KABUL | Thu Nov 8, 2012 6:42am EST KABUL (Reuters) - At least 18 people, including 10 civilians, were killed in three attacks in Afghanistan's south and east on Thursday, provincial officials said, the highest death toll in a single day since a spate of killings over the Eid festival last month. A roadside bomb killed 10 civilians who were driving to a w...

By Jeremy Wagstaff SINGAPORE | Thu Nov 8, 2012 6:03am EST SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Google launched a service on Thursday it hopes will push millions of people in the developing world to access the Internet - and Google's ads - via basic mobile phones. Google is launching the service, called Free Zone, first in the Philippines via local carrier Globe...

By Mitch Phillips LONDON | Thu Nov 8, 2012 5:51am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Bradley Wiggins survived everything the Tour de France could throw at him then gritted his teeth through the agony of the Olympic time trial but, like so many other British cyclists, he eventually fell victim to the dreaded white van. Wiggins spent Wednesday night in hospita...

Thu Nov 8, 2012 5:38am EST (Reuters) - The defending NBA champion Miami Heat blew away their second successive opponent in a 103-73 rout over Brooklyn on Wednesday. The Heat, who have opened the new season with a revamped roster that has taken little time to mesh, followed up their 25-point victory over Phoenix on Monday with another impressive effort.LeBron Jame...

By John O'Brien SINGAPORE | Thu Nov 8, 2012 5:34am EST SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Thomas Bjorn made hay while the sun shone to forge a one-shot lead at the Singapore Open on Thursday before the threat of lightning and thunderstorms forced an abandonment with half of the field yet to complete their first rounds. The Dane carded six birdies and a lone b...

By Alexandria Sage PARIS | Thu Nov 8, 2012 5:23am EST PARIS (Reuters) - The bold horizontal brushstrokes of Manet's 1876 female portrait, "The Parisian," convey the raw energy of a new painting style that turned heads well over a century ago with its focus on light, its sketch-like feel and contemporary subjects. But the star of the life-sized oi...

By Lee Chyen Yee HONG KONG | Thu Nov 8, 2012 5:17am EST HONG KONG (Reuters) - Lenovo is on track to become the world's No.1 PC maker, but with traditional PCs going out of vogue with consumers, the Chinese company is pinning future growth hopes on smartphones and tablets, a segment dominated by Apple and Samsung Electronics. The Thinkpad maker ha...

PRAGUE | Thu Nov 8, 2012 5:09am EST PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech parliament on Thursday approved an ambitious plan to return billions of dollars worth of church property that was confiscated by the communists in a vote that represented a victory for Prime Minister Petr Necas. The law envisages handing churches land, property, and financial compensation w...

BERLIN | Thu Nov 8, 2012 4:37am EST BERLIN (Reuters) - A German-language folk group famed for their Alpine brass band sound and cheerful style have been faking the music on their albums for years and should give back their 13 German music awards, their former producer said on Wednesday. But the manager of the seven-man "Kastelruther Spatzen" said it was ...

MADRID | Thu Nov 8, 2012 4:12am EST MADRID (Reuters) - Barcelona's players reacted calmly to Wednesday's surprise 2-1 Champions League reverse at Celtic when the favorites squandered a chance to qualify from Group G with two games to spare. Barca suffered only the second defeat of the season in Glasgow, the other a 2-1 loss to arch-rivals Real Madrid in ...

JOHANNESBURG | Thu Nov 8, 2012 3:43am EST JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A woman heading to a concert by U.S. rock band Linkin Park in Cape Town was crushed to death on Wednesday when a strong gust of wind blew over a promotional billboard, South African media said. Nineteen others were injured when the temporary scaffolding outside Cape Town's Green...

By Mark Lamport-Stokes LOS ANGELES | Thu Nov 8, 2012 2:49am EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Four-time NBA champions San Antonio Spurs crashed to their first defeat of the season as the Los Angeles Clippers dazzled with high-flying dunks and tight defense on the way to a crushing 106-84 win on Wednesday. Unbeaten in their first four games, the Spurs w...

