UBS to pay $1.5B in fines for rate manipulation

Updated 3:30 a.m. EST GENEVA Swiss banking giant UBS AG said Wednesday it has admitted to fraud and agreed to pay some $1.5 billion to U.S., British and Swiss authorities in a probe into the rigging of global benchmark interest rates. The settlement caps a tough year for Switzerland's biggest bank, which is one of several leading banks that has been under investigation over allegations of manipulating...

Read More..

Newtown Settles In for Prayerful, Somber Christmas

Residents of Sandy Hook, Conn., gather every year under an enormous tree in the middle of town to sing carols and light the tree. The tree is lit this year, too, but the scene beneath it is starkly different.The tree looms over hundreds of teddy bears and toys, but they are for children who will never receive them. The ornaments are adorned with names and jarringly recent birth...

Read More..

Syrian rebels take control of Damascus Palestinian camp

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels took full control of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on Monday after fighting raged for days in the district on the southern edge of President Bashar al-Assad's Damascus powerbase, rebel and Palestinian sources said. The battle had pitted rebels, backed by some Palestinians, against Palestinian fighters of the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation...

Read More..

Report details extensive Walmart bribery in Mexico

NEW YORK: Retail giant Walmart aggressively bribed Mexican officials to get the necessary permits to open more than a dozen supermarkets across the country, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.The newspaper said its own investigation had identified 19 store sites that were the target of bribery, and detailed one case in which more than $200,000 in bribes was paid to build a supermarket...

Read More..

Nokia on the edge: Inside an icon's fight for survival

Winter snow falls on Nokia's flagship store in Helsinki, Finland.(Credit:Roger Cheng/CNET) HELSINKI, Finland -- I came here to listen for a death rattle.It was a late Monday morning in late November when I arrived, and there was no sunlight. None. The sky was gray, bleaching out the city's colorful buildings. I asked the cab driver whether it would get any brighter, but he wasn't confident. The sun...

Read More..

Obama moves on taxes in latest "cliff" counter-proposal

President Obama gave up Monday on his demand for higher taxes on households earning $250,000 and upped it to $400,000 while embracing smaller cost-of-living Social Security raises in a counter-proposal to House Speaker John Boehner meant to narrow differences and forge a pre-Christmas "fiscal cliff" deal. Mr. Obama and Boehner met for nearly an hour in the Oval Office on Monday and sources familiar...

Read More..

Conn. Kids Laid to Rest: 'Our Hearts Are With You'

Visibly shaken attendees exiting the funeral today for 6-year-old Noah Pozner, one of 20 children killed in the Connecticut school massacre last week, said they were touched by a story that summed up the first-grader best.His mother, Veronique, would often tell him how much she loved him and he'd respond: "Not as much as I [love] you," said a New York man who attended the funeral...

Read More..

U.N. chief alarmed by escalating violence in Syria

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed alarm on Sunday at the worsening violence in Syria, including the reported mass killing of Alawites and alleged firing of long-range missiles on Syrian territory, Ban's spokesman said. "The Secretary-General is alarmed by the continued dramatic escalation of violence in Syria over the past several days, and the grave...

Read More..

Royal Thai Air Force Air Chief Marshal Prajin Juntong visits S'pore

SINGAPORE: Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) Air Chief Marshal (ACM) Prajin Juntong is in Singapore on a three-day introductory visit. He called on Senior Minister of State for Defence Mr Chan Chun Sing at the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) on Monday afternoon. ACM Prajin had earlier called on Chief of Air Force Major-General Ng Chee Meng after inspecting a Guard of Honour.ACM...

Read More..

Apple: Top 5 events from 2012

Apple spent 2012 much like it did the year before: relentlessly pushing out new products. But that's nothing new. Instead, tech historians will likely look back at 2012 as one of the company's most transformative years. A time where we saw some of the first pieces of a post-Jobs Apple begin to take shape. Five key news events marked Apple's 2012, from products to company controversy. Editor's note:...

Read More..