Delhi police say they will protect women on buses

Indian officials announced Friday a broad campaign to protect women in New Delhi following the gang rape and brutal beating of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in the capital.Police arrested a boy Thursday night, the fifth person detained in connection with the crime, Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar said. Authorities were hunting for the final assailant, he said. Those arrested were being...

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Russia's Gazprom to buy Kyrgyz state gas company

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — Kyrgyzstan's state-owned natural gas company says it is to be sold to Russia's energy monopoly Gazprom, raising hopes of an end to debilitating energy shortages in the impoverished Central Asian nation.Kyrgyzgaz general director Turgunbek Kulmurzayev said Friday that the sale of the company to the Russian gas giant would be completed by April 1.Last week, gas and electricity...

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Coalition soldier missing in Afghanistan

A search is under way in southern Afghanistan for a soldier from the NATO-led coalition, believed to be the first to have gone missing since a U.S. Army sergeant was captured by the Taliban more than three years ago, a military spokesman said Friday. U.S. Army Maj. Martyn Crighton said the soldier was among the 1,560 troops from the former Soviet republic of Georgia serving in the country. A statement...

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US budget negotiations setback drives stocks down

A failed attempt find a compromise in U.S. budget negotiations sent global stock markets plummeting Friday, as investors feared the world's largest economy could teeter into recession if no deal is found. Without an agreement, the U.S. economy will fall off the so-called "fiscal cliff" on Jan. 1 when Bush-era tax cuts expire and spending cuts kick in automatically. The measures were designed to have...

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Japan's next leader wants freer rein for military

Imagine that North Korea launched a missile at Japan. Tokyo could — and would certainly try to — shoot it down. But if the missile were flying overhead toward Hawaii or the continental United States, Japan would have to sit idly by. Japan's military is kept on a very short leash under a war-renouncing constitution written by U.S. officials whose main concern was keeping Japan from rearming soon after...

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Saudi website editor could face death for apostasy-rights group

RIYADH (Reuters) - The editor of a Saudi Arabian website could be sentenced to death after a judge cited him for apostasy and moved his case to a higher court, the monitoring group Human Rights Watch said on Saturday.Raif Badawi, who started the Free Saudi Liberals website to discuss the role of religion in Saudi Arabia, was arrested in June, Human Rights Watch said.Badawi had initially been charged...

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Iran a central issue for my next term: Netanyahu

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Iran's perceived nuclear threat against Israel will be the central issue concerning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government if he is re-elected in a month's time, the Israeli leader said on Saturday.Netanyahu has set out a mid-2013 "red line" for tackling Iran's uranium enrichment project. The West says this programme is aimed at developing the means to build atomic bombs....

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Obama seeks scaled-down 'fiscal cliff' agreement

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has scaled back his ambitions for a sweeping budget bargain with Republicans. Instead, he's calling for a limited measure sufficient to prevent the government from careening off the "fiscal cliff" in January by extending tax cuts for most taxpayers and forestalling a painful set of agency budget cuts.In a White House appearance Friday, Obama also called on...

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Yet another Senate race on the horizon in Mass.

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts voters weary from one of the nation's costliest and most divisive U.S. Senate races are all but certain to find themselves thrown back into another tumultuous election now that President Barack Obama has nominated Sen. John Kerry for secretary of state.If confirmed by the Senate, as expected, Democrat Kerry would have to resign the seat he's held for nearly three decades,...

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'Fiscal cliff' leaves Boehner a wounded speaker

WASHINGTON (AP) — John Boehner is a bloodied House speaker following the startling setback that his own fractious Republican troops dealt him in their "fiscal cliff" struggle against President Barack Obama.There's plenty of internal grumbling about the Ohio Republican, especially among conservatives, and lots of buzzing about whether his leadership post is in jeopardy. But it's uncertain whether any...

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