CAIRO | Sat Dec 8, 2012 7:49pm EST CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi canceled a decree which had sparked huge protests by giving him sweeping powers. But Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood said a referendum on a new constitution would go ahead as planned on December 15 - suggesting the climbdown by Mu...

By Sam Cage BUCHAREST | Sat Dec 8, 2012 6:56pm EST BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania's prime minister is heading for victory in parliamentary elections on Sunday that could set off another round of a power struggle with the rightist president and complicate talks for a new IMF deal. Prime Minister Victor Ponta's leftist Social Liberal Union (USL) wil...

JERUSALEM | Sat Dec 8, 2012 6:12pm EST JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Former prime minister Ehud Olmert said on Saturday that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu was taking Israel into unprecedented isolation with its policy on Jewish settlements. He singled out Israel's recent announcement that it would build new settlement homes in the E1 corridor near Jerusal...

By Joel Flynn BIRMINGHAM, England | Sat Dec 8, 2012 5:03pm EST BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) - Pakistan's President Asif Zardari held a private meeting on Saturday with Malala Yousufzai, the teenage Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban after advocating education for girls, at the British hospital where she is being treated. Yousufzai, who was...

By Lomi Kriel GUATEMALA CITY | Sat Dec 8, 2012 4:42pm EST GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Software guru John McAfee, fighting deportation from Guatemala to Belize to face questions about the slaying of a neighbor, said on Saturday he wants to return to the United States. "My goal is to get back to America as soon as possible," McAfee, 67, said in a ph...

CAIRO | Sat Dec 8, 2012 3:34pm EST CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian authorities are holding a man whose militant group is suspected of links to an attack in Libya in which the American ambassador was killed, U.S. officials in Washington and a security source in Cairo said on Saturday. "They arrested Mohamed Gamal," said one U.S. official.The security source in...

By Regan Doherty and Barbara Lewis DOHA | Sat Dec 8, 2012 2:44pm EST DOHA (Reuters) - Almost 200 nations extended a weakened United Nations plan for combating global warming until 2020 on Saturday with a modest set of measures that would do nothing to halt rising world greenhouse gas emissions. Many countries and environmentalists said the deal a...

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Crispian Balmer GAZA | Sat Dec 8, 2012 2:30pm EST GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, in a defiant speech during his first ever visit to Gaza, told a mass rally on Saturday he would never recognize Israel and pledged to "free the land of Palestine inch by inch". A sea of flag-waving supporters poured into the ci...

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis AMMAN | Sat Dec 8, 2012 1:26pm EST AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian rebel groups have chosen a former officer to head a new Islamist-dominated command, in a Western-backed effort to put the opposition's house in order as President Bashar al-Assad's army takes hits that could usher his downfall. In Turkey, a newly formed joint comma...

JOHANNESBURG | Sat Dec 8, 2012 12:03pm EST JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African president Nelson Mandela was admitted to hospital on Saturday for medical tests, although the government said there was no cause for alarm. A statement from President Jacob Zuma's office gave no details of the condition of the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader."Forme...

By Alistair Lyon and Tamim Elyan CAIRO | Sat Dec 8, 2012 9:22am EST CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's military said on Saturday only dialogue could avert "catastrophe", stepping into a crisis pitting an Islamist president against opponents of his drive to reshape a nation in turmoil since Hosni Mubarak's overthrow. An army statement, which state radio an...

By Matt Scuffham LONDON | Sat Dec 8, 2012 7:03am EST LONDON (Reuters) - For Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) Chief Executive Stephen Hester, the biggest turnaround in corporate history is not over. Hester, who has shrunk RBS by 700 billion pounds ($1.1 trillion) since he began repairing its balance sheet four years ago, can count on at least three ...

By Manuele Lang ST MORITZ, Switzerland | Sat Dec 8, 2012 6:51am EST ST MORITZ, Switzerland (Reuters) - Lindsey Vonn put the disappointment of her super-combined failure behind her to win Saturday's World Cup Super-G in St Moritz. The American, who was eliminated from Friday's super-combined in the Swiss resort after skidding out in the slalom leg...

