Italy's real election battle is Monti vs Berlusconi

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's election campaign is shaping up as a bitter contest not between right and left but between Silvio Berlusconi and outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti to win the balance of power after the February poll.The final lines were drawn on Monday when Berlusconi sacrificed his own candidacy for prime minister as the price for winning a crucial new alliance with his estranged allies...

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APNewsBreak: $5M paid to Iraqis over Abu Ghraib

WASHINGTON (AP) — A defense contractor whose subsidiary was accused in a lawsuit of conspiring to torture detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has paid $5.28 million to 71 former inmates held there and at other U.S.-run detention sites between 2003 and 2007.The settlement in the case involving Engility Holdings Inc. of Chantilly, Va., marks the first successful effort by lawyers for...

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Supreme Court narrows avenue for death row appeals

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two death row inmates were not entitled to a delay of their federal appeals on the grounds that they were incompetent to assist their lawyers, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday.In a unanimous ruling against inmates Ernest Valencia Gonzales and Sean Carter, the court also said federal judges cannot indefinitely delay appeals of state criminal convictions in the hope that the...

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KWANZAA: HOLIDAY BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FBI

Is it just me, or does Kwanzaa seem to come earlier and earlier each year? And let's face it, Kwanzaa's gotten way too commercialized.A few years ago, I suspended my annual Kwanzaa column because my triumph over this fake holiday seemed complete. The only people still celebrating Kwanzaa were presidential-statement writers and white female public school teachers.But it seems to be creeping back. A...

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Italy dissolves parliament, Monti mulls future

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's head of state dissolved parliament on Saturday and opened the way to a February election, with doubts growing over whether outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti will participate in what promises to be a bitter campaign.Monti resigned on Friday a couple of months ahead of the end of his term of office, after his technocrat government lost the support of Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right...

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Analysis: Stop-gap fix most likely outcome of "fiscal cliff" talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The "fiscal cliff" deadline is days away and the U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama have left town for Christmas.But even if they were still here, it wouldn't have mattered, according to Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives. He says they were going nowhere to resolving the disagreement over how to fix the nation's fiscal problems.Last...

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Effect of looming 'fiscal cliff' tax increases

A big package of tax cuts first enacted a decade ago are set to expire at the end the year, unless Congress and the White House reach a deal to extend them. How the looming tax increases would affect households at different income levels.___Annual income: $20,000 to $30,000.Average tax increase: $1,064.___Annual income: $30,000 to $40,000.Average tax increase: $1,417.___Annual income: $40,000 to $50,000.Average...

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Florida governor asks Obama to block possible ports strike

 Florida's Republican governor wants President Barack Obama to invoke federal law and order a cooling-off period if nearly 15,000 longshoremen walk off the job in a looming strike that would be a big blow to the state's economy, according to a letter he sent the president this week.The International Longshoremen's Association union and the U.S. Maritime Alliance grouping of shippers and ports...

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Egypt president appoints upper house of parliament members

 Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi announced names of 90 new members he appointed to the upper house of parliament, state media reported, and a presidential official said the list was mainly liberals and other non-Islamists.Two thirds of the 270-member upper house were elected in a vote early this year, with one third appointed by the president. Mursi, elected in June, had not named them till...

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