TOKYO – Japanese investigators have identified the causes of fuel leaks and other problems with Boeing’s 787 but are still investigating the more serious battery problem that forced an emergency landing in January and the worldwide grounding of the jets.
Cyprus election favorite in talks to secure bridge loan
NICOSIA (Reuters) – The frontrunner in Cyprus's presidential election runo ff said on Thursday he has been in touch with governments and unspecified funds for a bridge loan to ensure the island nation does not run out of cash before it secures an international bailout. Conservative leader Nicos Anastasiades, who polled over 45 percent in last Sunday's first voting round and is the favorite to win the February 24 runoff, told Reuters various parties, including "governments and funds" which he did not identify, had been "sounded out" for a short-term loan. … Taiwan media kingpin pushes hard on China ties
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Appearing last year before Taiwanese regulators, billionaire media magnate Tsai Eng-meng appeared perplexed over a decision to fine his flagship newspaper for carrying camouflaged advertising on behalf of China's Communist government. Taiwan media kingpin pushes hard on China ties
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Appearing last year before T aiwanese regulators, billionaire media magnate Tsai Eng-meng appeared perplexed over a decision to fine his flagship newspaper for carrying camouflaged advertising on behalf of China's Communist government. Stop calling me 'Mr. Sidewalk': construction boss denies his notorious nickname
MONTREAL – A former construction boss dubbed “Mr. Sidewalk” at Quebec’s corruption inquiry has concluded his testimony by denying almost everything said about him at the commission -- including how he got his unique nickname.
Big names stay put as NBA trade deadline features only minor moves
NEW YORK, N.Y. – The only trade involving Dwight Howard came last summer. The potent scorers that moved did so long ago.
Guatemala investigating reports that Mexico's most-wanted drug lord might have been killed
GUATEMALA CITY – Guatemalan authorities said Thursday they were investigating whether a man killed in a shootout near the border with Mexico was most-wanted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, but hours later backtracked and said they hadn’t even located a body or confirmed there was a gunfight.
Garrison, H. Sedin score 3rd-period goals to send Canucks to 4-3 victory over Stars
DALLAS – The Vancouver Canucks used a third-period rally to stop their losing streak.
HYDERABAD, India (AP) -- A day after two bicycle bombs killed 14 people and wounded more than 100, investigators into India's worst bombing in more than a year searched Friday for possible links to anger over the execution of a Muslim militant. 
SYDNEY (Reuters) – James Magnussen and his team mates from the Australian men's 4x100m freestyle relay squad have admitted using a sedative banned b y their national Olympic committee in a bonding session before the London Games. The prescription drug Stilnox was banned by the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) just before the 2012 Games and the athletes now face sanctions from the governing body for breaching their Olympic team membership agreement. … 
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Citigroup Inc said on Thursday it has overhauled an executive pay plan that shareholders rejected last year as overly generous, revising it to tie bonus payments more closely to stock performance and profitability. T he company also said it will pay new Chief Executive Mike Corbat $11.5 million for his work in 2012, in line with remuneration for his peers at other major banks. The new plan was crafted after board Chairman Michael O'Neill and other directors met with "nearly 20" shareholders representing more than 30 percent of Citigroup stock, Citi said in a filing. … 
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina's Senate approved on Thursday an agreement with Iran to set up an international "truth commission" to investigate the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. The two governments reached the agreement last month on how to deal with the attack in which Argentine court authorities have accused Iranian officials, including the defense minister, of involvement. Iran has denied any link to the bombing. … 
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela's cancer-stricken President Hugo Ch avez is still suffering breathing problems after his operation in Cuba more than two months ago, the government said on Thursday. "The breathing insufficiency that emerged post-operation persists, and the tendency has not been favorable, so it is still being treated," read the first official communiqué on Chavez's health since his return to Venezuela on Monday. (Reporting by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Todd Eastham) 
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A royal penguin that became stranded on a beach more than 1,000 miles from its sub-Antarctic home has died at a New Zealand zoo. 
