Canada new home prices inch up 0.1 percent in November

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Prices of new homes in Canada rose 0.1 percent in November from October on strength in Toronto, the country's biggest city, continuing an advance in prices that began in mid-2009, Statistics Canada said on Thursday.
Analysts had expected a 0.2 percent gain in the new housing price index following a 0.2 percent increase in October.
New home prices in the combined Toronto-Oshawa region contributed the most to the November gain, climbing 0.3 percent.
The biggest declines were in the west coast cities of Vancouver and Victoria, where new home prices fell 0.4 percent and 0.5 percent respectively.
Overall, new housing prices rose in 13 of the metropolitan areas surveyed in November, were unchanged in four areas, and fell in four.
Prices increased by 2.2 percent from November 2011, just below a 2.4 percent year-on-year increase in the previous month.
The Canadian government, which tightened mortgage rules in July, and the Bank of Canada have long expressed concerns the housing market may overheat. Ottawa says it is too soon to judge the full effect of the new rules.
The new housing price index excludes condominiums, which the government says are a particular cause for concern.

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Wind shift may have freed whales trapped off Quebec

(Reuters) - A group of killer whales trapped under the ice of Hudson Bay and taking turns breathing from a small hole may have been freed by a shift in the winds, Canadian media reported on Thursday.
The 11 whales, who sometimes appeared to be panicking as they fought for air, created a worldwide sensation as news and a video about their plight spread.
The mammals, which likely included two adults and several younger ones, were first spotted by a local Inuit hunter on Tuesday.
Residents from the nearby Inuit community of Inukjuak in northern Quebec had planned to widen the hole. But the whales were gone when they arrived at the site on Thursday morning, according to The Globe and Mail newspaper.
One resident, Johnny Williams, told the paper that the ice likely broke up from the shifting winds, allowing the creatures to swim to freedom.
The community's mayor had asked for an ice breaker and other assistance from the Canadian government. Experts from Canada's fisheries and oceans department were dispatched to the area.

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Macklem would be quieter Bank of Canada chief, no pushover

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The man tipped to be the next governor of Canada's central bank has the reputation of being a mild-mannered sideman to charismatic bank chief Mark Carney, but former colleagues say Tiff Macklem is a mover and shaker in his own quiet way.
As Carney prepares to leave the Bank of Canada to start his new job as head of the Bank of England on July 1, Macklem, his No. 2, has emerged as the frontrunner to succeed him.
The bank's choice of governor must be approved by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government, which will likely look to external candidates as well, but insiders say Macklem, 51, has the knowledge and experience to do the job.
Macklem, who is making a speech in Kingston, Ontario, later on Thursday, is widely respected in academic circles, has had a stellar 25-year career at the bank and finance ministry and speaks fluent English and French, Canada's two official languages.
The most glaring difference he presents to Carney - and perhaps Macklem's biggest weakness - is his soft-spoken, cautious style, which raises doubts whether he has the street smarts to stand up to big bank CEOs and lawmakers and defend central bank actions.
Carney, known for his self-confidence and hot temper, had a now famous run-in with JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon last year over tougher new banking regulations.
"He's a milder guy, very different," said Purdy Crawford, a well-known Canadian businessman and lawyer who worked with Macklem in 2008 to restructure the Canada's collapsed $30 billion market for asset-backed commercial paper.
"Tiff is maybe not as overtly ambitious as Mark is but he's nobody's push-around... He's tough but easy, he doesn't come through like a sledgehammer," he said in a telephone interview.
The advertisement for the governor's position said the winning candidate must have "the courage to take a stand", a demand not mentioned when Carney applied for the job.
It's not a trait usually associated with central bankers, but it's something that Carney holds in spades. Carney was first G7 central banker to raise rates after the global financial crisis and his insistence that higher rates will one day be needed is met with some skepticism by market players focusing on stubbornly low inflation rates and the sluggish economy.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Macklem, for his part, is a classic public servant who toils quietly behind the scenes. He usually appears as backup to Carney, who has become a bit of a central banker rock star, in news conferences and parliamentary hearings.
"He looks like a bookish academic sort of guy and he hasn't had the private sector experience that Mark Carney had," said Bill Scarth, an economics professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
In his second stint at the finance ministry from 2007 to 2010, Macklem helped craft policies to keep the Canadian and world banking systems well-greased and to bail out the auto sector, said Paul Boothe, who preceded Macklem at finance and later led the auto bailout from the industry ministry.
Macklem was Canada's point man at the G7 and G20 during the depth of the financial crisis and headed several international working groups. He also chaired a committee at the G20's Financial Stability Board that monitors implementation of banking reforms.
"I think what you would find is, maybe not to the general public, but to the people in the industry - both private sector and in other governments - he's very well known and very well regarded for being decisive," Boothe said.
Slim and bespectacled, Macklem hails from Montreal, the biggest city in the French-speaking province of Quebec. He is married with three children and is an avid skier.
AN INSIDER
Many who worked with Macklem in his early days at the Bank of Canada in the 1990s saw him as "governor" material as he quickly rose through the ranks to become head of the research department in 2000 at the young age of 39.
McMaster University's Scarth said Macklem impressed economists at the bank's annual conferences, particularly for his research on debt and deficit reduction. "I think he was doing the best work I knew of in Canada in that area for several years."
An internal candidate like Macklem would provide "continuity" at a time of global uncertainty, analysts said.
Carney and his predecessor, David Dodge, were both outsiders, moving to the Bank of Canada from other government departments, while Carney also had experience at Goldman Sachs.
Several external names have emerged as potential rivals to Macklem, but none have confirmed interest and the compressed timetable for choosing a successor may give Macklem an edge.
And it wouldn't be the first time Canada has had a mild-mannered central banker. Gordon Thiessen, who held the job from 1994 to 2001 wasn't exactly outspoken or combative, Scarth said.
"We've got previous cases where the quiet guy who actually knows what he's talking about commands respect.