By John O'Brien SINGAPORE | Thu Nov 8, 2012 2:01am EST SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Edoardo Molinari capped a fine comeback after a disastrous start by recording the first hole-in-one of his professional career on the way to posting a one-under 70 in the first round of the Singapore Open on Thursday. The Italian, who has been bothered by a troublesome w...

By Sui-Lee Wee and Ben Blanchard BEIJING | Wed Nov 7, 2012 9:59pm EST BEIJING (Reuters) - China's outgoing President Hu Jintao warned that corruption threatened the ruling Communist Party and the state, promising political reform as he formally opened a party congress that will usher in a once-in-a-decade leadership change. More than 2,000 hand-p...

LOS ANGELES | Wed Nov 7, 2012 8:51pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The mother of "Modern Family" star Ariel Winter on Wednesday denied that she abused her daughter after a judge temporarily placed the 14-year-old actress in her sister's care. "It's all untrue, it's all untrue," Chris Workman, Winter's mother, told People magazine. "I have my doctor's lette...

By Tom Brown MIAMI | Wed Nov 7, 2012 7:46pm EST MIAMI (Reuters) - It was all over but the shouting in Florida on Wednesday, where the presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney was still too close to call. More than 24 hours after polls closed in Florida, election officials said votes ...

By Matt Spetalnick and Steve Holland WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 7, 2012 7:41pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama had little time to savor victory on Wednesday after voters gave him a second term in the White House where he faces urgent economic challenges, a looming fiscal showdown and a still-divided Congress able to block his every mo...

By Mike McDonald GUATEMALA CITY | Wed Nov 7, 2012 7:21pm EST GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - A strong earthquake off the coast of Guatemala killed at least 39 people on Wednesday, trapping others under rubble, crushing homes and cars, destroying roads and forcing evacuations as far away as Mexico City. Many of the dead were buried under debris in San ...

By Samuel P. Jacobs WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 7, 2012 7:21pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As television networks began declaring that President Barack Obama had won re-election, the most captivating televised drama Tuesday evening played out on Fox News, where Republican strategist Karl Rove refused to believe the race between Obama and Mitt Romney was ...

By Jonathon Burch ANKARA | Wed Nov 7, 2012 7:03pm EST ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey will imminently lodge an official request with NATO asking the military alliance to deploy Patriot missiles along its border with Syria to guard against violence spilling over, a senior Turkish foreign ministry official said on Wednesday. If approved, the deployment w...

By Alina Selyukh WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 7, 2012 6:50pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A record number of women will serve in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives after sweeping victories in Tuesday's election that challenged the traditional male makeup of the U.S. legislative branch. Twenty women will serve in the 100-member Senate and at least...

By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS | Wed Nov 7, 2012 6:48pm EST UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Hours after U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected, the United States backed a U.N. committee's call on Wednesday to renew debate over a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade. U.N. delegates and gun contr...

By Ben Blanchard BEIJING | Wed Nov 7, 2012 6:42pm EST BEIJING (Reuters) - Where other top Chinese leaders can only stand around and look awkward in the presence of English-speaking dignitaries, premier-in-waiting Li Keqiang stands out for his casual and disarming command of the language. Li's English skills say more about the man who will run the...

By Patrick Rucker and David Adams WASHINGTON/MIAMI | Wed Nov 7, 2012 6:13pm EST WASHINGTON/MIAMI (Reuters) - Strong support from Hispanics, the fastest-growing demographic in the United States, helped tip President Barack Obama's fortunes as he secured a second term in the White House, according to Election Day polling. Obama's support among Hisp...

By Sinead Carew Wed Nov 7, 2012 6:09pm EST (Reuters) - AT&T Inc will boost capital spending by about 16 percent to $22 billion a year for the next three years to upgrade its wireless and wireline networks, the company said on Wednesday. Its shares fell more than 3 percent after the news.Rival Verizon Communications Inc is ahead in high-speed mobile se...

By Nichola Groom and Braden Reddall LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO | Wed Nov 7, 2012 6:02pm EST LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Energy producers braced for tighter regulation in President Barack Obama's second term, with coal companies expecting more emissions restrictions and drillers anticipating less access to federal land even as his platfor...