CAIRO (Reuters) – The opposition Syrian National Coalition is willing to negotiate a peace deal to end the country's civil war but President Bashar al-Assad must step down and cannot be a party to any settlement, members agreed after debating a controversial initiative by their president. The meeting of the 70-member Western, Arab and Turkish-backed coalition began on Thursday before Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem is due for talks in Moscow, one of Assad's last foreign allies, and as U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi renews efforts for a deal. … 
VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran has begun installing advanced centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment plant, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Thursday, a defiant step that will worry Western powers ahead of a resumption of talks with Tehran next week. In a confidential report, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said 180 so-called IR-2m centrifuges and empty centrifuge casings had been put in place at the facility near the town of Natanz in central Iran. They were not yet operating. … 
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co's quarterly revenue and forecasts beat Wall Street expectations as it continued to cut costs under CEO Meg Whitman's turnaround plan, sending the No. 1 personal computer maker's shares up over 5 percent. Whitman, who took the helm over a year ago after a failed bid to become governor of California, has launched a years-long turnaround to recapture some of the Silicon Valley icon's former growth trajectory. … 
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- The bustling "Once de Septiembre" station in the heart of Buenos Aires looks much the same as it did nearly a year ago, when Argentina's worst train accident in 40 years shook this ornate building. 
BATH, England (Reuters) – The Bank of England has a good case for restarting monetary stimulus, and may need to buy up to 175 billion pounds more of govern ment bonds if growth is far below potential, a senior policymaker said. David Miles, in a speech on Thursday, gave a detailed model of how policy should respond to the amount of slack in the economy – something the central bank has generally avoided before, and which moves in the direction of policy guidance favoured by incoming central bank governor Mark Carney. … 
TOKYO (Reuters) – What do you buy the nation that already seems to have everything? That is the question facing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as he aims to spend more than $100 billion on infrastructure in the next 15 months to h elp revive his country's economy. But with its gleaming bullet trains, jungles of elevated highways and strings of man-made islands, ultra-modern Japan doesn't appear to want for much. … 
CAIRO (AP) -- An Egyptian opposition group is using a novel way to protest against President Mohammed Morsi: Sign him up for a chance to win a trip to space. 
LONDON (Reuters) – HM Revenue and Customs on Thursday published the na mes of what it described as "tax cheats" for the first time, part of efforts to address public anger over tax evasion at a time of economic austerity. Tax has become a sensitive issue in Britain as the government cuts spending to tackle a big budget deficit, and as more becomes known about legal loopholes firms such as Starbucks and Amazon use to sharply cut their tax bill. … 
CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi will call a parliame ntary election starting April 28, a presidential legal adviser told Reuters on Thursday, saying the vote would be held in four stages. Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood backers hope the election will mark an end to a turbulent political transition punctuated by spasms of violence that have thwarted his efforts to revive an economy in deep crisis. … 
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- A car bomb exploded Thursday near Syria's ruling party headquarters in Damascus, killing at least 53 people and scattering mangled bodies among the blazing wreckage in one of the bloodiest days in the capital since the uprising began almost two years ago. 
QUITO (Reuters) – Beaming after his re-election last weekend, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said on Thursday he is not planning sweeping reforms and instead hopes to attract investors and diversify the economy from it s dependence on oil exports. Since taking office in 2007, the U.S.-trained economist defaulted on $3.2 billion of debt, rewrote contracts with oil companies to squeeze more revenue from them, and pushed through a new constitution that gave him more power. "Everything has been done and there will not be any more big changes. There will not be tax reforms either. … 
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) -- Ahead of a judge's decision on whether to release Oscar Pistorius on bail, South African police on Thursday appointed a new chief detective in the murder case, replacing a veteran policeman who was himself charged with attempted murder. 