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Google executive chairman and ex-New Mexico Gov. Richardson heading to North Korea

BEIJING, China - The executive chairman of U.S.-based Google, one of the world's largest Internet companies, was travelling Monday to North Korea, a nation with notoriously restrictive online policies.
Eric Schmidt, the most high profile U.S. business executive to visit North Korea since young leader Kim Jong Un took power a year ago, was in Beijing and scheduled to depart for Pyongyang aboard a commercial Air China flight.
Leading the delegation was former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who has travelled more than a half-dozen times to North Korea over the past 20 years. Richardson called the trip a private, humanitarian mission.
"This is not a Google trip, but I'm sure he's interested in some of the economic issues there, the social media aspect. So this is why we are teamed up on this," Richardson said without elaborating on what he meant by the "social media aspect."
"We'll meet with North Korean political leaders. We'll meet with North Korean economic leaders, military. We'll visit some universities. We don't control the visit. They will let us know what the schedule is when we get there," he said.
Richardson also said the delegation plans to inquire about a Korean-American U.S. citizen detained in North Korea.
"We're going to try to inquire the status, see if we can see him, possibly lay the groundwork for him coming home," Richardson said. "I heard from his son who lives in Washington state, who asked me to bring him back. I doubt we can do it on this trip."
The four-day trip, which is taking place just weeks after North Korea fired a satellite into space using a long-range rocket, has drawn criticism from U.S. officials. Washington condemned the Dec. 12 launch, which it considers a test of ballistic missile technology, as a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions barring Pyongyang from developing its nuclear and missile programs. The Security Council is deliberating whether to take further action.
"We don't think the timing of the visit is helpful, and they are well aware of our views," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters last week.
The trip was planned well before North Korea announced its plans to send a satellite into space, two people with knowledge of the delegation's plans told The Associated Press. AP first reported the group's plans last Thursday. Schmidt, a staunch proponent of Internet connectivity and openness, is expected to make a donation during the visit, members of the delegation told AP. They asked not to be named, saying the trip was a private visit.

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Analysts see slow adoption for 'ultra-HD' TVs as makers prepare new models

LAS VEGAS, Nev. - "Ultra-HD" TVs are set to be the talk of International CES, the gadget show kicking off this week in Las Vegas. But the televisions aren't likely to account for much of the market even four years down the road.
That is the conclusion of analysts of the show's host, a day before TV makers such as Samsung, LG and Sony attempt to wow conference attendees with their latest models.
Ultra high-definition TVs, with four times as many pixels as HD TVs, are expected to account for only 1.4 million units sold in the U.S. in 2016, or about 5 per cent of the entire market. Sales in the rest of the world are expected to be smaller.
The analysts blamed high prices and low availability for the slow start.
"It's a very, very limited opportunity," said Steve Koenig, director of industry analysis at the Consumer Electronics Association, which officially kicks off the show Tuesday. "The price points here are in the five digits (in U.S. dollars) and very few manufacturers, at least at this stage, have products ready."
The consumer electronics industry is struggling to come back from a weak year in 2012, when an estimated $1.06 trillion worth of goods was sold around the world, down 1 per cent from 2011, hurt by a weak European economy and flat TV sales in China.
The market is seen recovering this year, with global sales rising 4 per cent to $1.11 trillion, pumped up due to renewed growth in the so-called BRIC countries, led by China, Brazil, Russia and India.
All the more reason for gadget makers to energetically tout their latest innovations. TV makers were somewhat chastened last year as enthusiasm for super-thin and vibrant organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TVs was hampered by production problems and delays. Now they have turned their focus to ultra-HD to drive consumer demand.
Steve Bambridge, business director for boutique research and consumer choices at GfK, said troubles making OLED sets are "not any secret." He added that while some makers planned to sell models this year after introducing them a year ago, he said he "won't be surprised if those go backwards."
Although the show has often unveiled the biggest and best of TV sets, the biggest electronics show in the Americas has increasingly been dominated by computers, tablets and mobile devices.
For good reason: In 2013, CEA and GfK predicted that for the first time, three categories of devices — mobile personal computers, tablets and smartphones — will account for over half of all consumer electronics spending worldwide.
Shawn DuBravac, the CEA's chief economist, said one trend at the show was the increasing number of exhibitors who display technology that uses a smartphone or tablet as their hub. He noted a 25 per cent increase in exhibitors from health and fitness companies, including those that sell heart monitors and blood pressure applications.
He also said the clamshell design of laptop computers, which hasn't changed much in two decades, will face a significant challenge. He expects 30 to 40 different hardware designs for the laptop to be presented on the show floor. Some intriguing computers on display will be giant touch-screen tablets meant for lying flat, and laptops whose screens can swivel around or detach from the keyboard easily.
"The clamshell design is still intact 20 years later. That's starting to change," he said.
More companies are also expected to do more with devices that respond better to a wider range of gestures and more natural speech.