By Lefteris Papadimas and Harry Papachristou ATHENS | Wed Nov 7, 2012 6:00pm EST ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's government voted by a razor thin margin on Thursday to approve an austerity package needed to unlock vital aid and avert bankruptcy, despite an internal rift and violent protests at the gates of parliament. Lawmakers approved the spending ...

By Alina Selyukh WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 7, 2012 5:18pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Millions of dollars were raised and spent, swing states reeled from endless political ads, and now that President Barack Obama has been re-elected, the soul searching begins. What happened to the powerful Republican "Super PACs" and advocacy groups that staked all in ...

By Kwasi Kpodo ACCRA | Wed Nov 7, 2012 4:47pm EST ACCRA (Reuters) - At least four people were killed and dozens more were trapped in rubble when a four-storey building housing a department store collapsed on Wednesday in a suburb of Ghana's capital Accra. President John Mahama, running for election in December, cut short a campaign tour to visit ...

By Steve Holland WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 7, 2012 4:37pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans reeling from their second presidential loss in a row engaged in some soul-searching on Wednesday but were at odds on how far the party must change to remake its image. Divisions that were stitched up during the presidential campaign in a show of unity agai...

By David Morgan and Anna Yukhananov WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 7, 2012 4:37pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's re-election erased the last major threat to his signature healthcare reform law, but left questions about implementation as the national focus shifts to tackling the mounting U.S. deficit. The 2010 Patient Protection and Aff...

By Tim Kelly TOKYO | Wed Nov 7, 2012 4:24pm EST TOKYO (Reuters) - In a presentation beamed to Panasonic Corp offices around the world last week, company president Kazuhiro Tsuga stunned middle managers with the blunt message that their bonuses would be cut by more than a third. A couple of hours later, he warned investors in Tokyo that Panasonic ...

By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES | Wed Nov 7, 2012 2:48pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Country-pop star Taylor Swift held onto the top spot on the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday as her latest album "Red" kept rapper Meek Mill from the top spot. "Red," Swift's fourth studio album safely took the No. 1 position after selling 344,000 copies acco...

By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK | Wed Nov 7, 2012 12:55pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell more than 2 percent on Wednesday, putting the S&P 500 on track for its biggest drop since June, as investors shifted their focus to a looming fiscal showdown in Congress after President Barack Obama's re-election. Energy, healthcare and the bankin...

By Renee Maltezou and Lefteris Papadimas ATHENS | Wed Nov 7, 2012 12:45pm EST ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek police fired teargas and water cannons to disperse thousands of protesters who flooded into the main square before parliament on Wednesday in a massive show of anger against lawmakers due to narrowly pass an austerity package. The violence erupt...

By Mike McDonald GUATEMALA CITY | Wed Nov 7, 2012 12:45pm EST GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - A strong earthquake off the coast of Guatemala on Wednesday shook buildings in Guatemala City and San Salvador and was felt as far away as Mexico City, Reuters witnesses said. Firefighters said eight people were injured when a building collapsed in San Marcos...

By Rodrigo Campos and Steven C. Johnson NEW YORK | Wed Nov 7, 2012 12:45pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors hit trading floors Wednesday morning with the same president and the same problems in gridlocked Washington, and expected the same solution as always to a looming budget crisis that threatens the economy: punt and deal with it later. Shar...

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Mohammed Abbas AMMAN | Wed Nov 7, 2012 12:43pm EST AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian rebels fired mortars at President Bashar al-Assad's palace in Damascus on Wednesday but missed, in an attack underlining the growing boldness of forces fighting to end his family's 42 years in power. As violence flared in other parts of the coun...

SAN FRANCISCO | Wed Nov 7, 2012 12:18pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Apple Inc slid almost 4 percent on Wednesday to a five-month low, outpacing the U.S. stock market's post-U.S. election losses, and slipping into bearish territory. Stock in the world's most valuable technology company has dropped more than 20 percent from a record high in Sep...

LONDON | Wed Nov 7, 2012 12:16pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - British actor Clive Dunn, best known as a bumbling old butcher in the popular World War Two sitcom "Dad's Army", has died, his agent said on Wednesday. Dunn passed away on Tuesday, Peter Charlesworth said, adding that he believed the actor died in Portugal where he has lived for many years. He was 9...