Fri Dec 7, 2012 4:00pm EST (Reuters) - The New York Yankees have agreed to a one-year contract with speedy outfielder Brett Gardner that avoids salary arbitration, the Major League Baseball team said on Friday. Though no financial details were disclosed, the deal is estimated to be worth $2.85 million, according to local media.Gardner, a World Series champion wit...

LOS ANGELES | Fri Dec 7, 2012 3:26pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran rocker Bruce Springsteen and newcomer blues-rock band Alabama Shakes landed the top awards in Rolling Stone magazine's annual list of the year's best music on Friday, which featured many of next year's leading Grammy nominees. Springsteen's 17th studio album "Wrecking Ball" topped t...

By Douwe Miedema WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 3:21pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc was fined $1.5 million to settle charges it failed to supervise its traders and allowing one futures dealer to hide billions in dollars from sight and causing a $118 million loss. Ex-Goldman trader Matthew Marshall Taylor in 2007 camouflaged an...

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO | Fri Dec 7, 2012 2:58pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc is replacing the head of its in-house mergers and acquisitions group, David Lawee, with one of its top lawyers, according to a person familiar with the matter. Don Harrison, a high-ranking lawyer at Google, will replace Lawee as head of the Interne...

By Simon Evans MIAMI | Fri Dec 7, 2012 2:50pm EST MIAMI (Reuters) - Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra does not want any "drama" but his team's second 20-point loss to the rival New York Knicks in five weeks has certainly focused the minds of his team. The Heat, who entered Thursday's home game against New York still stinging from Tuesday's hum...

By Erika Solomon BEIRUT | Fri Dec 7, 2012 2:27pm EST BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared Damascus International Airport a battle zone on Friday, while Moscow and Washington both sounded downbeat about the prospects of a diplomatic push to end the conflict. Fighting around the capital city has int...

By Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay and Rod Nickel Fri Dec 7, 2012 12:48pm EST (Reuters) - Glencore International Plc won approval from China's Ministry of Commerce on Friday for its C$6 billion ($6 billion) purchase of Canadian grain handler Viterra Inc, clearing the last regulatory hurdle for the long-delayed deal. The takeover, one of the largest in the global ag...

By Nicola Leske NEW YORK | Fri Dec 7, 2012 12:11pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cisco Systems laid out its mid-term growth strategy on Friday, betting on increased demand for software, services and security as it strives to become the world's leading information technology company. Cisco, whose business roots in routers and switches that move Interne...

By Mike Collett-White LONDON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 12:02pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - One of Britain's top directors Michael Grandage is targeting the next generation of theatre-goers by offering one quarter of all tickets to his upcoming, star-studded season for 10 pounds ($16) each, a fraction of what they would normally cost. The award-winning 50-year...

Fri Dec 7, 2012 9:06am EST (Reuters) - Aetna Inc (AET.N) on Friday said it agreed to pay as much as $120 million to settle litigation over its practices on the payment of claims for services by providers with which Aetna does not have a contract. The agreement calls for Aetna to pay $60 million, plus as much as $60 million more following a claims submission perio...

By Diego Ore and Efrain Otero CARACAS | Fri Dec 7, 2012 9:04am EST CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez made a theatrical return home on Friday after medical treatment in Cuba, walking and joking in a first public appearance for three weeks that quashed rumors he may have been at ...

By Erika Solomon BEIRUT | Fri Dec 7, 2012 9:09am EST BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared Damascus International Airport a battle zone on Friday, warning civilians and airlines they would approach it "at their own risk". Fighting around the capital city has intensified over the past week, promptin...

By Paolo Biondi ROME | Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:56am EST ROME (Reuters) - The secretary of Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party said on Friday it was time that Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti's term in office came to an end but that his party would not trigger a disorderly crisis. People of Freedom (PDL) secretary Angelino Alfano told parliame...

By Harro Ten Wolde BONN, Germany | Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:50am EST BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom hopes major investments in Germany and the United States and a long-awaited iPhone deal will turn around its fortunes, compensating for the dividend cut it plans to pay for them. The company said it would increase investments by more than an a...