(Reuters) – Chesapeake Energy Corp reported fourth-quarter profit that topped Wall Street estimates on Thursday, helped by lower-than-expected expenses and more profitable oil production. The earnings report came a day after Chesapeake said an internal investigation of the financial dealings of outgoing Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon found no "intentional" wrongdoing. McClendon is stepping down on April 1 following a tumultuous year during which the company faced a liquidity crunch and a governance crisis. … 
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany& #039;s parliament approved a new election law on Thursday that will help smaller political parties in September's federal poll, when Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) are tipped to remain the strongest force. Merkel's party reluctantly had to draft new legislation after Germany's constitutional court struck down the previous law, which had strengthened the CDU in the last federal election in 2009. … 
(Reuters) – Imax Corp, a maker of movie cameras and projection equipment for giant screens, plans to open 10 to 15 the aters each in Brazil and India as it seeks growth in emerging markets, its chief executive told Reuters. Shares of Imax rose as much as 6 percent to C$27.16 — their highest in more than a year — on the Toronto Stock Exchange, after the company said fourth-quarter profit more than doubled. … 
ROME (Reuters) – Billionaire showman Silvio Berlusconi has again astonished Italy with a storming comeback that has fr ayed nerves in European capitals and among investors, but the signs are his final gamble has failed. The 76-year-old media magnate and four-times prime minister looked down and out for much of 2012 after a jeering crowd hounded him from office in November 2011 as Italy tottered towards a Greek-style debt crisis. His indecision over whether to stand in this weekend's election brought his People of Freedom Party (PDL) to the brink of disintegration. … 
CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi will call a parliamentary election starting in April, a presidential source told Reuters o n Thursday, saying the vote would be held in three or four stages. Earlier in the day the Shura Council, the upper house of parliament, adopted an electoral law as amended by the Constitutional Court, clearing the way for Mursi to set a date for the lower house election. "The president will issue a decree soon, it could be tonight, calling for elections to start in April," the source told Reuters. … 
TURIN, Italy (Reuters) – An Italian appeals court has handed two former Fiat advisers suspended jail sentences and fines for misleading the market in a 2005 stock transaction that secured the Agnelli family' s control of the car maker. Thursday's decision by Turin judges overturned a 2010 verdict by a lower court that had found the two advisers, lawyer Franzo Grande Stevens and former Agnelli family holding company executive Gianluigi Gabetti, not guilty. … 
ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss lawmakers backed financial regulator FINMA on Thursday over its handling of an investigation into UBS's attempted manipulation of Libor interest rates, including the standing aside of a top official who was formerly at UBS. FIN MA excused Mark Branson, its head of banking supervision, from all Libor matters concerning UBS last summer, to avoid any impression of a conflict of interest. Branson's position raised political concerns because he was chief executive of UBS Securities Japan at the time when Swiss bank admitted some traders in Tokyo had sought to rig rates. … 
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Canada must offer the European Union broader access to its markets if both sides are to agree a free-trade accord they have bee n negotiating since 2009, the EU's trade chief said on Thursday. A free-trade agreement with Canada would be the European Union's first such deal with a major world economy. The United States is watching closely because Washington will launch separate trade negotiations with Brussels later this year. … 
COMMENTARY | Every once in a while, a scientific study is released that is as much factual as it is humorous. And a new report published by the New Zealand Medical Journal proves my point. 
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- A massive car bomb exploded near Syria's ruling party headquarters in Damascus on Thursday, killing at least 53 people and scattering mangled bodies amid the smoldering wreckage. 
NEW DELHI (AP) -- Indian police said Thursday that they have launched a manhunt for men suspected of raping and killing three sisters, aged 5 to 11, in the latest case of sexual violence to grip the country. 
HYDERABAD, India (AP) -- A pair of bombs exploded Thursday evening in a crowded shopping area in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, killing at least 12 people and wounding scores of others in the worst bombing in the country in more than a year, officials said. 
