Abbas sees Palestinian unity as Fatah rallies in Gaza

GAZA (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas predicted the end of a five-year split between the two big Palestinian factions as his Fatah movement staged its first mass rally in Gaza with the blessing of Hamas Islamists who rule the enclave. "Soon we will regain our unity," Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the 2007 civil war between the two factions,...

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Singapore, Turkey reaffirm excellent bilateral ties

ANKARA: The foreign ministers of Singapore and Turkey reaffirmed the excellent state of relations between their countries during talks in the Turkish capital, Ankara on January 4.Singapore's Foreign Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam and his Turkish counterpart, Professor Ahmet Davutoglu, also discussed ways to further broaden and deepen bilateral cooperation.In particular, they looked...

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Library of Congress digs in to full archive of 170 billion tweets

The U.S. Library of Congress said today that it has completed a process of collecting a full, ongoing stream of tweets, and that it has begun work to archive and organize more than 170 billion tweets.Under an agreement struck between the government institution and Twitter in 2010, the microblogging company is providing the Library of Congress with a full stream of all public tweets, starting with...

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At least 3 killed after small plane hits home in Fla.

A scene of a plane crash in Palm Coast, Florida, Jan. 4, 2013. / CBS/WKMG/Flagler Live PALM COAST, Fla. Authorities say at least three people are dead after a small plane crashed into a house while trying to land at a central Florida airport. The Florida Highway Patrol confirmed the deaths Friday afternoon. The Federal Aviation Administration says the pilot reported mechanical problems shortly...

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Obama Poised to Name New Defense, Treasury Chiefs

With the "fiscal cliff" crisis behind him, President Obama is poised to name two new key players to his cabinet, with both announcements expected to come next week.Obama will name the replacement for outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as soon as Monday, sources told ABC News. Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is the likely nominee, they said.Meanwhile, the president is...

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Eleven dead in Damascus gas station blast

AZAZ, Syria (Reuters) - At least 11 people were killed and 40 wounded when a car bomb exploded at a crowded petrol station in the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, opposition activists said. The station was packed with people queuing for fuel that has become increasingly scarce during the country's 21-month-long insurgency aimed at overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad. ...

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GIC names Lim Chow Kiat as new group CIO

SINGAPORE: The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) has named Lim Chow Kiat as its next group chief investment officer, effective 1 February 2013.GIC said in a statement on Friday that Mr Lim will succeed Mr Ng Kok Song who is retiring.Mr Lim, 42, is currently GIC's deputy group chief investment officer. He joined the sovereign wealth fund in 1993 after graduating with...

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Sony said to be developing online TV service

The Sony XBR-84X900 could feature the company's new television service, which is rumored to be in the works.(Credit:Sony)Word on the street is that Sony is creating a Net-connected multichannel television service that could roll out as soon as this year, according to Variety. Purportedly, the company is in talks with at least two big content companies about channel licensing. Such a service would...

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Veteran's improbable survival gives heart to shell-shocked surgeon

(CBS News) AUBURN, Ala. -- The carnage Lee Warren encountered in the combat hospital at Balad, Iraq, in 2005 was like nothing he had ever seen as a neurosurgeon. And no patient was worse-off than a soldier brought in by helicopter after being hit by a roadside bomb. "I unwrapped his head in the emergency room and looked at him and thought he was dead," Warren says. He was, Warren later wrote,...

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Senate Panel Probes Bin Laden Movie Torture Scenes

The Senate Intelligence Committee has launched a new probe to determine how much the CIA may have influenced the portrayal of torture scenes shown in "Zero Dark Thirty," the Hollywood dramatization of the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden.The probe, as first reported by Reuters and confirmed to ABC News by a spokesperson for the committee's chairman, will attempt to answer two...

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