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Clinton scheduled to return to work Monday after hospitalization for blood clot

WASHINGTON - The State Department says Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will return to work Monday, a little over a week after she was hospitalized with a blood clot in her head.
The department on Sunday released a schedule which has Clinton meeting with assistant secretaries Monday morning. The most significant items on her agenda are meetings in Washington on Thursday and Friday with visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Clinton was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Dec. 30 after doctors discovered the blood clot while following up on a concussion she suffered earlier in December. She was released Wednesday.
Clinton is expected to resign from the State Department soon. President Barack Obama has nominated Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to replace her.

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Kate and William to spend Christmas Day with her parents

 Prince William and his pregnant wife Kate will spend Christmas Day with her parents, their office said on Saturday, in a break with the tradition of royals joining The Queen at her country estate at Sandringham.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will celebrate in private with Carole and Michael Middleton at their home in the village of Bucklebury, about 50 miles (80 km) west of London.
"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will spend Christmas Day privately with the Middleton family," a St James's Palace spokesman said.
The couple's decision was taken with the approval of the Queen. They are expected to visit Sandringham, in eastern England, for part of the Christmas holiday.
Kate, 30, who married the second-in-line to the throne in April 2011, spent four days in hospital this month with an acute form of morning sickness.
Members of the British royal family usually spend Christmas at Sandringham and stay until February, following a custom set by Queen Elizabeth's father and grandfather. Kate and William spent Christmas there last year, meeting scores of well-wishers.
The Middletons are likely to join millions of Britons in watching Queen Elizabeth's annual Christmas broadcast, a tradition that her grandfather George V started in 1932.
For the first time, the monarch has recorded her television broadcast in 3D. It will be shown at 1500 GMT on December 25.

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UK prosecutors consider charges over royal hoax call

 British detectives investigating the death of a nurse found hanged after she took a prank phone call at a hospital treating Prince William's pregnant wife Kate have passed an evidence file to prosecutors, police said on Saturday.
Public prosecutors must decide whether the case is strong enough to bring charges over a stunt that was condemned around the world and fuelled concerns about media ethics.
Indian-born Jacintha Saldanha, 46, was found hanging in her hospital lodgings in London, days after she answered the hoax call from an Australian radio station, an inquest heard.
She put the call through to a colleague who disclosed details of the Duchess of Cambridge's condition during treatment for an extreme form of morning sickness in the early stages of pregnancy.
"Officers submitted a file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for them to consider whether any potential offences may have been committed by making the hoax call," London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
A CPS spokesman confirmed it had received the file, but declined to comment on the timing or nature of possible charges.
"That is what we will be considering," he said.
Prime Minister David Cameron has described the case as a "complete tragedy" and has said many lessons will have to be learned from the nurse's death.
Australia's media regulator has launched an investigation into the phone call. Southern Cross Austereo, parent company of radio station 2Day FM, has apologised for the stunt.
Britain's own media is already under pressure to agree a new system of self-regulation and avoid state intervention following a damning inquiry into reporting practices.
The presenters who made the call, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, have apologised for their actions.

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Prince William to spend Christmas with the in-laws

 Prince William will spend Christmas with his pregnant wife Kate and his in-laws in the southern England village of Bucklebury, royal officials said Saturday.
That means a family Christmas for the Duchess of Cambridge, who was recently hospitalized after suffering from severe morning sickness.
A statement from St. James' Palace, William's official residence, didn't go into much detail, saying only that the prince and Kate would spend their time in Bucklebury "privately." But a recent article penned by Kate's sister, Pippa Middleton, gave some insight into what a Bucklebury holiday might look like for the royal pair.
"The Middletons' Christmas should be blissfully calm. We're good at keeping each other's spirits up," Pippa wrote in the most recent edition of Britain's Spectator magazine. She added that her father, Michael, liked to surprise the family with bizarre costumes.
"He buys a new costume each year and typically gets a bit carried away — a couple of Christmases ago, he appeared in an inflatable sumo outfit," she wrote.
British royals traditionally spend the holidays at Sandringham, a vast estate in eastern England, and a spokesman for William said that royal couple would pay a visit at some point over the festive season. He noted that William's absence from Sandringham had been approved by his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and her husband, Prince Philip.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because palace rules forbid his identification in the press.

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Pope pardons ex-butler who stole, leaked documents

