Britain clings to austerity despite AAA loss

LONDON: British finance minister George Osborne insisted Saturday that he would not abandon his deficit-cutting drive after Moody's stripped the country of its coveted triple-A debt rating.The opposition lashed Osborne, saying his plan for the economy was shot through, while analysts said that although it was an embarrassment for him, the downgrade would have a limited impact in the markets.In...

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Pentagon grounds entire F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fleet

A crack in an engine blade has suspended airborne testing on the $396 billion Joint Strike Fighter program.(Credit:Department of Defense)The U.S. Department of Defense has suspended airborne testing of its Joint Strike Fighter because of a crack in an engine turbine blade discovered during routine inspection, the Pentagon said this week.The grounding covers every one of the three versions of the F-35...

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McCain, Obama to meet on immigration Tuesday

Updated 11:32 PM ET MEXICO CITY U.S. Sen. John McCain said Friday that he and other lawmakers working on an immigration overhaul will meet with President Barack Obama on Tuesday to discuss the effort to revamp the system. McCain, a member of a bipartisan group of eight senators working on a bill, said there is still significant disagreement with the president, but he is optimistic about producing...

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6 Leaking Tanks Are Wash. Nuke Site's Latest Woe

Federal and state officials say six underground tanks holding a brew of radioactive and toxic waste are leaking at the country's most contaminated nuclear site in south-central Washington, raising concerns about delays for emptying the aging tanks.The leaking materials at Hanford Nuclear Reservation pose no immediate risk to public safety or the environment because it would take perhaps...

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Iran announces uranium finds, days before nuclear talks

DUBAI (Reuters) - Days before resuming talks over its disputed atomic program, Iran said on Saturday it had found significant new deposits of raw uranium and identified sites for 16 more nuclear power stations. State news agency IRNA quoted a report by the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) which said the reserves were discovered in northern and southern coastal areas and had trebled...

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Volkswagen says net profit up 40% in 2012

FRANKFURT: Volkswagen, Europe's biggest car manufacturer, said on Friday that its net profit zoomed ahead by more the 40 percent last year on higher vehicle sales.VW said in a statement its net profit soared by 40.9 percent to a record 21.7 billion euros ($28.6 billion) in 2012 as revenues rose by 20.9 percent to 192.7 billion euros and deliveries to customers were up 12.2 percent at 9.276...

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Apple's App Store, iTunes back online after outages

Apple's online services were down for many users yesterday.(Credit:Screenshot by CNET)Apple users unable to access the App Store or iTunes yesterday should find those sites alive and well today.The App Store, iTunes, iCloud, and the Mac App Store were inaccessible to many people throughout yesterday, according to 9to5Mac.Following a series of user complaints via Twitter, Apple eventually acknowledged...

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Georgia executes man lawyers claimed was mentally ill

JACKSON, Ga. A 38-year-old inmate convicted of killing two college students in 1995 was executed in Georgia on Thursday, apologizing to the families of both victims before being injected at a state prison. Andrew Allen Cook was pronounced dead at 11:22 p.m., about 14 minutes after he was injected with the sedative pentobarbital. He was the first inmate to be executed since the state changed its...

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Oscar Pistorius Granted Bail in Murder Case

Oscar Pistorius was granted bail today in a South African court, meaning he can be released from jail for the six to eight months before his trial for the allegedly premeditated killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.Magistrate Desmond Nair, in reading his lengthy decision, said, "The issue before me is whether this accused, being who is and the assets he has [here], would...

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South Africa's Pistorius awarded bail in murder case

PRETORIA (Reuters) - Star South African athlete Oscar Pistorius was awarded bail on Friday after being accused of murdering his girlfriend. The decision by Magistrate Desmond Nair drew cheers from Pistorius' family and supporters at the Pretoria magistrate's court, although the athlete appeared unmoved as the decision was read out. The decision followed a week of dramatic...

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International standard schools face shutdown after Indonesia court ruling

JAKARTA: Ten years ago, Indonesia set up international standard schools with the aim of producing globally-competitive students.But some say the project was a failure... and the Constitutional Court has recently called for the schools to be disbanded, as they are now considered to be discriminatory.Students in one of the classes are learning Chemistry... not in Bahasa Indonesia, but in...

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Saverin: Facebook's rapid growth is its 'biggest risk'

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.(Credit:Facebook)Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin isn't convinced that the social network's fast-growing strategy is a good one.Speaking at a conference in Singapore today, Saverin said that while growth is a "huge asset," it can lead to a very real problem that shouldn't be overlooked."The biggest risk is growing too fast," he said, according to Bloomberg, which...

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Winter storm brings heavy snow to Midwest

Updated at 8:47 a.m. ET ST. LOUIS Parts of the nation's heartland awoke Thursday to more than half a foot of snow, as a large storm made its way eastward out of the Rockies, snarling traffic for morning commuters and allowing an army of children to trade pen and paper for shovel and sled, at least for a day. Winter storm warnings were issued from Colorado through Illinois, and many school districts...

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Lead Pistorius Cop Facing Attempted Murder Charge

Hilton Botha, the detective at the center of the Oscar Pistorius murder case, is facing his own attempted murder charges in connection with a 2011 shooting in which he and other police officers allegedly fired a gun at passengers in a vehicle.Botha is scheduled to appear in court in May on seven counts of attempted murder in connection to the October 2011 incident in which he...

