By Mark Hosenball Thu Dec 6, 2012 2:25pm EST (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate intelligence committee plans to vote next week on whether to approve findings of a nearly 6,000-page summary of its long-running investigation into contentious counter-terrorism practices, including "enhanced interrogation techniques," used by the CIA during the George W. Bush admini...

SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Dec 6, 2012 2:19pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel's outgoing chief executive, Paul Otellini, said he expected to be replaced by a company insider and also signaled that the top chipmaker could open its factories to strategic customers. Otellini's comments at a Sanford Bernstein investor conference on Wednesday stoked speculation ...

WASHINGTON | Thu Dec 6, 2012 1:24pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday prevented a simple majority vote on a proposal to give Democratic President Barack Obama unilateral power to raise the debt limit. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid brought the measure to the floor for consideration at the request of McConn...

WASHINGTON | Thu Dec 6, 2012 12:20pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Billions of dollars are needed to strengthen and repair rail and other transportation networks in the U.S. Northeast in the aftermath of savage Superstorm Sandy, lawmakers and transportation officials said on Thursday. "Estimates of the damage have reached more than $7 billion. Across the re...

By Mehreen Zahra-Malik WANA, Pakistan | Thu Dec 6, 2012 11:49am EST WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan's Taliban, one of the world's most feared militant groups, are preparing for a leadership change that could mean less violence against the state but more attacks against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, Pakistani military sources said. Hakimulla...

By Angela Moon NEW YORK | Thu Dec 6, 2012 10:05am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple's market capitalization fell below $500 billion on Thursday as shares of the world's most valuable listed company continued to slide after suffering their worst one-day decline in nearly four years. Shares of Apple In...

By John O'Donnell BRUSSELS | Thu Dec 6, 2012 10:03am EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European governments should coordinate their efforts to root out tax avoidance costing them around 1 trillion euros ($1.31 trillion) every year, the European Union's executive body said on Thursday. The European Commissi...

Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:59am EST (Reuters) - The board of U.S. satellite radio company Sirius XM Radio Inc approved a $2 billion common stock repurchase program and issued a special dividend, giving a big payout to its biggest shareholder, Liberty Media. Liberty Media, which owns about 49.8 percent of Sirius' stock and is trying ...

By Rhys Jones and Kirstin Ridley LONDON | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:58am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Aerospace and defense group Rolls-Royce may face prosecution after Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) ordered it to hand over details of possible bribery and corruption in China and elsewhere, the company sai...

BRASILIA | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:58am EST BRASILIA (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez looks set to miss a regional trade summit in Brazil on Friday after going to Cuba for cancer-related medical treatment, officials said. Chavez had been enthusiastic about attending the Mercosur bloc's meeting in Brasilia to celebrate Venezuela's entry, so his abse...

By Vernell Hackett NASHVILLE, Tennessee | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:57am EST NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - Male artists led the nominations announced on Wednesday for the 2013 Grammys, as fun., Frank Ocean, Mumford & Sons, Jay-Z, Kanye West and Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys landed six nods each for music's biggest awards. The nominations for Ne...

NEW YORK | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:55am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - At the request of a federal mediator, Boeing Co (BA.N) and the union representing its 23,000 engineers suspended talks on new labor contracts for the rest of the year. The move came Wednesday, a day after the mediator joined the negotiations in Seattle...

By Fred Barbash WASHINGTON | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:54am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama takes his "fiscal-cliff" campaign to the home of a family in Northern Virginia on Thursday to illustrate the impact of letting taxes go up on the middle class, as signs emerge that Republicans are contemplating a change in strategy in their battl...

NEW YORK | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:53am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - AT&T Inc and Akamai Technologies Inc said they have agreed to work together to work together on content delivery network (CDN) services, which deliver content faster by avoiding Internet congestion, sending Akamai's shares up 8 percent in early tra...

Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:51am EST (Reuters) - Solid-state drive maker Stec Inc should consider strategic alternatives including a sale, its biggest independent shareholder said in a letter to the company that expressed "serious concern" about its strategic direction. Balch Capital, which holds 9 percent of Stec, said the company's...

By Noah Browning RAMALLAH, West Bank | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:50am EST RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Jordan's king visited the West Bank on Thursday in a show of support for Palestinians stung by Israel's decision to expand settlements after their successful bid for de facto U.N. recognition of state...

By Olga Dzyubenko BISHKEK | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:44am EST BISHKEK (Reuters) - A teenage wrestler who represented Kyrgyzstan at the 2012 London Olympics while on bail has been put on probation for two years after a court in the Central Asian republic found her guilty of assault. Judge Kanybek Omurkanov said on Thursday that Aisuluu Tynybekova, 19, mu...

By Michael Georgy KABUL | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:44am EST KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban said on Thursday they carried out a suicide bombing that wounded Afghanistan's intelligence chief in Kabul, another sign that the government is struggling to improve security ahead of a NATO pullout in 2014. Asadullah Khalid was wounded when the bomber struck at a ...

NEW YORK | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:39am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened higher on Wednesday on signs of urgent moves in Europe to rescue Spain's troubled banks, but comments from the ECB president disappointed a market hoping for further stimulus to tackle the euro zone's debt crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 87.42 points, or 0.72 perc...

By Daren Butler ISTANBUL | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:38am EST ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's sports minister has poured cold water on race organizers' hopes that the government would provide funds to secure the return of the Turkish Grand Prix to the Formula One calendar next season. The sport's governing body announced on Wednesday that an unidentified E...

Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:36am EST (Reuters) - Trimel Pharmaceuticals Corp said its experimental drug to treat hypogonadism, or low testosterone levels, in men met the main goal of a late-stage study. The company said patients who were administered the intranasal drug CompleoTRT for 90 days showed average testosterone levels within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's...