 Pope Benedict XVI granted his former butler a Christmas pardon Saturday, forgiving him in person during a jailhouse meeting for stealing and leaking his private papers in one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times.
After the 15-minute meeting, Paolo Gabriele was freed and returned to his Vatican City apartment where he lives with his wife and three children. The Vatican said he couldn't continue living or working in the Vatican, but said it would find him housing and a job elsewhere soon.
"This is a paternal gesture toward someone with whom the pope for many years shared daily life," according to a statement from the Vatican secretariat of state.
The pardon closes a painful and embarrassing chapter for the Vatican, capping a sensational, Hollywood-like scandal that exposed power struggles, intrigue and allegations of corruption and homosexual liaisons in the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
Gabriele, 46, was arrested May 23 after Vatican police found what they called an "enormous" stash of papal documents in his Vatican City apartment. He was convicted of aggravated theft by a Vatican tribunal on Oct. 6 and has been serving his 18-month sentence in the Vatican police barracks.
He told Vatican investigators he gave the documents to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi because he thought the 85-year-old pope wasn't being informed of the "evil and corruption" in the Vatican and thought that exposing it publicly would put the church back on the right track.
During the trial, Gabriele testified that he loved the pope "as a son loves his father" and said he never meant to hurt the pontiff or the church. A photograph taken during the meeting Saturday — the first between Benedict and his once trusted butler since his arrest — showed Gabriele dressed in his typical dark gray suit, smiling.
The publication of the leaked documents, first on Italian television then in Nuzzi's book "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's Secret Papers" convulsed the Vatican all year, a devastating betrayal of the pope from within his papal family that exposed the unseemly side of the Catholic Church's governance.
The papal pardon had been widely expected before Christmas, and the jailhouse meeting Benedict used to personally deliver it recalled the image of Pope John Paul II visiting Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot him in 1981, while he served his sentence in an Italian prison.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the meeting was "intense" and "personal" and said that during it Benedict "communicated to him in person that he had accepted his request for pardon, commuting his sentence."
Lombardi said the Vatican hoped the Benedict's pardon and Gabriele's freedom would allow the Holy See to return to work "in an atmosphere of serenity."
None of the leaked documents threatened the papacy. Most were of interest only to Italians, as they concerned relations between Italy and the Vatican and a few local scandals and personalities. Their main aim appeared to be to discredit Benedict's trusted No. 2, the secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
Vatican officials have said the theft, though, shattered the confidentiality that typically governs correspondence with the pope. Cardinals, bishops and everyday laymen write to him about spiritual and practical matters assuming that their words will be treated with the discretion for which the Holy See is known.
As a result, the leaks prompted a remarkable reaction, with the pope naming a commission of three cardinals to investigate alongside Vatican prosecutors. Italian news reports have said new security measures and personnel checks have been put in place to prevent a repeat offense.
Gabriele insisted he acted alone, with no accomplices, but it remains an open question whether any other heads will roll. Technically the criminal investigation remains open, and few in the Vatican believe Gabriele could have construed such a plot without at least the endorsement if not the outright help of others. But Lombardi said he had no new information to release about any new investigative leads, saying the pardon "closed a sad and painful chapter" for the Holy See.
Nuzzi, who has supported Gabriele as a hero for having exposed corruption in the Vatican, tweeted Saturday that it appeared the butler was thrilled to speak with the pope and go home. "Unending joy for him, but the problems of the curia and power remain," he wrote, referring to the Vatican bureaucracy.
A Vatican computer expert, Claudio Sciarpelletti, was convicted Nov. 10 of aiding and abetting Gabriele by changing his testimony to Vatican investigators about the origins of an envelope with Gabriele's name on it that was found in his desk. His two-month sentence was suspended. Lombardi said a pardon was expected for him as well. He recently returned to work in the Vatican.
Benedict met this past week with the cardinals who investigated the origins of the leaks, but it wasn't known if they provided him with any further updates or were merely meeting ahead of the expected pardon for Gabriele.
As supreme executive, legislator and judge in Vatican City, the pope had the power to pardon Gabriele at any time. The only question was when.

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Abducted German aid worker seen alive in video

A German aid worker abducted in Pakistan 11 months ago was seen alive in a video broadcast Saturday urging authorities to fully meet his captors' demands, warning that otherwise they could kill him within days.
The undated video — probably recorded under duress by his captors — was broadcast Saturday by Pakistan's Dunya TV. The German Foreign Ministry in Berlin said it "knows the case" and is aware of the video. A duty spokeswoman declined to elaborate.
Aid organization German Agro Action declined to confirm whether the video indeed showed one of its two staffers abducted in the central Pakistan city of Multan in January. Spokeswoman Simone Pott only acknowledged "we know the video."
The aid worker, identifying himself in the video as 59-year-old Bernd Muehlenbeck, said he was captured by mujahedeen — a generic term for militant Islamic extremists — but didn't specify who they were or what their demands were.
In the message — whose content is likely to have been dictated by the captors — he said he was kidnapped "by mujahedeen because of the bad policies of the German government."
In January, gunmen seized the two foreign aid workers, Muehlenbeck and an Italian colleague, from just outside their office in Multan and bundled them into a car, according to Pakistan security officials. The men were working for a development project helping victims of the 2010 floods, the officials said.
Muehlenbeck did not name or explicitly mention his Italian colleague, but repeatedly used the plural when speaking about his situation.
He appealed to authorities not to attempt freeing them by force. "I would like to live and I would like to see back my family alive," he said, speaking in English with a slight German accent.
In the video lasting just less than a minute, Muehlenbeck is heard speaking calmly in front of a white wall, wearing glasses and a dark hoody.
He said he could be killed by his captors at any time. "We don't know when. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe in three days."
Pakistan, a poor predominantly Muslim nation of about 180 million, is struggling to fend off an insurgency fueled by Islamic extremists, many of whom are believed to hide in the lawless provinces bordering Afghanistan.
Kidnappings for ransom are common in Pakistan. Islamist militants have also abducted people. Several aid workers have been targeted over the past years.
This week saw a gruesome series of deadly attacks on Pakistanis working on a polio vaccination campaign. Six of the aid workers gunned down were women, three of whom were teenagers. Two other workers were critically wounded.

