Russia rejects Assad exit as precondition for Syria deal

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia voiced support on Saturday for international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi but insisted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for a deal to end the country's conflict. Some 60,000 Syrians have been killed during the 21-month-old revolt and world powers are divided over how to stop the escalating bloodshed. Government aircraft bombed...

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Four police injured in fresh Northern Ireland clashes

BELFAST, United Kingdom: Four Northern Ireland police officers were injured while battling to quell sectarian clashes in Belfast on Saturday as the row over the flying of the British flag showed no sign of abating.Police used water cannon and fired a plastic bullet during the clashes in Belfast, the latest to blight the British province after more than five weeks of violent disorder over...

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Had complained of being spied: General VK Singh

NAGPUR: A week after the drama at General VK Singh's residence when his family alleged being spied on, the former army chief now says he had a suspicion of being trailed much before the incident took place and had even taken up the issue with authorities. Singh, who was talking to newspersons in the city where he attended a farmers' convention, said, "I had written to somebody about what I had suspected....

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Hospitals crack down on workers refusing flu shots

CHICAGO (AP) — Patients can refuse a flu shot. Should doctors and nurses have that right, too? That is the thorny question surfacing as U.S. hospitals increasingly crack down on employees who won't get flu shots, with some workers losing their jobs over their refusal."Where does it say that I am no longer a patient if I'm a nurse," wondered Carrie Calhoun, a longtime critical care nurse in suburban...

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Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious

Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right."He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business and,...

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U.S. forces to move to Afghan support role in spring: Obama

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday said U.S. and coalition forces will move to a support role in the Afghan conflict this spring. Obama, during a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said he will announce the next steps in the U.S. troop drawdown in Afghanistan in coming months. (Reporting By White House te...

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Football: West Ham sign Brazilian striker Wellington

LONDON: West Ham on Friday signed Brazilian forward Wellington Paulista on loan from Cruzeiro until the end of the season.Wellington had been a long-term target for Hammers manager Sam Allardyce and the Premier League club have an option to sign him on a three-year contract if his loan spell proves successful.The 28-year-old, who has yet to make his Brazil debut, finished last season as...

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NSA Shiv Shankar Menon briefs PM Manmohan Singh on LoC situation

NEW DELHI: National security advisor Shiv Shankar Menon on Friday briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the latest situation on the Line of Control as Pakistani troops again targeted Indian posts in Jammu and Kashmir, leading to exchange of fire."NSA briefed the Prime Minister as he is doing regularly since the situation began," an official said.Informed sources said before meeting the Prime...

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Flu more widespread in US; eases off in some areas

NEW YORK (AP) — Flu is more widespread across the nation, but the number of hard-hit states has declined, health officials said Friday.Flu season started early this winter, and includes a strain that tends to make people sicker. Health officials have forecast a potentially bad flu season, following last year's unusually mild one. The latest numbers, however, hint that the flu season may already have...

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James Holmes Told to 'Rot in Hell' By Victim's Dad

The father of a young woman allegedly slain by James Holmes in the Aurora movie theater massacre yelled "Rot in hell, Holmes" during a court hearing today.The outburst by Steve Hernandez prompted judge William Sylvester to have an off-the-record conference with prosecutors and defense attorneys. Sylvester then reconvened court to address the issue while armed court deputies...

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String of bombings kill 101, injure 200 in Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 101 people were killed in bombings in two cities in Pakistan on Thursday, officials said, with most casualties caused by sectarian attacks in the city of Quetta. Two coordinated explosions killed at least 69 people and injured more than 100 in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, on Thursday evening, said Deputy Inspector of Police Hamid...

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Worst storms in decade bring Mideast to near standstill

BEIRUT: The worst storms in a decade left swathes of Israel and Jordan under a blanket of snow and parts of Lebanon blacked out on Thursday, bringing misery to a region accustomed to temperate climates.Freezing temperatures and floods since Sunday have claimed at least 11 lives across the region and exacerbated the plight of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees huddled in tented camps...

