Updated at 7:34 am ET (CBS/AP) DAMASCUS, Syria – A bomb attached to a fuel truck exploded Wednesday outside a Damascus hotel where UN observers are staying, wounding at least three people, Syria's state TV reported. The government controlled channel … Romney changes focus again, and he's angry - Los Angeles Times
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio -- For months, Mitt Romney has hammered President Obama's handling of the economy, believing that the Democrat's stewardship would convince Americans it was time for change. Then, with the announcement of his running mate Saturday, … Program granting work rights for childhood immigrants begins Wednesday - CNN (blog)
Sears Canada loss widens as sales fall
(Reuters) – Sears Canada Inc reported a wider loss in what the Canadian retailer called a difficult quarter on Wednesday, as sales at established stores dropped again. Sales of outdoor power equipment fell off dramatically with the onset of warm, dry weather, and the company said its weekend business is underperforming. Same-store sales, an important measure for retailers, fell 7.1 percent in the second quarter ended July 28, following a 5.8 percent decline in the same quarter last year. …
Kenya keeps up search after Uganda choppers crash
Kenyan emergency teams searched for a third day Wednesday for five personnel still unaccounted for after three Ugandan military helicopters crashed at the weekend, officials said. Target posts flat profit as it gets ready for Canada
(Reuters) – Target Corp posted a flat quarterly profit on Wednesday, as it won over shoppers with an expanded selection of food in many stores and discounts for its loyal card holders, while spending more to get ready to open Canadian stores next year. Target earned $704 million, or $1.06 per share, for the second quarter, compared with a profit of $704 million, or $1.03 per share, a year earlier. Target had fewer shares outstanding than a year earlier. Target earned $1.12 per share, excluding items, in line with its forecast of $1.04 per share to $1.14 per share. The U.S. … Germany arrests four suspected of busting Iran embargo
BERLIN (Reuters) – German police have arrested four men suspected of delivering valves for a heavy water reactor to Iran and breaking an embargo on such exports to the Islamic Republic imposed over its disputed nuclear program. Prosecutors said some 90 customs officers arrested the men – one German and three with dual German and Iranian citizenship, at their homes in the northern cities of Hamburg and Oldenburg and the eastern town of Weimar, and searched flats and offices. …
Dewani honeymoon murder accused denies killing
A man accused of shooting Swedish honeymooner Anni Dewani pleaded not guilty to killing her as his murder trial opened in a South African court on Wednesday. S.Africa 'village of death' suspect arrested
A man suspected in a string of grisly rapes and murders that gave a South African community the moniker "village of death" has been arrested, a local newspaper said Wednesday. 20 Syrians reported seized in Lebanon
Family members of a Lebanese man held by Syrian rebels say they have captured more than 20 Syrians and will hold them until their relative is freed.
Gunmen abduct opposition leader in south Yemen
A Yemeni security official says gunmen stormed a passenger plane after it landed in the country’s south, grabbed an opposition leader from his seat and spirited him away to an unknown destination.
Carlyle Group to buy Getty Images for $3.3 billion
(Reuters) – Private equity firm Carlyle Group LP said it will form a partnership with the management of Getty Images to buy Getty Images Inc from Hellman & Friedman for $3.3 billion, the companies said on Wednesday. Carlyle will take a controlling stake in Getty, a distributor of photos, video and multimedia products. Reuters reported on Tuesday that Carlyle was nearing an agreement to purchase Getty. (Reporting By Matt Daily; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe) Foxconn to tap cheap labor in Indonesia, huge consumer market
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Foxconn Technology Group's investment of up to $10 billion in Indonesia will allow the main supplier of Apple Inc to tap one of the cheapest labor forces in Asia and a duty-free zone of some 600 million consumers. Such cost savings could be vital for the mass producer, which relies on economies of scale to survive. Foxconn has seen rising wages and labor unrest at its main factories in China and has declared a strategy to diversify its production into other Asian markets. … Japan fires water cannon at protest ship: HK activists
The Japanese coastguard on Wednesday fired water cannon at a boat carrying pro-China activists as they neared disputed islands in the East China Sea, the protest group's leader said. Cascades and cocaine in Costa Rica's national parks
MANUEL ANTONIO, Costa Rica (Reuters) – The lush national parks of Costa Rica have long attracted tourists from around the globe with their evergreen rainforests, white beaches and thermal springs. Recently, they have lured more unsavory visitors in the form of drug traffickers. Organized crime cartels have turned to Costa Rica’s treasured nature reserves as governments wage military offensives against the gangs throughout Mexico and Central America. …
Japan TV pulls Korean drama over island spat
A Japanese television station said Wednesday it was postponing the airing of a South Korean drama series starring an actor who took part in a swim to a group of islands at the centre of a territorial row. German Cabinet approves strengthened export laws
The Economy Ministry says Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinet has agreed upon changes to strengthen and modernize the country’s export laws.