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Russian parliament wants winter time restored

MOSCOW (AP) — On the darkest day of the year, Russia's parliament is pleading with the government for a little more light.
The Duma on Friday formally asked Speaker Sergei Naryshkin to query the government about abandoning year-round daylight-savings time.
The 2011 decision by then-President Dmitry Medvedev to keep Russian clocks set as if the country enjoyed perpetual summer was one of the least popular but probably most memorable moves of his bland four years in office.
It means that in the depths of winter in Moscow, the sun comes up just before 10 a.m. and departs at 5 p.m.
"You get up and lie down in complete darkness, you go to work in darkness," the state news agency RIA Novosti quoted parliament member and former cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya as saying.

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Cold weather kills 61 people in Poland since Oct.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Police in Poland have appealed to residents to dress warmly and look out for elderly and homeless people, after saying that 61 people have died of the cold weather since October.
Another 41 have been killed by carbon monoxide inhalation from coal or other ways of heating their homes since temperatures started falling.
The Interior Ministry said Friday the death toll from sub-freezing temperatures that set in in December was 49 people so far, compared to 19 in the whole of December last year. Another 15 people died of cold in October and five in November.
In most cases the victims are homeless people, or people under the influence of alcohol that fell asleep outside.
Sub-freezing temperatures and snow are usual winter conditions in Poland.

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French leader honors troops home from Afghanistan

PARIS (AP) — President Francois Hollande on Friday declared "mission accomplished" for French combat troops in Afghanistan, hailing their 11-year military commitment even as the fight goes on for France's NATO allies.
After his election in May, Hollande announced a fast-track pullout of French combat troops from NATO's mission in Afghanistan by year-end — a goal now achieved. Increasingly, France has turned its focus to helping rebuild civilian sector institutions and foster diplomatic initiatives, including hosting a secretive meeting of rival Afghan factions north of Paris as the president spoke.
The Socialist leader has argued that France has done its part in Afghanistan and achieved its goals, and reiterated that theme as he hosted at the presidential palace dozens of soldiers who recently returned home.
"I say to you all: 'mission accomplished.' I also say to you: 'exemplary action'. I say to you: 'congratulations,'" he told them.
U.S. President George W. Bush infamously used the term "mission accomplished" in 2003 after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq, though some of the worst bloodshed in that war was yet to come and U.S. troops remained in Iraq for 8 1/2 more years.
While Hollande was speaking to French troops, NATO forces overall are still very much engaged in combat against the Taliban and other insurgents fighting Afghanistan's government.
France, which has lost 88 soldiers in Afghanistan, still has 1,500 troops there who are repatriating equipment or working in roles like providing medical care or helping operate Kabul's airport. Hollande said the numbers will decline to 500 by mid-2013. France had a peak deployment of some 4,000 troops in Afghanistan under former President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"There are no more French combat troops in Afghanistan — this is an important moment for you, for our country, and for Afghanistan," Hollande said. "We have now a part to play, but a different one." He said France's financial contribution will reach €300 million ($396 million), to help Afghanistan transition from war to peace in the coming years.
Meanwhile, in the town of Chantilly about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Paris, representatives of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government, the Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami Islamic militant groups, as well as the political opposition, were meeting for a second straight day. They are discussing their country's long-term future — well beyond 2014, when the majority of NATO forces, including those of the United States, are set to leave.
Hosted by a French think tank in the presence of some French officials, the 20-odd delegates have been discussing since Thursday three topics to better understand each other's positions: The political balance in Afghanistan into 2020, the nature of Afghan sovereignty and the necessary parameters for long-lasting peace, according to Mahmoud Saikal, a high-level member of opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah's party.
"I doubt there will be a definite resolution of any kind emerging from this gathering," Saikal said. "It will definitely help building up confidence between the armed opposition forces of this country and the political opposition groups."
"The sheer fact that we do have a couple representatives of the Taliban is an achievement," he said.
Among the most significant delegates was Shahabudin Delwar, who served as Afghanistan's ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan under the Taliban regime that was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. French hosts declined to specify the guest list, or provide access to the participants to journalists during the closed-door meeting. Police blocked off access to the luxury hotel where the Afghans were meeting.

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Russian parliament passes anti-US adoption measure