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Cameroon, Nigeria officials deny French hostages freed

YAOUNDE (Reuters) - The fate of seven French tourists seized in Cameroon by suspected Nigerian Islamist militants was unclear on Thursday after government officials denied French media reports that they had been freed. The hostages, four children and three adults, were captured this week while on an excursion to the Waza national park near Cameroon's border with Nigeria. ...

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Annabel Pennefather named Chef de Mission for SEA Games in Myanmar

SINGAPORE: Miss Annabel Pennefather has been named Chef de Mission for the Singapore contingent at this year's SEA Games in Myanmar.This will be her fifth time as Chef de Mission to Singapore's contingent.Previously, she filled that role at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, the 2004 Athens Olympics, the 2006 Asian Games in Doha and most recently, the 2010 Commonwealth Games in...

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Backblaze shares third-gen storage server design

The Backblaze Storage Pod 3.0 contains three rows of 15 hard drives.(Credit:Backblaze)Backblaze, a startup offering online backup service, has released the designs for its newest Storage Pod, a low-budget storage server with 180TB of capacity.It was something of a PR stunt when the company shared its first-gen Storage Pod design back in 2009, but the 67-terabyte system proved useful to organzations...

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McCain gets an earful on immigration in Arizona

PHOENIX Arizona took center stage in the national immigration debate Tuesday as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano toured the state's border with Mexico and Sen. John McCain defended his proposed immigration overhaul to an angry crowd in suburban Phoenix. The presence of the top officials is the latest sign that Arizona will play a prominent role in the immigration debate as President...

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Pistorius Shots Said to Come From High Angle

At the second day of a bail hearing for Olympian Oscar Pistorius, a South African investigator who arrived at the scene of the Feb. 14 fatal shooting said that Reeva Steenkamp was shot from a high angle, which prosecutors say contradicts the runner's account that he was not wearing his prosthetics when he shot his girlfriend to death.Pistorius, a double-amputee who runs on carbon-fiber...

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Bulgarian government resigns amid growing protests

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's government resigned on Wednesday after violent nationwide protests against high power prices, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity during Europe's debt crisis. Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, a former bodyguard who swept to power in 2009 on pledges to root out corruption and raise living standards in the European Union's poorest...

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SGX to review listing rules to protect retail investors of troubled firms

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Exchange (SGX) is looking at reviewing listing rules to better protect retail investors of troubled firms. This was revealed in a letter to the Securities Investors Association (Singapore) (SIAS) from SGX deputy chief regulatory officer Richard Teng.SGX was responding to SIAS' earlier proposals to safeguard investors of foreign issuers on the SGX. The exchange...

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Apple pulls Mac Pro from online stores in Europe

Apple's Mac Pro(Credit:Apple)Consumers in Europe looking for a Mac Pro are now out of luck, at least when trying to buy one online.Apple's online stores in the U.K., Italy, Germany, France, and other European countries show all three editions of the Mac Pro as "currently unavailable."The news isn't exactly a surprise. Apple told European retailers and distributors last month that it would stop selling...

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Obama to push Congress for budget cuts deal

Play VideoFederal budget faces severe sequestration cuts As the clock ticks on the automatic spending cuts set to kick in on March 1, President Obama will hold an event this morning to urge Congress to come up with an alternative plan to avert the cuts.The White House says Mr. Obama will emphasize the potential negative effects of the so-called sequester - the $1.2 trillion over 10 years in cuts...

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'Blade Runner' Denies Intentionally Killing Girlfriend

Olympian Oscar Pistorius today denied that he willfully killed his girlfriend, telling a South African court that he shot the woman through his bathroom door because he believed she was an intruder.Pistorius, 26 and a double-amputee Olympian, was charged today with premeditated murder, or a Schedule 6 offense, which under South African law limits his chances for parole if convicted.Pistorius,...

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Venezuela's Maduro would win if Chavez goes: poll

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro would comfortably win a presidential election should his boss Hugo Chavez's cancer force him out of power, according to an opinion poll. The first survey on such a scenario, by local pollster Hinterlaces, gave Maduro a potential 50 percent of votes, compared to 36 percent for opposition leader Henrique Capriles. ...

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EU agrees new sanctions against North Korea after nuclear test

BRUSSELS: The European Union agreed a raft of new sanctions on Monday against North Korea in retaliation for the country's nuclear test last week, EU officials said.The measures range from financial measures to travel bans and asset freezes against individuals.The sanctions include the implementation of individual sanctions approved at UN level as well as EU restrictions on financial dealings...

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Get a Logitech Harmony 700 universal remote for $59.99

The Logitech Harmony 700.(Credit:Logitech)This is an update of a deal I posted last summer.Juggling is meant for circus folk, not home-theater owners. Yet that's exactly what you're doing if you have more than one device and, ergo, more than one remote.Regular Cheapskate readers know I'm a fan of Logitech's Harmony series of universal remotes. One of the better models, the 700, has a list price of...

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Hugo Chavez returns to Venezuela

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez with his daughters, Maria Gabriela, left, and Rosa Virginia as he holds a Feb. 14, 2013 copy of Cuba's state newspaper at an unknown location in Havana, Cuba, Feb. 14, 2013. / AP/Venezuelan government CARACAS, Venezuela Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned home to Venezuela early Monday after more than two months of medical treatment in Cuba following...

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Country Singer Mindy McCready Dead at 37

Mindy McCready, the country singer who soared to the top of the charts with her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," but struggled with substance abuse, served time in jail and fought a lengthy battle with her mother over custody of her son has died of what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. She was 37.Deputies from the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office were...

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