Early signs show Egypt's new constitution passing

CAIRO (Reuters) - Early indications showed Egyptians approved an Islamist-drafted constitution after Saturday's final round of voting in a referendum despite opposition criticism of the measure as divisive. An official from the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, which backs Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, said that after nearly 4 million votes had been counted there was a majority...

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CIA chief decries torture in Osama bin Laden hunt movie

WASHINGTON: Acting CIA director Michael Morell said that "Zero Dark Thirty," the Hollywood take on the hunt for Osama bin Laden, exaggerates the importance of information obtained by harsh interrogations.The movie by Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow tells the story of the decade-long search after September 11, 2001 that climaxed in last year's dramatic and deadly raid in...

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No change in Modi visa policy: US

AHMEDABAD: Observing that Gujarat remains an important state for its investment, the United States on Saturday, said it would continue to engage with the state across a broad range of issues including trade, investment, university linkages and peopleto-people exchanges. However, it refrained from making any comment on the Assembly elections in the state, terming it domestic Indian politics, and also...

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Urban Advocates Say New Gun Control Talk Overdue

For years, voices have cried in the urban wilderness: We need to talk about gun control.Yet the guns blazed on.It took a small-town slaughter for gun control to become a political priority. Now, decades' worth of big-city arguments against easy access to guns are finally being heard, because an unstable young man invaded an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., with a military-style...

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Predicting who's at risk for violence isn't easy

CHICAGO (AP) — It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible — partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including...

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Italy PM Monti resigns, elections likely in February

ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti tendered his resignation to the president on Friday after 13 months in office, opening the way to a highly uncertain national election in February. The former European commissioner, appointed to lead an unelected government to save Italy from financial crisis a year ago, has kept his own political plans a closely guarded secret but he...

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Strong 6.8 quake strikes off Vanuatu: USGS

SYDNEY: A strong 6.8-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of the South Pacific island of Vanuatu on Saturday, the US Geological Survey said, but no immediate tsunami warning was issued.The quake struck at a depth of more than 200 kilometres around 2230 GMT Friday some 130 kilometres north of Santo, USGS said."It's quite deep ... so there's no tsunami," said David Jepsen, a seismologist...

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Enormous impact of Food Security Bill on farm sector: Panel

NEW DELHI: The National Food Security Bill (NFSB), in its present form, throws up major operational and financial challenges and would have enormous ramifications on the cereal economy, markets and the farm sector, a government paper has said. The discussion paper by the commission for agricultural costs and prices (CACP) said the long-term feasibility of the strategy under NFSB needed to be...

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Obama Says He Is 'Ready and Willing' to Get Deal

President Barack Obama says he is "ready and willing" to get a big package done to deal with the "fiscal cliff" and says there's no reason not to protect middle-class Americans from tax increases. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images Fiscal Cliff: Boehner Doesn't Have Votes for Plan B Watch Video Next...

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AP IMPACT: Big Pharma cashes in on HGH abuse

A federal crackdown on illicit foreign supplies of human growth hormone has failed to stop rampant misuse, and instead has driven record sales of the drug by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, an Associated Press investigation shows.The crackdown, which began in 2006, reduced the illegal flow of unregulated supplies from China, India and Mexico.But since then, Big Pharma has been...

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Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels began to push into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday and laid siege to at least one town dominated by President Bashar al-Assad's minority sect, activists said. The operation risks inflaming already raw sectarian tensions as the 21-month-old revolt against four decades of Assad family rule - during which the president's Alawite sect...

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Dollar steady as investors await fiscal cliff sign

WASHINGTON: The dollar lost a little bit of ground against the euro and was largely flat against the yen in quiet trade on Thursday as investors awaited a clear sign from US "fiscal cliff" talks.The euro stood at $1.3241 towards 2200 GMT, up from $1.3226 late Wednesday. It also rose against the Japanese yen, reaching 111.72 yen compared to 111.59 yen a day earlier.The dollar held steady...

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Kerala high court permits naval guards to visit Italy for Christmas

KOCHI: The Kerala high court on Thursday allowed the two Italian naval guards, accused of fatally shooting two Indian fishermen close to the coast in the Arabian Sea on February 15, to visit Italy to be with their families for Christmas on a bank guarantee of Rs 6 crore (around $1.1 million). The shooting had triggered a major diplomatic stand-off between Indian and Italy, with the police beginning...

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Obama, Boehner Not Far Apart on 'Cliff'? Not Really

Dec 20, 2012 5:09pm Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP PhotoThere are some in Washington and around Capitol Hill who keep saying that House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama really aren’t that far apart on the “fiscal cliff” and there will be a deal despite Boehner’s proposal to hold a vote on his “Plan B.”Let’s deconstruct the two parts of...

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AP IMPACT: Steroids loom in major-college football

WASHINGTON (AP) — With steroids easy to buy, testing weak and punishments inconsistent, college football players are packing on significant weight — 30 pounds or more in a single year, sometimes — without drawing much attention from their schools or the NCAA in a sport that earns tens of billions of dollars for teams.Rules vary so widely that, on any given game day, a team with a strict no-steroid...

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