MOSCOW (AP) — The lower house of the Russian parliament on Friday overwhelmingly passed a bill that would ban adoption of Russian children by Americans, sending the controversial legislation a step closer to President Vladimir Putin's desk.
Putin hasn't said whether he will sign the measure into law if it passes its next stage of being approved by the upper house.
Some top government officials including the foreign minister and the education minister have spoken flatly against the bill, one part of a larger measure by angry lawmakers retaliating against a recently signed U.S. law that calls for sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators.
It nonetheless received strong approval in Friday's third reading in the State Duma, passing by a vote of 420-7-1. The upper house, the Federation Council, is likely to consider the measure on Wednesday, vice-speaker Alexander Torshin was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Torshin said there is "serious basis for supposing the draft bill will be supported by the Federation Council."
Originally the bill was more or less a tit-for-tat response, providing for travel sanctions and the seizure of financial assets in Russia of Americans determined to have violated the rights of Russians.
But it was expanded to include the adoption measure and call for the banning of any organizations that are engaged in political activities if they receive funding from U.S. citizens or are determined to be a threat to Russia's interests. In addition, it calls for anyone with dual Russian-U.S. citizenship to be banned as members of political organizations.
The U.S. said the adoption law would needlessly stop hundreds of Russian children from finding families.
"The welfare of children is simply too important to be linked to other issues in our bilateral relationship," U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul said in a statement.
The bill is a dramatic demonstration of two strains of animosity toward the United States. The Russian political establishment resents the United States for allegedly meddling in the country's internal affairs; Putin has charged that opposition protests over the past year were the work of U.S.-funded troublemakers. Many Russians are angered by cases of adopted children abused in America and by the alleged lenience of courts in these cases.
The Duma bill is named in honor of Dima Yakovlev, a Russian toddler who was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. The father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Anger over abuse peaked in 2010 when an American woman sent her 7-year-old adopted Russian son back to Moscow on a plane alone, saying he had emotional problems and she could no longer care for him.
Despite abuse cases, Russian critics of the bill say it would ultimately victimize orphans by depriving them of an opportunity to escape often-dismal Russian orphanages. There are about 740,000 children without parental custody in Russia, according to UNICEF. Russians historically have been less inclined to adopt children than in many other cultures.
More than 60,000 Russian children have been adopted in the United States in the past 20 years, McFaul said.
But Russia's children's ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, one of the strongest critics of U.S. abuse cases, says the solution is for Russia to adopt a national program to improve orphans' prospects.
"It's necessary to strictly hold to the principle of priority for Russian adopters," he told Interfax after the Duma vote.

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UK doctor stripped of license over death of Iraqi

LONDON (AP) — A British doctor was stripped of his medical license Friday for misconduct and dishonesty over the death of an Iraqi man who was beaten and killed while in the custody of British troops.
The latest fallout from Britain's troubled occupation of Iraq came as defense officials confirmed they have paid 14 million pounds ($23 million) to settle claims of abuse from more than 200 Iraqis.
Dr. Derek Keilloh treated Baha Mousa, a hotel clerk who died at a British base after being detained in Basra in September 2003 during a sweep for insurgents. Keilloh, then a 28-year-old captain in the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, tried unsuccessfully to revive Mousa, but denied knowledge of the scale of the man's injuries.
A public inquiry found that Mousa had sustained 93 injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose, in an "appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence" by British troops.
Dr. Jim Rodger of the Medical and Dental Defense Union of Scotland — which supported Keilloh — said the doctor was "extremely disappointed" by the ruling and was considering what to do next. He has 28 days to submit an appeal.
Last week, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service ruled that Keilloh knew of the injuries and failed to adequately examine Mousa's body. It said he also failed to inform senior officers of what was going on and protect other detainees from further mistreatment.
The tribunal also ruled that Keilloh engaged in "misleading and dishonest conduct" by maintaining under oath that he had seen no injuries to Mousa's body.
On Friday, the tribunal said that even though Keilloh had not harmed Mousa — and had tried his best to save him in a "highly charged, chaotic, tense and stressful" situation — the doctor should be barred from practicing medicine for at least five years.
"The panel has identified serious breaches of good medical practice and, given the gravity and nature of the extent and context of your dishonesty, it considers that your misconduct is fundamentally incompatible with continued registration," said Dr. Brian Alderman, a member of the tribunal.
Baha Mousa's father, Daoud Mousa, said he wished the doctor had been banned for life.
"He did not have humanity in his heart when he was supposed to be caring for my son," Daoud Mousa said. "He did not do his job properly."
The death of Mousa and mistreatment of other detainees blighted Britain's six-year deployment in southern Iraq, which ended in 2009.
Britain's defense authorities eventually apologized for the mistreatment of Mousa and nine other Iraqis and paid a 3-million-pound ($4.9-million) settlement. Six soldiers were cleared of wrongdoing at a court martial, while another pleaded guilty and served a year in jail.
The defense ministry said Friday that Britain has paid 14 million pounds to settle 205 damages claims since 2008, including 162 this year. A further 196 claims are being negotiated.
It said most of the 120,000 British troops who served in Iraq "conducted themselves with the highest standards of integrity and professionalism."

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Australian DJs Behind Royal Prank May Face Police Probe

The two Australian DJs who pulled the prank call on the U.K. hospital where Kate Middleton was staying are now in hiding and may soon have to face police after the death of a nurse caught in the hoax.

This morning, there are also new questions about whether DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian, radio shock jocks at Sydney's 2Day FM broke laws after they recorded the private conversation when they pretended to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles.

British police have also contacted Australian police about a possible probe into the prank call, The Associated Press reported Sunday.

Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo, the parent company of Sydney's 2Day FM radio station said no laws were broken.

The prank had been cleared by the Australian radio station's lawyers. Holleran said the DJs followed the company's procedures before broadcasting the call.

"I think the more important question here is that we're very confident that we haven't done anything illegal. Our main concern at this point in time is what has happened is incredibly tragic and we're deeply saddened and we're incredibly affected by that," Holleran said Saturday.

READ: Kate Middleton's Hospital Falls for Prank Call From Radio Station

The hoax has caused public outcry after the death of a nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, who connected the pair to the Duchess' room.

Saldanha was found dead Friday morning after police were called to an address near the hospital to "reports of a woman found unconscious," according to a statement from Scotland Yard.

Circumstances of her death are still being investigated, but are not suspicious at this stage, authorities said earlier.

