Mon Nov 12, 2012 7:49pm EST (Reuters) - Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout and Washington Nationals Bryce Harper were crowned Major League Baseball's rookies of the year on Monday. Trout was the unanimous winner of the American League award, sweeping all 28 first place votes, while Harper won a close race for the National League award.The 21-year-old Tr...

By Jose Sanchez BELIZE CITY | Mon Nov 12, 2012 7:39pm EST BELIZE CITY (Reuters) - Police in Belize want to question U.S. anti-computer virus software pioneer John McAfee in connection with the murder of a neighbor he had been quarrelling with, but they say he remains a person of interest at this time and is not a suspect. McAfee, who invented the...

By Nick Brown NEW YORK | Mon Nov 12, 2012 7:28pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Eastman Kodak Co (EKDKQ.PK) said on Monday it has reached a $793 million financing deal with bondholders that could take the one-time photography giant out of bankruptcy. The deal, which still needs bankruptcy court approval, will come in the form of new loans from Centerbr...

By Leah Schnurr NEW YORK | Mon Nov 12, 2012 7:10pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed in a lightly traded session on Monday, with investors limiting bets ahead of what could be a drawn-out battle over the "fiscal cliff." Volume was light, with the U.S. bond market and government offices closed for the Veterans Day holiday. Tradin...

By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent WASHINGTON | Mon Nov 12, 2012 7:09pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With the U.S. election over and Syria's civil war growing bloodier and spreading, the Obama administration is quietly re-examining its options for involvement in the conflict. Whether that will lead to a change in strategy remains unclear. ...

Mon Nov 12, 2012 6:45pm EST (Reuters) - Multiple Olympic gold medalist Allyson Felix and double world record holder Ashton Eaton have won Jesse Owens Awards as U.S. athletes of the year, USA Track & Field (USATF) announced on Monday. Felix, the three-time world 200 meters champion, won Olympic gold at the 2012 London Games in the 200m, the 4x400m relay and th...

By Rania El Gamal and Yasmine Saleh DOHA/CAIRO | Mon Nov 12, 2012 6:44pm EST DOHA/CAIRO (Reuters) - Syria's newly named opposition leader, a soft-spoken cleric backed by Washington and the Gulf Arab states, launched his quest on Monday for international recognition as a government-in-waiting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. In a sign of the d...

By Nate Raymond NEW YORK | Mon Nov 12, 2012 6:43pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barclays Bank Plc (BARC.L) has won a dismissal of a U.S. lawsuit brought on behalf of creditors of energy transport and storage company SemGroup LP SEMGP.UL. The lawsuit had sought repayment of a $143 million fee that SemGroup paid the bank to take over its commodities tr...

By Robert Evans GENEVA | Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:42pm EST GENEVA (Reuters) - CERN researchers said on Monday they have spotted a particle reshaping into two others in their Large Hadron Collider, a breakthrough that could be crucial in exploring physics frontiers once the realm of science fiction. The mutation - in a process known as decay - was predi...

By Lauren Tara LaCapra Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:41pm EST (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) is due to name new partners on Wednesday, but the benefits of receiving the title are not what they used to be. Goldman is the only major Wall Street bank to retain this relic from its private partnership days, when senior investment bankers owned the firm, contr...

By Phil Stewart Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:21pm EST ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT, Nov 12 - The United States will determine in the next several weeks how many troops it will keep in Afghanistan as part of a residual force following the drawdown of most combat forces at the end of 2014, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Monday. Panetta said the top U.S. an...

By Malathi Nayak SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:09pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said its "Halo 4" video game racked up $220 million in global sales on its launch day, beating records set by previous installments of the hit series. Action-shooter "Halo 4," released last Tuesday, is on its way to reaching $300 million in globa...

NEW YORK | Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:03pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - NYSE Euronext (NYX.N) suspended trading in over 200 stocks on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday due to a technical problem with a server, although the stocks in question continued trading on other markets. There were no closing auctions in the affected stocks and a list of the official closi...

