Reuters World News Highlights at 1000 GMT, Jan 4
TOP STORIES
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AZAZ - The death toll in Syria now exceeds 60,000, the United Nations says. Another 100,000 may die this year, warns U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. About 220 were killed on Wednesday alone.
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SEOUL - South Korea's president-elect said on Friday that Japan needed to come to terms with its colonial history as tension between two Asian allies of the United States simmered over Japan's rule of Korea and an island dispute.
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WASHINGTON - The U.S. State Department said on Thursday the time was not right for Google Inc Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and former diplomat Bill Richardson to visit North Korea, which drew international criticism for a rocket launch last month.
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BEIJING - China shut the website of a leading pro-reform magazine on Friday, apparently because it ran an article calling for political reform and constitutional government, sensitive topics for the ruling Communist Party which brooks no dissent.
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WASHINGTON - Despite a rocky few weeks during the "fiscal cliff" fight, John Boehner won re-election as speaker of the House of Representatives on Thursday and will again lead Republicans as they take on the White House over federal spending.
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NEWTOWN - Classes resumed on Thursday for the more than 400 surviving students of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, 20 days after a massacre at the school that killed 20 first graders and six adults last month, plunging a rural New England town and the nation into grief.
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CARACAS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is still suffering a "severe" respiratory infection that has hindered his breathing as he struggles to recover from cancer surgery in Cuba, the government said on Thursday.
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WASHINGTON - Transocean Ltd agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle U.S. government charges over BP Plc's massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 and the rig contractor admitted that its crew on the Deepwater Horizon was partly responsible.
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MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted citizenship to Gerard Depardieu, the French movie star whose decision to quit his homeland to avoid a tax hike prompted accusations of national betrayal.
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WANA, Pakistan - A U.S. drone strike killed a key Taliban commander, his deputy and eight others in northwest Pakistan, intelligence sources and tribal leaders said Thursday, deaths that could substantially alter the power balance in the Taliban heartland of Waziristan.
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NEW DELHI - Five Indian men were formally charged in court on Thursday with the gang rape and murder of a physiotherapy student in a case that has generated widespread anger about the government's inability to prevent violence against women.
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CAIRO/LONDON - Egypt dipped deeper into its rapidly shrinking currency reserves on Thursday, fighting to slow a sliding pound which is likely to push up inflation and risks reigniting popular unrest.