Lord Glenarthur, the chairman of King Edward VII's Hospital, the U.K. hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was receiving treatment, condemned the prank Saturday in a letter to the Max Moore-Wilton, chairman of Southern Cross Austereo, the Australian radio station's parent company.

Glenarthur said the prank humiliated "two dedicated and caring nurses," and the consequences were "tragic beyond words," The Associated Press reported.

Max Moore-Wilton, the chairman of Southern Cross Austereo, said in a letter to Lord Glenarthur Sunday that the company is reviewing the station's broadcast policies, the AP reported.

"I can assure you we are taking immediate action and reviewing the broadcast and processes involved," Moore-Wilton said in the letter. "As we have said in our own statements on the matter, the outcome was unforeseeable and very regrettable."

Saldanha came to England from India nine years ago, with her husband and two children.

On Facebook, her 14-year-old daughter wrote this weekend, simply: "I miss you, I loveeee you."

Saldanha worked as a nurse at King Edward VII private hospital for four years. Her family lives 100 miles away in Bristol, but while on shift she slept in a residence for nurses.

With no receptionist on duty overnight she answered the prank call and put it through.

The hospital called her a "first-class nurse" and "a well-respected and popular member of the staff" and extended "deepest sympathies" to family and friends, saying that "everyone is shocked" at this "tragic event."

The duchess spent three days at the hospital undergoing treatment for hyperemesis gravidarum, severe or debilitating nausea and vomiting. She was released from the hospital Thursday morning.

The hospital apologized for the mistake.

"The call was transferred through to a ward, and a short conversation was held with one of the nursing staff," the hospital said in a statement. "King Edward VII's Hospital deeply regrets this incident."

The radio station also apologized for the prank call.

"2Day FM sincerely apologizes for any inconvenience caused by the inquiry to Kate's hospital. The radio segment was done with lighthearted intentions," the station said in a statement earlier.

DJs in Hiding

Greig and Christian are said to be in a fragile emotional state since Saldanha was found dead on Friday.

Station executives said the hosts are seeking the help of counselors.

"These people aren't machines, they're human beings," Holleran told reporters on Saturday. "We're all affected by this."

The DJs are in hiding and their Facebook and twitter accounts are now dark.

The Sydney radio station -- famous for its pranks and outrageousness -- has suspended all advertising in the face an advertising boycott and Greig and Christian have been pulled off the air.

Last spring, the station was warned by Australia's broadcast regulator about violations of the "decency provision" of the country's broadcast code.

Night Out Without Kate

Prince William was on his own Saturday night at a charity ball, for his first public function since his wife's pregnancy was announced.

In conversation he quipped about his Kate's illness: "I don't know why they call it morning sickness -- they should call it all day and all night sickness."

PHOTOS: The Life and Times of Kate Middleton

He did not talk about the tragic death of the nurse who fell victim to the hoax call, but he and Kate have issued a statement of sympathy for the family.

"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Jacintha Saldanha," a spokesman from St. James Palace said in a statement.

For Kate, it is yet another test of her new life as a very public royal. In September, a tabloid photographer using an extremely long lens photographed her topless on a private vacation.

"While she understood what she was taking on, there have been a couple of things that will have made them go oh my goodness and think we didn't think it would be that bad in this day and age," said Victoria Murphy, royal reporter with The Daily Mirror.

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Australia royal hoax radio station to review procedures

PERTH, Australia/LONDON (Reuters) - An Australian radio station under fire over a prank call to a hospital treating Prince William's pregnant wife Kate said on Sunday it would review its procedures after a nurse's apparent suicide.

New South Wales Police said they were in contact with London's police force and were ready to assist in any investigation, as the incident sparked fresh soul-searching over the behaviour of the media.

Jacintha Saldanha, 46, was found dead in staff accommodation near London's King Edward VII hospital on Friday after putting the hoax call through to a colleague who unwittingly disclosed details of Kate's morning sickness to 2DayFM's presenters.

A recording of the call, broadcast repeatedly by the station, rapidly became an internet hit and was reprinted as a transcript in many newspapers.

Public amusement at the prank turned to disgust after news of Saldanha's death swept around the globe. The station's owners pulled presenters Michael Christian and Mel Greig off the air as leading companies cancelled advertising.

The station's parent company, Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), said it would fully cooperate in any investigations in a letter to the head of the King Edward hospital.

"I can assure you we are taking immediate action and reviewing the broadcast and processes involved," SCA chairman Max Moore-Wilton said.

"We are all saddened by the events of the last few days. They are truly tragic... The outcome was unforeseeable and very regrettable," he added.

The station's presenters have come under attack from around the world on social media sites and were "extremely distressed", an SCA spokeswoman said.

Both were keen to speak publicly about the incident, but were in too fragile a condition to do so, the spokeswoman added.

The hospital's chairman Lord Glenarthur had described their actions as "appalling" in a letter to SCA on Saturday.

Saldanha, married with two children, was originally from India and came to Britain around 10 years ago.

Her husband's family in the southern Indian state of Karnataka said she had spoken regularly to them but neither she or her husband had mentioned the hoax call, they told Britain's Observer newspaper.

A post mortem into the cause of her death will be held early next week, possibly as soon as Monday. An inquest will follow, and London police may want statements from the two presenters, although they had yet to make a formal request.