By George Georgiopoulos ATHENS | Sat Dec 8, 2012 6:22am EST ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece is set to purchase back about half of its debt owned by private investors, broadly succeeding in a bond buyback that is key to the country's international bailout, a Greek government official said on Saturday. Greek and foreign bondholders offered the targeted 3...

By Mark Felsenthal WASHINGTON | Sat Dec 8, 2012 6:07am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, accused by Republican House Speaker John Boehner of pushing the country toward the "fiscal cliff," said on Saturday he was ready to work with congressional Republicans on a comprehensive plan to cut budget deficits as long it included higher ...

ATHENS | Sat Dec 8, 2012 3:17am EST ATHENS (Reuters) - Foreign investors have offered between 15 and 16 billion euros ($19.4-20.7 billion) of Greek government bonds in a debt buy-back programme, according to an initial estimate given by newspapers on Saturday. The plan is central to efforts by Greece's euro zone and International Monetary Fund lenders to...

Sat Dec 8, 2012 12:10am EST (Reuters) - Former Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist, who campaigned for President Barack Obama in this past election, announced on Twitter Friday that he is now a Democrat. Crist attended a holiday party at the White House Friday night, according to the Miami Herald, and tweeted from the event: "Proud and honored to join the D...

By Jennifer Ablan and Matthew Goldstein and Emily Flitter Fri Dec 7, 2012 11:43pm EST (Reuters) - U.S. authorities are investigating Steven A. Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund for possible insider trading in the shares of the popular diet company Weight Watchers International Inc, according to people familiar with the matter. The investigation focu...

LOS ANGELES | Fri Dec 7, 2012 9:14pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The autopsy report on murdered hip hop star Notorious B.I.G. has been released by the Los Angeles County Coroner, more than 15 years after his shooting. Notorious B.I.G was gunned down at the age of 24 in Los Angeles in the early morning on March 9, 1997, in a drive-by shooting. The rapper ...

By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK | Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:58pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors typically sell stocks to cut their losses at year end. But worries about the "fiscal cliff" - and the possibility of higher taxes in 2013 - may act as the greatest incentive to sell both winners and losers by December 31. The $600 billion of automatic ta...

LOS ANGELES | Fri Dec 7, 2012 7:59pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The South Korean pop singer behind the viral smash hit "Gangnam Style" apologized on Friday for past concerts featuring anti-American lyrics, ahead of a holiday performance to be attended by U.S. President Barack Obama and his family. Psy issued the apology after reports surfaced in the Uni...

WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 7:26pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Singer-songwriter James Taylor says he doesn't see the resemblance, but he was pitched - without success - to play the role of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in the new film. Taylor told a packed audience at the National Press Club on Friday that Oscar-winning musician John Williams - who com...

By Soyoung Kim and Nick Brown NEW YORK | Fri Dec 7, 2012 6:34pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - US Airways Group Inc has made a formal merger proposal to American Airlines parent AMR Corp and its creditors that could value the combined airline at around $8.5 billion, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday. Details of the proposal emerged as ...

By Steve Gutterman MOSCOW | Fri Dec 7, 2012 6:25pm EST MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Senate's passage of legislation to punish Russians who violate human rights is the first big test of Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama's resolve to improve relations since each won elections. Obama, who launched a "reset" in relations with Russia less than four years ago,...

By David Alexander WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 6:24pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's top military officers have decided to review the kind of staff support provided to senior generals and admirals after several high-profile scandals raised concerns about the inappropriate use of personnel and equipment for personal gain. The decision,...

By Crispian Balmer and Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA | Fri Dec 7, 2012 6:23pm EST GAZA (Reuters) - After receiving a hero's welcome on his return from decades in exile, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal will attend a rally in Gaza on Saturday to mark the founding of his Islamist group and celebrate "victory" over Israel. At least 200,000 Palestinians are expe...