PARIS | Mon Nov 12, 2012 4:49pm EST PARIS (Reuters) - France said on Monday it was ready to start releasing almost $2 billion in frozen assets belonging to Libya's sovereign wealth fund, as it looks to secure investment from the oil-producing nation. France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius made the announcement during a visit to Tripoli, the latest in a...

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Nov 12, 2012 4:48pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The mobile video game Kingdoms at War is popular with owners of Apple Inc's iPhone and Google Inc's Android smartphones alike. But for the game's maker, there is a very important difference - it earns more than double the money on iPhones and iPads than it d...

By Ben Blanchard and Terril Yue Jones BEIJING | Mon Nov 12, 2012 4:20pm EST BEIJING (Reuters) - In 2007, a year before Beijing hosted the Olympics, China's Communist rulers made a special effort at a five-yearly congress to show the world transparency and grant rare open access to foreign media. This year's conclave is however overshadowed by Chi...

By Euan Rocha Mon Nov 12, 2012 3:53pm EST (Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd plans to introduce its new line of BlackBerry 10 smartphones on January 30, the company said on Monday, giving investors a measure of confidence the long-awaited devices are approaching the finish line. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company, a one-time pioneer in the smartphone ind...

By Richard Balmforth and Pavel Polityuk KIEV | Mon Nov 12, 2012 3:29pm EST KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's re-energized opposition on Monday threatened President Viktor Yanukovich with impeachment and vowed to work to free ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko from jail as they set out an action program for the new parliament. The three parties, which in...

By Axel Bugge and Daniel Alvarenga LISBON | Mon Nov 12, 2012 2:25pm EST LISBON (Reuters) - Angela Merkel faced scattered protests on Monday in Lisbon, where she delivered German endorsement of a government austerity drive designed to honor a bailout loan but which critics fear may only deepen the slump. "The situation is difficult but what Portug...

WASHINGTON | Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:31pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pulling out of the global financial crisis may at times clash with the goal of making sure that it does not happen again, making the whole process more difficult, the International Monetary Fund's No. 2 official said in a speech in London. Ending the crisis means boosting demand and restorin...

By Rania El Gamal and Yasmine Saleh DOHA/CAIRO | Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:29pm EST DOHA/CAIRO (Reuters) - Syria's newly named opposition leader, a soft-spoken cleric backed by Washington and the Gulf Arab states, launched his quest on Monday for international recognition of a government-in-waiting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Mouaz Alkhatib, a ...

NEW YORK | Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:26pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday rejected Deutsche Bank AG's (DBKGn.DE) bid to dismiss a federal regulator's lawsuit accusing it of misleading Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) and Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) into buying billions of dollars of risky mortgage debt. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan said the Federa...

By Angela Moon NEW YORK | Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:21pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Monday, extending their losses after suffering the worst weekly decline in five months, as lingering worries about the upcoming debate on the fiscal cliff weighed on investor sentiment. Adding to concerns, Barclays cut its year-end target for the S&P 500...

PARIS | Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:05pm EST PARIS (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp's new Surface tablet - its challenger to Apple's iPad - had a "modest" start to sales because of limited availability, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told French daily Le Parisien. The world's largest software company put the Surface tablet center stage at its Windows 8 launch ...

PARIS | Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:05pm EST PARIS (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp's new Surface tablet - its challenger to Apple's iPad - had a "modest" start to sales because of limited availability, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told French daily Le Parisien. The world's largest software company put the Surface tablet center stage at its Windows 8 launch ...

By Jennifer Saba Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:01pm EST (Reuters) - A host of challenges confront Mark Thompson as he officially takes over as chief executive of New York Times Co, from making the company less dependent on advertising to trimming costs to figuring out what to do with its pile of cash. Sizable as the tasks are, Thompson, who reported for work as the ...

LONDON | Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:56pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Banking group HSBC (HSBA.L) has settled a case brought by a fund over losses it suffered during the collapse of fraudster Bernie Madoff's financial empire, potentially paving the way for more claims against fund custodians. The London-based bank said it had settled its dispute with Kalix Fund, whic...