"It's been indicated that the London Metropolitan Police may wish to speak to the people involved in the matter from 2DayFM," said New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas.

"But we haven't been asked to do anything yet, and we certainly have not been asked to interview anyone, or line up any interviews for the Met," he added.

The tragic fallout from the radio stunt has rekindled memories of the death of William's mother Diana in a Paris car crash in 1997 and threatens to cast a pall over the birth of his and Kate's first child.

The couple's baby will be third in line to the British throne after William and his father Prince Charles.

The royal family are enjoying a boost in popularity in Britain after a period when they were seen as dated and out of touch.

William and Kate's wedding at London's Westminster Abbey last year rekindled public enthusiasm for royalty, which has been sustained during this year's jubilee celebrations for Queen Elizabeth's 60 years as monarch.

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NZ gov't: Building that collapsed in Christchurch quake was poorly built and designed

SYDNEY - A six-story office building that collapsed and killed 115 people in New Zealand's devastating earthquake last year was poorly designed by an inexperienced engineer, inadequately constructed and should never have been issued a building permit, a government report said Monday.

The Canterbury Television (CTV) building crumbled to the ground during the 6.1-magnitude earthquake that rocked Christchurch on Feb. 22, 2011. The building's collapse was responsible for nearly two-thirds of the 185 deaths from the quake.

Monday's report was the final release from the government-ordered commission that spent months investigating the buildings damaged in the quake. Findings the commission released in February concluded that the CTV building was made of weak columns and concrete and did not meet standards when it was built in 1986. The building's designer contested those findings.

Prime Minister John Key said building failures were responsible for 175 of the 185 deaths from the quake.

"We owed it to them, their loved ones left behind, and those people badly injured in the earthquake, to find answers as to why some buildings failed so severely," Key said in a statement.

The report found several deficiencies in the CTV building's engineering design and said the city council should never have issued the building a permit because the design did not comply with the standards at the time. The commission also concluded that there were problems with the building's construction.

The commission blamed the engineers from Alan Reay Consultants Ltd. for developing an inadequate and noncompliant design and city officials for not noticing the problems.

The report said the structural design was completed by engineer David Harding, who had no experience designing multistory buildings like the CTV and was "working beyond his competence." Yet Harding never sought assistance from his boss, Alan Reay. The report blamed Reay for leaving Harding to work unsupervised, despite knowing that Harding lacked experience.

The report also found that Reay pressured city officials to approve the building despite them having some reservations about it.

Harding's lawyer, Michael Kirkland, said neither he nor his client had read through the report so they couldn't comment. Reay also declined to comment.

The report noted that the building had been issued a "green sticker" following a magnitude-7.0 earthquake in September 2010, signalling authorities had given it the thumbs-up for people to continue using it.

An investigation by The Associated Press last year found that inspection checks routinely used across the world to verify the safety of buildings following earthquakes fail to account for how well those buildings will withstand future quakes. The AP found that building occupants and public officials in Christchurch did not understand that a "green sticker" doesn't mean the building has undergone a thorough analysis of its structural health, nor that it will stay intact during future quakes.

The commission's report found that the CTV building was given a green sticker after being inspected by just three building officials, none of whom was an engineer. The commission recommended that in the future, only trained building safety evaluators be authorized to inspect buildings after earthquakes, and that government agencies should research how to account for aftershocks.

Maan Alkaisi, whose wife Maysoon Abbas died in the building's collapse, praised the commission for its thorough investigation.

"Now we know that there were many design deficiencies in the CTV building and we know who was responsible for these design deficiencies and why," Alkaisi told the AP. "I don't want to see this happening again, so we have to make sure that the recommendation made by the royal commission is adopted, that much better building standard is adopted and much better engineering practice is also adopted."

Brian Kennedy, whose wife Faye died when the building fell, said the report had brought him a measure of closure and that he was not interested in punishing the engineers or construction team involved.

"I think (I'm) trying to look forward a little more positively now," Kennedy told the AP. "Time heals a wee bit — not everything, but it makes it a little easier."

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Rugby-Lock Williams named Blues captain in Mealamu's absence

Dec 10 (Reuters) - All Black lock Ali Williams will captain the Blues during the 2013 Super Rugby season in the absence of Keven Mealamu, the Auckland-based team said on Monday.

Veteran hooker Mealamu is on extended leave and will not return until mid-March as he recovers from the rigours of a hectic 2012 season with the All Blacks and the Blues, who finished last in the New Zealand conference.

"I think it's an incredibly important time for Ali Williams," Blues head coach John Kirwan said in a statement.

"I think he's got a heck of a lot to offer this franchise, he's a world class lock with the ability to lead a team and I'm extremely enthusiastic and positive about this decision."

Kirwan said the 31-year-old Williams' recent history of injuries was taken into consideration before selecting the 77-test veteran for the job.

"He's had a bad run of injuries but I think he's ready for this because he's had a bad run and some people think he's finished. I don't believe that and neither does he," the coach said after the side's first official day of pre-season training.

Williams himself was no less excited.

"I am a hugely passionate man when it comes to the Blues and it is a great honour to lead the team next year," Williams said.

"It's an extremely tough job and I respect that. There have been many great leaders of this team before me and my job along with the team is to strengthen the strong traditions that the Blues have."

The Blues kick off their 2013 Super Rugby campaign against the Hurricanes in a Feb. 23 match in Auckland.

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