Assad says will live and die in Syria

DOHA (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad said he would “live and die” in Syria and warned that any Western invasion to topple him would have catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and beyond.Assad’s defiant remarks coincided with a landmark meeting in Qatar on Thursday of Syria’s fractious opposition to hammer out an agreement on a new umbrella...

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Icahn says has mulled Netflix takeover, no decision made

(Reuters) – Activist investor Carl Icahn, who holds an almost 10 percent stake in Netflix, said on Thursday he has considered a hostile takeover bid for Netflix, but it was uncertain he stood a chance of acquiring the Internet streaming service.Asked by TV network CNBC whether he would “go hostile” on Netflix, Icahn said, “The thought had certainly entered...

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Ex-oilman named new leader of world’s Anglicans

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain named a former oil executive as the new Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans on Friday as the church struggles to overcome a painful rift over the issues of female bishops and same-sex marriage.Welby, 56, who has been bishop of the northern English city of Durham for little more than a year,...

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Hepatitis hits more than 1,000 refugees in South Sudan: UNHCR

GENEVA (Reuters) – An outbreak of hepatitis E has infected at least 1,050 Sudanese refugees in South Sudan, killing 26 and threatening to spread further among people still arriving in crowded camps, the United Nations said on Friday.About 175,000 people have already fled to South Sudan to escape fighting in Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile states,...

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Stock index futures signal flat to higher open

PARIS (Reuters) – Stock index futures pointed to a flat to higher open on Wall Street on Friday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.15 percent, Dow Jones futures flat and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.29 percent at 1000 GMT.World stocks were on course for their worst weekly performance since June on Friday as concerns over the U.S. fiscal cliff and the outlook...

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Ghana building collapse traps dozens, kills 1

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — A five-story shopping center built earlier this year in a bustling suburb of Ghana‘s capital collapsed Wednesday, killing at least one person and leaving several dozen people trapped in the rubble, authorities and eyewitnesses said.Rescue crews used cranes to try and remove debris from the top of the building amid fears that machinery...

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Twitter Chats Beckon to Some Graduate Students

In olden, pre-Twitter days, graduate students traipsed around academic conferences meeting peers and mentors. But Twitter chats–or hashtags, the number signs indicating a topic of conversation–are the new networking spaces, at least according to a recent blog post on The Daily Muse, “10 Great Twitter chats for Grad Students.”“Participating in regularly...

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How South Korea’s Dark Oscar Entry ‘Pieta’ Cut Out Producers, Investors

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – By his 15th film, Kim Ki-duk, the director of South Korea‘s Best Foreign Picture Oscar entry “Pieta,” was sick of money shaping his cinematic vision.The director, who told an audience at the Landmark Theatre that he tries in his movies to ruthlessly dissect society with all its nuances and complexities, said he didn’t want Hollywood-type...

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Massachusetts pharmacy board head fired after meningitis outbreak

BOSTON (Reuters) – Authorities fired the director of the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy after he failed to investigate a complaint against New England Compounding Center, the company at the center of a deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak, state officials said on Wednesday.NECC is linked to a meningitis outbreak that has infected more than 400 people and caused...

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Home repossessions ‘fall further’

8 November 2012 Last updated at 05:46 ETThe number of homes being repossessed has fallen to a five-year low, according to mortgage lenders. The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said there were 8,200 repossessions in the third quarter of 2012, the lowest quarterly number since 2007.The figure was down from 8,500 in the...

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