NEW YORK | Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:50am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The stock index futures recovered from earlier losses to advance on Friday after data showed non-farm payrolls came in above expectations at 146,000 and the unemployment rate dipped to 7.7 percent. S&P 500 futures rose 7.7 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by ...

OTTAWA | Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:48am EST OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada refused to offer any hints on Friday on the timing of a decision on a bid by China's CNOOC Ltd for energy company Nexen Inc.. "Whatever the date, appropriate notice will be given," Andrew MacDougall, a spokesman for Prime Minister's Stephen Harper, told Reuters by email.Canada's industry minis...

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Marwa Awad GAZA | Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:45am EST GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal ended decades of exile from Palestinian land on Friday with a triumphal first ever visit to the Gaza Strip that underscored the Islamist group's growing confidence following its latest conflict with Israel. After passing through the ...

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 9:10am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Employment grew faster than expected in November, but a drop in the unemployment rate to nearly a four-year low as people gave up the search for work suggested the labor market was still tepid. Nonfarm employment increased by 146,000 jobs last month, the Labor Depart...

By Antoni Slodkowski TOKYO | Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:39am EST TOKYO (Reuters) - A strong quake centered off northeastern Japan shook buildings as far away as Tokyo on Friday and triggered a one-meter tsunami in an area devastated by last year's Fukushima disaster, but there were no reports of deaths or serious damage. The quake had a preliminary magnit...

TOKYO | Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:19am EST TOKYO (Reuters) - A high-ranking Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) executive believes that it will take the automaker a year to recover from the effects of a diplomatic row between Japan and China, the Kyodo news agency reported on Friday. Calls for boycotts of Japanese goods in response to a territorial dispute over the Senka...

By Tom Perry and Edmund Blair CAIRO | Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:18am EST CAIRO (Reuters) - The crisis unleashed by President Mohamed Mursi's bid to wrap up Egypt's transition on his own terms has eroded his nation's faith in their nascent democracy and will complicate the already unenviable task of government. His effort to drive through a constitution a...

Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:17am EST (Reuters) - Glencore International Plc won approval from China's Ministry of Commerce for its C$6 billion ($6 billion) purchase of Canadian grain handler Viterra Inc, clearing the last regulatory hurdle for the long-delayed deal. The takeover, one of the largest in the global agriculture industry in years, was originally expected to clo...

WARSAW | Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:10am EST WARSAW (Reuters) - France Telecom's Polish unit TPSA expects its home telecoms market, which it dominates, to shrink by over seven percent next year because of economic woes and further regulatory cuts in mobile charges, its top executive said. TPSA, the former state monopolist, already slashed its 2012 outlook and fut...

PARIS | Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:10am EST PARIS (Reuters) - Three-times world time-trial champion Michael Rogers has signed a two-year contract with Saxo-Tinkoff, the Dutch team said on Friday. The 32-year-old Australian left Team Sky after two years with the British outfit, with whom he played a key part in Bradley Wiggins's Tour de France victory in July.Roge...

Fri Dec 7, 2012 8:03am EST (Reuters) - Charl Schwartzel's second successive round of seven-under-par 65 gave him a four-shot clubhouse lead at the Thailand Golf Championship on Friday. The 2011 Masters winner appeared to have recovered from the rib injury that has affected his swing for much of the season and was on 14-under-par 130 after 36 bogey-free holes in t...

FRANKFURT | Fri Dec 7, 2012 7:54am EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Key Euribor bank-to-bank lending rates fell on Friday, a day after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the bank discussed cutting interest rates at its December meeting but in the end decided to leave them unchanged at 0.75 percent. Draghi said on Thursday there had been "a wide d...

MILAN | Fri Dec 7, 2012 7:45am EST MILAN (Reuters) - Italian police have been carrying out checks at the Milan offices of Facebook to assess whether it regularly declared its income in Italy, an investigative source and the U.S. company said on Friday. Italian officials have stepped up their efforts to collect taxes in recent months and have already targ...