By Edmund Blair and Yasmine Saleh CAIRO | Fri Dec 7, 2012 6:20pm EST CAIRO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Mohamed Mursi was expected to press ahead on Saturday with talks on ways to end Egypt's worst crisis since he took office even though the country's main opposition leaders have vowed to stay away. Cairo and other cities have been rocked by violen...

By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 6:17pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An internal report for the U.S. Congress has concluded that Iran probably is no longer on track, if it ever was, to having an ocean-crossing missile as soon as 2015. The study casts doubt on a view long held by U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran could be able to test-fly...

By Alwyn Scott NEW YORK | Fri Dec 7, 2012 5:58pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Saying a strike now appears likely, the union representing Boeing Co's (BA.N) 23,000 engineers held picket-line training this week to prepare for a work stoppage that could disrupt billions of dollars worth of plane deliveries and help Airbus catch up to Boeing on jet desig...

By Aruna Viswanatha and Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 5:51pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. regulatory probe of Netflix Inc over disclosures made on its chief executive's Facebook page could prove an important test of whether a rule designed to prevent leaks to analysts can translate to the social media age. The movie and TV stre...

By Timothy Gardner and Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 5:50pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States granted 180-day waivers on Iran sanctions to China, India and a number of other countries on Friday in exchange for their cutting purchases of oil from the Islamic Republic. President Barack Obama's administration has now renewe...

By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK | Fri Dec 7, 2012 5:50pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and U.S. Bancorp (USB.N) can be sued over a pension fund's allegations they failed to protect investors while acting as trustees of mortgage-backed securities for Washington Mutual Inc, a federal judge ruled on Friday. U.S. District Judge K...

Fri Dec 7, 2012 5:37pm EST (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's administration will ask U.S. lawmakers to approve more than $60 billion in funding for East Coast states to rebuild after Superstorm Sandy. Officials from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, which were hit hard by the storm, had asked for much more, saying they needed at least $82 billion altogethe...

By Jeremy Wagstaff and Miyoung Kim JAKARTA/SEOUL | Fri Dec 7, 2012 5:34pm EST JAKARTA/SEOUL (Reuters) - What a difference three months can make. At the end of August, Apple Inc seemed on top of the world. Fresh off a resounding $1.05 billion U.S. legal victory over arch-foe Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the company was gearing up to launch the fift...

By Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 5:28pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican House Speaker John Boehner accused U.S. President Barack Obama of pushing the country toward the "fiscal cliff" on Friday and of wasting another week without making progress in talks. With three weeks left before a combination of steep ta...

By Deepa Seetharaman DETROIT | Fri Dec 7, 2012 5:15pm EST DETROIT (Reuters) - Under pressure by Michigan officials to turn around Detroit's sagging finances, city officials said on Friday they will lay off hundreds of workers in addition to putting some on unpaid leave to stave off increased state oversight. Mayor Dave Bing and top officials outl...

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 5:01pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Companies kept up their slow but steady hiring pace in November, defying predictions that Superstorm Sandy would deal a big blow to the labor market. While the unemployment rate fell to a near four-year low of 7.7 percent, that was only because many Americans gave up...

By Ryan Vlastelica NEW YORK | Fri Dec 7, 2012 4:33pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and the S&P 500 advanced modestly on Friday, though another sell-off in Apple depressed technology shares and kept the Nasdaq negative, overshadowing a sharply better-than-expected jobs report. Trading was light, continuing the week's trend of slight moves a...

By Kathy Finn NEW ORLEANS | Fri Dec 7, 2012 4:31pm EST NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - While millions of TV viewers focus on the outcome of the upcoming Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans, executives at Mercedes-Benz USA will be waiting for a late-game commercial introducing the car they hope will bring them thousands of new, younger customers. Marking only...

By Suzanne Barlyn Fri Dec 7, 2012 4:02pm EST (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch may be one step closer to ending its battle with former brokers who say the firm denied them deferred compensation when they left after the brokerage was bought by Bank of America Corp (BAC.N). Merrill Lynch and lawyers for some ex-brokers have agreed to changes in a proposed $40-milli...