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Akbaruddin Owaisi's hate speech lands TV channels in the dock

HYDERABAD: Though the Adilabad police had arrested MIM MLA Akbaruddin first in relation to the 'hate speech' he had delivered in Nirmal, their Hyderabad counterparts, who also booked a case against the Chandrayangutta MLA, are a step ahead of them in gathering evidence. On Thursday, the Osmania Univesity (OU) police issued notices to four local TV channels for airing Akbar's Nizamabad and Nirmal...

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China's one-child law: Less competitive adults?

BEIJING (AP) — They're called "little emperors" — the children born in China under a law that generally limits urban families to having just one child.They grow up as the sole focus of doting parents. How does this affect them? What does it mean to Chinese society if generations of kids are raised this way?Concerns about the "only child" practice in China have been expressed before. Now researchers...

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Biden Hints at Executive Order on Gun Control

Vice President Biden, meeting today with outside groups on gun safety, told reporters he has already started putting together a list of recommendations that he plans to issue next Tuesday.Biden meets with representatives of the NRA and other supporters of gun rights on the second day of this week's meetings on gun violence.But he told reporters Thursday, during meeting a with...

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U.N. envoy says 40 years of Assad family rule is "too long"

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrians believe 40 years of Assad family rule is too long, the international mediator for Syria said, the closest he has come to calling directly for President Bashar al-Assad to quit. The remarks by U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi cast doubt on the future of his peace plan, the only major diplomatic initiative to end a war the United Nations says has killed 60,000 people....

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Football: Winning start for LionsXII

SINGAPORE: The LionsXII have got their 2013 Malaysian Super League (MSL) campaign off to a winning start with victory over Angkatan Tentera Malaysia (ATM) FA on Wednesday.A solitary strike from captain Shahril Ishak in the 66th minute was enough to give the Singaporean side a 1-0 win at the Paroi Stadium in Seremban.ATM FA missed a golden opportunity when Marlon James miscued three yards...

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Pakistani army brutality may force India to rethink on peace

NEW DELHI: An angry India on Wednesday summoned Pakistani high commissioner Salman Bashir to the foreign office to lodge a strong protest over the killing and mutilation of Indian soldiers, even suggesting that the incident may force New Delhi to do a rethink on its re-engagement with Pakistan. Hours later, Pakistan reacted by accusing India of making "baseless and unfounded allegations". With the...

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Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer

WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there's no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported a tantalizing hint that one day, there might be.Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors...

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Holmes Took Disturbing Photos Before Massacre

Hours before James Holmes allegedly carried out a massacre at a Colorado movie theater he took a series of menacing self-portraits with his dyed orange hair curling out of from under a black skull cap and his eyes covered with black contacts.A prosecutor told the court after the photographs were shown that Holmes had a "depravity of human heart."Those haunting photographs,...

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Insight: Aleppo misery eats at Syrian rebel support

ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) - At a crowded market stall in Syria, a middle-aged couple, well dressed, shuffle over to press a folded note, furtively, into the hand of a foreign reporter. It is the kind of silent cry for help against a reign of fear that has been familiar to journalists visiting Syria over the past two years. Only this is not the Damascus of President Bashar al-Assad but rebel-held...

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Euro unemployment hits 'unacceptable' high

BRUSSELS: European unemployment has hit an unacceptable high, as one national leader put it on Tuesday, with dire figures in Spain highlighting a growing north-south divide that experts warn will only get worse.The unemployment rate across the troubled 17-nation eurozone hit 11.8 per cent in November, up from 11.7 per cent in October, with the number of people out of work in the single...

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Multi Agency Centre had alerted of a terrorist raid in LoC

NEW DELHI: The Multi Agency Centre (MAC) had issued warnings in Jammu on Sunday and here on Monday to the Army about a possible terrorist raid on one of the military posts in Mendhar, raising questions if the raid was a joint operation of the Pakistani Army and terrorists. The warning came true so precisely — unlike several occasions in the past when MAC has warned of such raids that never happened...

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James Holmes' Elaborate Booby Trap Plan Revealed

A gasoline-soaked carpet, loud music and a remote control car were part of an elaborate plan by accused Aurora gunman James Holmes' to trick someone into triggering a blast that would destroy his apartment and lure police to the explosion while he shot up a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., according to court testimony today.FBI agent Garrett Gumbinner told a Colorado court about...

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