By Foo Yun Chee and Ben Hirschler BRUSSELS | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:36am EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's highest court has upheld a 52.5 million euro ($69 million) antitrust fine levied against AstraZeneca for blocking the entry of cheaper rivals to its then bestseller ulcer drug Losec. The decision is a blow for the British drugmaker an...

By Giuseppe Fonte ROME | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:34am EST ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on Thursday faced a revolt by Silvio Berlusconi's PDL party, which ratcheted up tension ahead of an election early next year by walking out of a Senate confidence vote. The walkout by the center-right People of Freedom (PDL) party was a symboli...

By Marwa Awad and Edmund Blair CAIRO | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:34am EST CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Republican Guard restored order around the presidential palace on Thursday after fierce overnight clashes killed seven people, but passions ran high in a struggle over the country's future. The Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, criticized by his opponents...

MOSCOW | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:25am EST MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian hammer thrower Kirill Ikonnikov, who finished fifth at this year's London Olympics, has been suspended after failing a drugs test. "The test taken from Kirill Ikonnikov on October 8 on behalf of the sport's world governing body IAAF has shown a prohibited substance," the country's anti-doping...

Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:20am EST (Reuters) - Canadian telecom network equipment maker DragonWave Inc cut its third-quarter revenue forecast as shipment of orders were delayed, sending its Nasdaq-listed shares down 14 percent before the bell. The company now expects revenue of about $39 million for the quarter ended November 30, down from its prior forecast range of $43...

By Eva Kuehnen FRANKFURT | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:17am EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The euro zone economy is likely to shrink next year as it has in 2012, the European Central Bank predicted on Thursday, sharply downgrading its outlook after holding interest rates at a record low 0.75 percent. The bank's new staff projections put gross domestic product i...

Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:08am EST (Reuters) - Apple Inc is planning to bring back some of its production of Mac computers to the United States from China next year, Chief Executive Tim Cook said, according to a report published Thursday. The company will spend more than $100 million to build the computers in the United States, Cook was cited as saying in an interview wi...

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:07am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell for a third straight week last week, dropping back to their pre-superstorm Sandy range. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 370,000 in the week...

By Erika Solomon BEIRUT | Thu Dec 6, 2012 8:50am EST BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western powers are whipping up fears of a fateful move to the use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war as a "pretext for intervention", President Bashar al-Assad's deputy foreign minister said on Thursday. He spoke as Germany's cabinet approved stationing Patriot anti-mis...

By Laura L. Myers SEATTLE | Thu Dec 6, 2012 8:14am EST SEATTLE (Reuters) - Washington state made history on Thursday as the first in the nation to legalize marijuana possession for adult recreational use, an occasion celebrated by dozens of users near Seattle's famed Space Needle tower amid blaring reggae music and a haze of pot smoke. The public...

By Erik de Castro NEW BATAAN, Philippines | Thu Dec 6, 2012 8:10am EST NEW BATAAN, Philippines (Reuters) - Rescue workers searched on Thursday through thick mud, broken homes and fallen trees for survivors, two days after a typhoon swept the southern Philippines killing nearly 400 people and leaving at least as many missing. Typhoon Bopha, with c...

LONDON | Thu Dec 6, 2012 8:10am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Coffee chain Starbucks (SBUX.O) said it could pay up to 20 million pounds more in tax as it announced plans to change its accounting practices, surrendering to criticism from lawmakers, campaigners and the media. A Reuters examination of Starbucks accounts published in October showed the company had ...

SAO PAULO | Thu Dec 6, 2012 8:08am EST SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc and Google Inc both opened their digital bookstores in Brazil on Thursday, hot on the heels of e-book offerings by local booksellers in a fast-growing online retail market. The simultaneous introduction of the two services highlighted the wide-open nature of Brazil's $12 billion ...

By Crispian Balmer JERUSALEM | Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:57am EST JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel once tried to kill Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in a botched assassination attempt on the streets of the Jordanian capital, Amman. Fifteen years later, it is starting to view him in a slightly different light and Israeli analysts say he might yet prove the man w...

By Jessica Donati and Daniel Fineren LONDON/DUBAI | Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:53am EST LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian oil tankers are sending incorrect satellite signals that confuse global tracking systems and appear to conceal voyages made by other ships to Syria, which, like Iran, is subject to international sanctions. The two countries are close al...

By Kelvin Soh and Steve Slater HONG KONG/LONDON | Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:46am EST HONG KONG/LONDON (Reuters) - Standard Chartered expects to pay $330 million to settle a case with U.S. regulators for breaking sanctions on Iran, the Asian-focused bank said on Thursday, a second such penalty which could almost wipe out its profit growth this year. Stand...

By Clare Kane and Leila Abboud BARCELONA | Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:38am EST BARCELONA (Reuters) - In Barcelona's Hospital Del Mar, Telefonica is doing more than connecting phone lines - it is also developing a lucrative new business keeping patients' hearts in good shape. A heart-monitoring program put in place by Telefonica is just one kind of machine...

By Ben Hirschler LONDON | Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:36am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Shirley Silvers thinks the "virtual doctor" who monitors her chronic lung condition via mobile phone is wonderful. "It is like having my doctor sitting on my sofa," said the 64-year-old from Stoke-on-Trent in central England, explaining how her temperature, oxygen levels and ...

By Lee Chyen Yee HONG KONG | Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:50am EST HONG KONG (Reuters) - Apple Inc's rank in China's smartphone market, which is set to become the world's largest this year, fell to No.6 in the third quarter as it faced tough competition from Chinese brands, research firm IDC said on Thursday. IDC's announcement comes a day after Apple's sha...