UK unemployment falls to 8 pct despite recession
Unemployment in the United Kingdom dropped to 8 percent in the three months through June, possibly due to a spate of hiring associated with the Olympic Games, official figures showed Wednesday.
Standard Chartered shares rise on settlement
Shares in Standard Chartered PLC opened 4 percent higher in London Wednesday, a day after it agreed to pay $340 million to a New York regulator to settle accusations that it hid illegal transactions with Iran and violated U.S. sanctions law. 
(CBS News) To cap off his three-day trip to the key state of Iowa, President Obama on Wednesday will be joined by First Lady Michelle Obama on the campaign trail for the first time in over 3 months, as he continues his effort to appeal to swing-state … 
LONDON (Reuters) – Standard Chartered is pursuing a collective settlement with other U.S. authorities after speedily agreeing to pay $340 million to New York's financial regulator, who broke ranks with early revelations that the bank hid banned Iranian transactions. Chief Executive Peter Sands, who cut short his holiday in Canada last week to deal with the affair, remains in the United States as the bank continues talks with other agencies to agree a comprehensive deal that removes lingering uncertainty. "Negotiations are going on between the other agencies, and we are talking to them. … 
India plans to launch a space probe that will orbit Mars, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confirmed on Wednesday after press reports that the mission was scheduled to begin late next year. 
Britain's unemployment rate fell to 8.0 percent in the quarter to June from 8.1 percent in the three months to May thanks to an Olympics jobs boost, official data showed Wednesday. 
It is a blistering summer day in the West Bank city of Hebron and Mohammed al-Jaabari sweats profusely as he struggles to haul a heavy gas canister through an Israeli checkpoint. 
LONDON (Reuters) – Stratford City, a mall sited by the main entrance to the Olympic Park in east London, attracted 5.5 million visits during the Games, Australian developer Westfield said, to be one of the biggest retail winners from the Olympics. The performance contrasted with other shopping areas in London – including a sister centre in west London – where retailers have complained about poor sales after repeated warnings about travel deterred non-Olympic tourists from visiting during the Games. … 
Markets struggled for direction in light trading volumes Wednesday though waning expectations of an imminent monetary stimulus in the U.S. gave traders an incentive to book some recent gains. 
By Politico , POLITICO – TOP Full Stories Mitt Romney is on track to lose the Latino vote by a wider margin than any Republican presidential candidate in over a decade, and strategists in both parties say he may have made a bad situation worse with his … 
Death toll makes it the deadliest day for civilians this year, but police say they stopped several other planned detonations. KABUL, Afghanistan — Suicide bombers launched multiple attacks in a remote corner of southwestern Afghanistan near the … 
Turning rockets into goal posts, abandoned tanks into playthings, and war into a game, children in Syria are hostages to a conflict that has forced them to try to normalise death, loss and violence, residents and activists say. 
DAMASCUS, Syria - A bomb attached to a fuel truck exploded Wednesday outside a Damascus hotel where UN observers are staying in the Syrian capital, wounding at least three people, Syria's state TV reported. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad … 
Shiro Kayano was once just like the millions of salarymen who populate Japan's neon-lit cities. He wore a suit and tie, bought the latest technology and earned a pay cheque in Tokyo's advertising sector. 
Squealing tiger cubs stuffed into carry-on bags. Luggage packed with hundreds of squirming tortoises, elephant tusks, even water dragons and American Paddlefish. Officials at Thailand's gateway airport proudly tick off the illegally trafficked wildlife they have seized over the past two years. 
(Updates with comment from Herzog in 20th paragraph.) Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) — Dozens of Israelis crowded in front of a storefront at a Jerusalem shopping mall yesterday to pick up new gas masks, part of civil defense preparations in case the military … 
The presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to send a joint military delegation to investigate recent cross-border shelling incidents that have raised tensions between the two neighbors. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani … 
(RTTNews) – South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Wednesday urged Japan to take sincere steps to resolve the long-standing grievances over Tokyo's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women, saying the act was a violation of "universal human rights … 
DAMASCUS: A massive bomb blast rocked the heart of Damascus on Wednesday as pressure mounted on the regime, with world's largest pan-Islamic bloc poised to suspend Syria over the unrelenting violence. The United States also accused Iran of setting up a … 
Summer should be the busy season for Shen Lin's musical instrument workshop in the southwestern city of Kunming. But her monthly sales of traditional wooden flutes are dwindling as China's economy slows, with no sign of a widely anticipated rebound in sight.