G20 defuses talk of "currency war", no accord on debt

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Group of 20 nations declared on Saturday there would be no 'currency war' and deferred plans to set new debt-cutting targets in an indication of concern about the fragile state of the world economy. Japan's expansive policies, which have driven down the yen, escaped criticism in a statement thrashed out in Moscow by financial policymakers from the G20, which groups...

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IHT Rendezvous: How Much Do You Trust Journalists?

LONDON — Another poll came out this week showing that in the hierarchy of trust, journalists figure near the bottom of the heap.Some of us take a perverse pride in being down there with the money-changers and the harlots (actually, the latter sometimes rate rather highly in these surveys.)The comforting theory is that if everybody hates us, we must be doing something right.The Ipsos MORI poll published...

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Beyoncé's Life Is But a Dream: What to Serve at Your Viewing Party

TV Watch By Aaron Parsley 02/16/2013 at 08:15 AM EST Beyoncé in Life Is But a Dream HBO The "Countdown" has begun!Beyoncé's HBO documentary, Life Is But a Dream, airs Saturday night (9 p.m. ET) – and we can't think of a better time or occasion to throw a "Party." If...

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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.Edwards...

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Buffett, Brazil's 3G team up for $23 billion Heinz buyout

(Reuters) - Warren Buffett and Brazilian financier Jorge Paulo Lemann are teaming up to buy ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co for $23.2 billion, in what could be the first step of a wave of mergers for the food and beverage industry. Analysts and people close to the deal said Heinz could be a good starting point to consolidate similar staple food companies, particularly given the larger ambitions...

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Meteorite Fragments Are Said to Rain Down on Siberia; 500 Injuries Reported

MOSCOW — Bright objects, apparently debris from a meteorite, streaked through the sky in western Siberia early on Friday, accompanied by a boom that damaged buildings across a vast area of territory. Around 500 people were reported to have been injured, most from breaking glass. Emergency officials had reported no deaths by Friday afternoon but said that 14 people had been hospitalized. ...

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Oscar Pistorius Weeps in Court as Prosecutors Seek Murder Charges

By Andrea Billups 02/15/2013 at 08:15 AM EST Oscar Pistorius Antonie de Ras/Reuters/Landov Oscar Pistorius, the South African track star known as the Blade Runner, put his head in his hands and wept Friday as prosecutors said they would seek a charge of premeditated...

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Study: Fish in drug-tainted water suffer reaction

BOSTON (AP) — What happens to fish that swim in waters tainted by traces of drugs that people take? When it's an anti-anxiety drug, they become hyper, anti-social and aggressive, a study found. They even get the munchies.It may sound funny, but it could threaten the fish population and upset the delicate dynamics of the marine environment, scientists say.The findings, published online Thursday in...

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Stock futures dip on Europe, Japan growth data; Cisco weighs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures fell on Thursday in the wake of weaker-than-expected growth data from Europe and Japan and a disappointing outlook from technology bellwether Cisco Systems . Though weakness in Europe has persisted over recent quarters, underwhelming economic growth data from the region and from Japan, which could impact global growth and U.S. corporate profits, may...

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Britain Says Equine Drug May Have Entered Food Chain

LONDON — A crisis over horse meat in European food products deepened Thursday when British officials said tests showed that a powerful equine drug, potentially harmful to human health, may have entered the food chain in small quantities. Until now, the crisis had been seen primarily as an issue of fraud after products containing horse meat were labeled beef, with politicians insisting that,...

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Newark mayor says beating, witness silence are “evil”

(Reuters) – Newark Mayor Cory Booker on Wednesday condemned the failure of witnesses to alert police after seeing a young man forced to strip naked and whipped over a $ 20 debt – violence revealed only after a cell phone video went viral on the Internet.The two and a half minute video of the beating, which took place in Newark in August, got 40,000 views on YouTube before it was removed from the website,...

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Kim Kardashian & Kanye West Involved in Security Breach at JFK

By Tim Nudd 02/14/2013 at 08:00 AM EST Kim Kardashian and Kayne West Splash News Online Sorry, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. You'll have to endure the normal hassles of air travel, too. The couple, returning from Brazil, were involved in a security breach at...