By Jack Kim SEOUL | Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:39pm EST SEOUL (Reuters) - Global health officials agreed a deal on Monday to fight smuggling of tobacco products, a trade which robs governments of more than $40 billion in revenue each year and undercuts efforts to reduce smoking. The measures include making it mandatory for member governments to license ...

By Nigel Davies MADRID | Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:16pm EST MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos promised on Monday that no needy family will go homeless over mortgage arrears, responding to public fury at a homeowner's suicide as she was being evicted. Facing accusations that politicians and banks are complicit in de facto "murd...

By Nicola Leske Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:15pm EST (Reuters) - Tech investors hoping for good news may have to look further than Cisco Systems Inc's (CSCO.O) quarterly report as analysts expect Chief Executive John Chambers to be pessimistic in his forecast for the coming year. Cisco, which is expected to meet estimates when it reports its first-quarter results...

Mon Nov 12, 2012 11:37am EST (Reuters) - Lance Armstrong has stepped down as a board member of Livestrong, the cancer-support charity he founded in 1997, the organization said Monday. "Lance Armstrong has chosen to voluntarily resign from the Board of Directors of the Livestrong Foundation to spare the organization any negative effects as a result of controversy ...

By Jonathan Stempel and Nate Raymond NEW YORK | Mon Nov 12, 2012 9:46am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc agreed to pay $67.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit by former Wyeth Inc shareholders who said they were misled about risks associated with the antidepressant Pristiq. The all-cash settlement was disclosed on Friday, one month after...

By Rania El Gamal and Regan Doherty DOHA | Mon Nov 12, 2012 8:36am EST DOHA (Reuters) - Syria's new opposition leadership, painfully forged under Arab and Western pressure, set out on Monday to gather recognition and wider backing for the struggle to topple President Bashar al-Assad and take over the country. Reformist Damascus cleric Mouaz al-Kh...

TRIPOLI | Mon Nov 12, 2012 8:33am EST TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's former prime minister went on trial on Monday over allegations including corruption and of ordering mass rape during the war last year. Al Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi could face life in jail or execution if convicted. He...

By Tom Bergin LONDON | Mon Nov 12, 2012 8:32am EST LONDON (Reuters) - UK lawmakers will quiz executives of Starbucks (SBUX.O), Google (GOOG.O) and Amazon (AMZN.O) on Monday about how they have managed to pay only small amounts of tax in Britain while racking up billions of dollars worth of sales here. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is...

By Daren Butler ISTANBUL | Mon Nov 12, 2012 8:26am EST ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey should consider bringing back the death penalty, a decade after Ankara abolished capital punishment as part of reforms aimed at European Union membership. Political commentators ac...

MILAN | Mon Nov 12, 2012 8:22am EST MILAN (Reuters) - Italy's Mario Monti said on Monday he would prefer not to stay on as prime minister after elections in April, despite widespread calls for him to do so. Monti was named as leader of a technocrat government last November when the financial crisis forced Italian government debt to levels that had trigge...

By Nigel Davies MADRID | Mon Nov 12, 2012 8:19am EST MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's top parties will tackle eviction law reform on Monday after a homeowner's suicide provoked public fury and accusations that politicians and banks are complicit in de facto "murder". Close to 400,000 Spaniards have lost their homes since a property bubble burst in 2008...

By Ryan Vlastelica NEW YORK | Mon Nov 12, 2012 8:35am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Monday after last week's steep losses on upbeat economic data from China over the weekend, though concerns remained about the growth outlook in the United States and Europe. Stocks also should receive a lift from merger n...

DUBAI | Mon Nov 12, 2012 7:20am EST DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran launched military drills across half the country on Monday, warning it would act against aggressors less than a week after Washington accused Iranian warplanes of firing on a U.S. drone. The maneuvers will take place this week across 850,000 square kilometers (330,000 square miles) of Iran's nort...