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged allies on Thursday to reverse damaging defense-spending cuts once their economies improve as U. S. officials warned of the impact that across-the-board U.S. budget reductions could have on the alliance. "If defense cuts continue, it will have a negative impact on our ability to provide effective defense and protection of our populations," Rasmussen told reporters at the start of a NATO defense ministers' meeting. … 
TUNIS (Reuters) – Tunisia's main Islamist Ennahda party will pick a hardliner to replace moderate outgoing Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali aft er he declined to head the next government, a party official said on Thursday. Jebali, who is secretary-general of Ennahda, resigned on Tuesday after his plan for an apolitical technocrat cabinet to prepare for elections collapsed, largely because of opposition from within his own party and its leader, Rached Ghannouchi. "Jebali declined to accept nomination (for next prime minister)," Ennahda said. … 
LONDON (Reuters) – An inconclusive result in Italy's elections this weekend could prompt an even bigger sell-off in some markets than the return to power of scandal-mired Silvio Berlusconi, who led the cou ntry to the financial precipice in 2011. Italian stocks, bonds and, to a lesser extent, the euro are all expected to rise if, as the latest polls suggest, the centre-left led by Pier Luigi Bersani wins a majority in the lower house and forms a stable pact in the Senate with outgoing centrist Prime Minister Mario Monti to head a reform-minded government. … 
VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran has begun installing advanced centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment plant, a U.N. nuclear report said on Thursday, a defiant step likely to anger world powers ahead of a resumption of talks with Tehran next week. In a confidential report, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said 180 so-called IR-2m centrifuges and empty centrifuge casings had been hooked up at the plant near the central town of Natanz. … 
SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgaria's parliament on Thursday accepted the government's decision to resign in the face of anti-austerity protests, opening the way for an early election that may benefit fringe parties and make it hard to form a stable government. Outgoing Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, praised by investors for cutting the budget deficit, lost support from voters in the European Union's poorest state over his failure to raise living standards or stamp out graft. … 
ROME (Reuters) – In an electoral landscape crowded with some of the most colorful personalities in European politics, Italy's center-left leader Pi er Luigi Bersani is a conspicuously unglamorous exception. Bald, rumpled and habitually seen dragging on a stumpy Tuscan cigar, opinion polls suggest the 61-year-old head of the Democratic Party (PD) is the man most likely to lead the next government after elections on Sunday and Monday. … 
WASHINGTON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Lawmakers are crafting a bill aimed at stopping the European Central Bank from handling business from the Iranian government, a congressional aide said on Thursday, an attempt to stop Tehran from using eu ros to develop its nuclear program. The bill, in the early stages of drafting, would target the ECB's cross-border payment system and impose U.S. economic penalties on entities that use the European Central Bank to do business with Iran's government, the aide said on condition of anonymity. … 
CHICAGO/BOCA RATON, Florida (Reuters) – Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Thursday that U.S. sales weakness persisted into early February, as Americans absorbed the impact of higher payroll taxes and gasoline prices, along with slow tax refunds that put some spending on hold. The weakness came even as the world's largest retailer reported a bigger-than-expected profit increase, which was helped by a lower-than-anticipated tax rate. Wal-Mart also raised its dividend payout. Wal-Mart's shares rose 3 percent, or $2.09, to $71.30 in morning trading as the company said that U.S. … 
ROME/MILAN (Reuters) – Italian defense group Finmeccanica and Indian officials discussed corruption allegations conne cted with the purchase of 12 helicopters in a meeting on Thursday that both sides said was positive. The Indian delegation is in Italy to collect evidence relating to allegations that Finmeccanica paid bribes to win the 560 million euro ($750 million) contract awarded in 2010 to its Anglo-Italian helicopter unit AgustaWestland. … 
PARIS (AP) -- In France, eating is supposed to be an art. Foodies from around the globe flock to the world's gastronomic center to discover the true meaning of fine dining -- a convivial sharing of dishes, lovingly prepared, which capture the imag ination, the taste buds and the essence of the land. 
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Yekaterina Samutsevich has few regrets about the day a year ago when she marched into a Russian Orth odox church with four other members of the Pussy Riot punk band, pulled on a balaclava and reached for her guitar. Guards grabbed her before she could join in the band's "punk prayer" against Vladimir Putin, and she went on to spend several months in detention before facing trial last year with two bandmates who are still in jail. … 
SOFIA (Reuters) – The violent protests that forced Bulgaria's cabinet from power this week underscore the lose-lose situation facin g the European Union's newest members as they struggle to stop economic downturn and stem growing public anger. Ruling parties which stick with strict austerity programs to win investor trust risk being bounced from power by voters fed up with cost cutting and tax hikes. Governments which loosen the fiscal screws or try unconventional ways to rebuild support before elections may alienate investors and invite more pain down the road. … 
DUBAI (Reuters) – Preoccupied with an intensifying domestic power struggle, Ir an is unlikely to agree with world powers next week on ways out of a nuclear dispute: Surviving a turbulent period of pre-electoral infighting will be the priority for its faction-ridden elite. Despite eye-catching suggestions among Iranian policymakers that a more imaginative approach is needed to engagement with its Western adversaries, Iran's electoral calendar may pre-ordain several more months of stasis in the nuclear negotiations set to resume in Almaty, Kazakhstan on Tuesday. … 
HYDERABAD, India (AP) -- At least 11 people were killed and 50 injured Thursday in a pair of explosions in a crowded area of the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, officials said.