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Morning-after pill use up to 1 in 9 younger women

NEW YORK (AP) — About 1 in 9 younger women have used the morning-after pill after sex, according to the first government report to focus on emergency contraception since its approval 15 years ago.The results come from a survey of females ages 15 to 44. Eleven percent of those who'd had sex reported using a morning-after pill. That's up from 4 percent in 2002, only a few years after the pills went...

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Stock futures point to modest gains at open

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to slight gains at the open on Wednesday, suggesting the market would continue a recent advance that lifted benchmark indexes to multi-year highs. Equities have been strong performers of late, buoyed largely by healthy growth in corporate earnings, with the S&P 500 gaining 6.5 percent so far this year. The Dow is about 1 percent from...

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IHT Rendezvous: Mario Draghi Takes the E.C.B.'s Message to Spain

MADRID—The European Central Bank and its president, Mario Draghi, want to ensure that their voices get heard beyond the financial district of Frankfurt.But their efforts to travel around Europe and spread their message more directly to its citizens have ended up backfiring, at least when it comes to visiting Spain, one of the countries at the center of the Continent’s debt crisis.Last May, the E.C.B....

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Telenor ramps up investments to support shift to data

OSLO (Reuters) – Mobile telecoms firm Telenor expects to accelerate investments in data and digital services this year as customers flock to its higher margin products, it said on Wednesday.Telenor, which has around 150 million customers in Europe and Asia, will continue to roll out its third generation (3G) service in Thailand and fibre network in Norway to take advantage of “exploding” demand, and...

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One Direction, Taylor Swift Among Kids' Choice Awards Nominees

By Andrea Billups 02/13/2013 at 08:50 AM EST One Direction, (from left) Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Harry Styles Jon Furniss/AP Time to get slimed! Wednesday brought the nominations for Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards, set to air March 23 with Josh Duhamel as...

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Study questions kidney cancer treatment in elderly

In a stunning example of when treatment might be worse than the disease, a large review of Medicare records finds that older people with small kidney tumors were much less likely to die over the next five years if doctors monitored them instead of operating right away.Even though nearly all of these tumors turned out to be cancer, they rarely proved fatal. And surgery roughly doubled patients' risk...

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Stock futures dip before Obama speech, Coca-Cola shares off

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures dipped in low volume on Tuesday, hovering near multi-year highs as traders awaited President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. The economy will be one of the main themes of Obama's speech at 9 p.m. (0200 GMT Wednesday). Investors will listen for any clues on a deal with Republicans in Congress to avert automatic spending cuts due to take effect...

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The Female Factor: Dancing on Behalf of a Billion

LONDON — Anyone who happens to be passing through Westminster at 11 o’clock on Valentine’s Day may — if things go as planned — catch an unusual glimpse of a few members of Parliament gathered somewhere in the shadow of Big Ben, dancing along the footpath. The actress Thandie Newton will be leading members of the public and a few politicians in a flash mob dance on Thursday to mark the One...

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The Bachelor's Sean Lowe Blogs About His Dates in St. Croix

Sean Lowe and Tierra on The Bachelor Sean Lowe is the star of season 17 of The Bachelor, which airs Mondays on ABC. The hunky Dallas businessman and entrepreneur is blogging about his romantic journey for PEOPLE.com. I'd developed really strong feelings for the final six women on The Bachelor – and I could hardly wait to take them to St. Croix. Our...

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Pope shows lifetime jobs aren't always for life

The world seems surprised that an 85-year-old globe-trotting pope who just started tweeting wants to resign, but should it be? Maybe what should be surprising is that more leaders his age do not, considering the toll aging takes on bodies and minds amid a culture of constant communication and change.There may be more behind the story of why Pope Benedict XVI decided to leave a job normally held for...

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Stock futures higher in low volume, Fed's Yellen to speak

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were set to open little changed on Monday as investor scrambled to find catalysts for trading, while low volume could make trading volatile and exaggerate moves. Upbeat U.S. and Chinese data last week helped extend the winning streak of the S&P 500 index to six weeks. The benchmark is up 6.4 percent so far this year after a steep rally in January that has...

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