Syria blames "terrorists" for deadly petrol station blast

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria said on Friday a car bomb at a crowded petrol station in Damascus was set off by "terrorists", a term it uses for rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad.The blast on Thursday night killed 11 people and wounded 40 at a station packed with Syrians queuing for fuel, which has become scarce in the 21-month insurgency against Assad, in the second petrol station attack...
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Jan
03

RIM shares jump in Toronto, rebound from sharp decline

 Shares of Research In Motion Ltd jumped nearly 10 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Thursday, following similar gains in New York on Wednesday, in a rebound from last week's sharp decline.Last Friday, the volatile stock plunged more than 20 percent after the company said on an earnings conference call that it was rolling out a new fee structure for its services segment, which some investors...
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A surprisingly good vintage as market logs gains

NEW YORK (AP) — If you'd told investors what was going to happen in 2012 — U.S. economic growth at stall speed, an intensifying European debt crisis, a slowdown in China, fiscal deadlock in Washington, decelerating corporate earnings growth — and asked how the stock market would perform, few would have predicted a good year.But that's just what they got.The Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard...
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