By Dan Williams JERUSALEM | Fri Dec 7, 2012 7:24am EST JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Human Rights Watch urged Israel on Friday to provide a full account of its air strike on a house in the Gaza Strip that killed 12 civilians last month, saying the action appeared to have been illegal. The November 18 attack on the three-storey home of the Dalu family was...

By Karolina Tagaris ATHENS | Fri Dec 7, 2012 7:21am EST ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece says it is sticking to plans to close its offer to buy back its own bonds from investors on Friday in a deal that should meet a debt writedown target set by its international lenders. The government said it would shield the country's banks from any lawsuits over los...

By Eva Kuehnen and Sakari Suoninen FRANKFURT | Fri Dec 7, 2012 7:20am EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The central banks of Germany and Austria on Friday forecast barely any economic growth in 2013, with the Bundesbank flagging risks of a recession in the euro zone's biggest economy as the debt crisis hits the bloc's core. The Bundesbank expects Germany...

By Tom Pilcher LONDON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 7:08am EST LONDON (Reuters) - UEFA's decision to host the 2020 European Championship across the continent rather than in one or two host nations has been greeted with enthusiasm as countries battle the crippling financial crisis. European soccer's governing body announced the move on Thursday, saying it wou...

GENEVA | Fri Dec 7, 2012 6:22am EST GENEVA (Reuters) - Average salaries in developed countries are expected to have risen by no more than inflation this year, the International Labour Organization said on Friday. Developed country wages failed to keep up with inflation in both 2008 and 2011, but remained about 5 percent above the 2000 level in real terms...

MOSCOW | Fri Dec 7, 2012 5:36am EST MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's deputy prime minister will meet the board of Rostelecom next week amid reports he may suggest replacing the management of the state-controlled telecoms operator after the house of its CEO was searched in a fraud probe. Aliya Samigullina, spokeswoman for Dvorkovich, told Reuters on Friday he ...

By Melanie Lee BEIJING | Fri Dec 7, 2012 5:16am EST BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Xiaomi Technology is a fairy tale for nerdy entrepreneurs. Less than three years after its founding, the smartphone maker is valued at $4 billion and evokes Apple-like adoration from its fans, some of whom are desperate enough to skip work for a shot at buying the lat...

By Tan Ee Lyn HONG KONG | Fri Dec 7, 2012 4:47am EST HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese labor arbitrators have ruled against the father of a Foxconn worker brain-damaged in a factory accident in southern China, in a case that puts more attention on the labor practices of Apple Inc's largest contract manufacturer. The case involves Zhang Tingzhen, a 26...

BEIJING | Fri Dec 7, 2012 4:21am EST BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Foreign Ministry lambasted the United States on Friday for "disgusting" comments by a U.S. official on the human rights situation in Tibet, saying it had prompted them to file a formal diplomatic complaint with Washington. Maria Otero, United States Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, s...

By Nick Mulvenney SYDNEY | Fri Dec 7, 2012 3:46am EST SYDNEY (Reuters) - Local hopeful Marcus Fraser rode the momentum from a first round hole-in-one to claim a one-stroke lead at the halfway point of the $1.25 million Australian Open on Friday. The 34-year-old thought he might be making an early exit when he was three-over after 10 holes of the ...

By David Alexander WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 7, 2012 3:16am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is shifting warships into position to track and possibly defend against a planned North Korean rocket launch while urging Pyongyang to cancel its second such attempt this year, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command said on Thursday. Admiral Samuel L...

By Michael Todt DURBAN | Fri Dec 7, 2012 3:10am EST DURBAN (Reuters) - The inaugural Nelson Mandela Championship is in danger of being cancelled after the first round was postponed again on Friday with much of the Durban Golf Club underwater after a huge overnight thunderstorm. European Tour regulations state that a tournament must complete at le...

By Erik de Castro NEW BATAAN, Philippines | Fri Dec 7, 2012 1:53am EST NEW BATAAN, Philippines (Reuters) - Residents in the southern Philippines buried their dead on Friday even as rescue workers continued scouring remote areas for survivors of Typhoon Bopha, the nation's strongest storm this year, which killed 418 people and left nearly as many ...