Evening Edition

Supporters of Alassane Ouattara had intended to march on the headquarters of state television, held by his rival the incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, but fighting broke out when they were faced with heavily-armed security forces.

Former rebels loyal to Ouattara’s choice for prime minister, Guillaume Soro, fought fierce gunbattles with Gbagbo’s government security forces in Abidjan and in the central town of Tiebissou on the 2003 civil war ceasefire line.

Soldiers deployed by Laurent Gbagbo’s regime set up a cordon of armoured cars around the broadcaster’s Abidjan offices, as France and the United Nations called for restraint and warned of the dangers of a return to violence.

Young supporters of Gbagbo’s rival Alassane Ouattara massed in several poor city districts, throwing up street barricades and hurling stones at police and armed with assault rifles and backed by more armoured vehicles.

Changes to the Lisbon Treaty were demanded by Germany to enable a temporary, trillion-dollar rescue fund to be turned into a permanent umbrella that will allow governments who fall on hard times to seek and obtain help from currency partners.

While the holiday season is set to offer respite similar to that leaders experienced during the World Cup, market analysts are firmly anticipating the need to bail out Portugal next year, and possibly even Spain further down the line.

About 5.8 billion euros is immediately available to Ireland, the IMF said in a statement.

The fund’s executive board approved a three-year loan for Ireland “to support the authorities’ economic adjustment and financial stabilization program,” the 187-nation institution said.

European Union leaders met behind closed doors to lay the foundation for a permanent financial rescue system from January 2013 to protect the eurozone — a new milestone in the evolution of the 27-nation EU.

“We all share the same objective: to ensure a stable Europe and currency,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, calling the future euro crisis umbrella a “big piece of solidarity between the states that share the euro.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged European Union partners to rally behind the single currency going into a two-day summit in Brussels, saying its success depended on their unity.

The summit is set to be a milestone of sorts in the evolution of the European Union and eurozone.

“I hope to continue my work and continue to protest my innocence in this matter and to reveal as we get it — which we have not yet — the evidence from these allegations,” Assange said on the steps of the High Court where he was greeted by a media scrum.

Assange and his lawyers insist that moves to extradite him from Britain to Sweden to face questioning over allegations he sexually assaulted two women are politically motivated.

Unveiling a long-awaited policy assessment, Obama said progress was sufficient to permit a “responsible reduction” of US forces to begin in July, though the scope and size of the likely drawdown appear limited.

Despite warning the Afghan war remained a “very difficult endeavor,” Obama said a relentless US operation had Al-Qaeda under more pressure than ever and argued that US surge troops had made “considerable gains” in Afghanistan.

The long-awaited assessment says that some aspects of the high-stakes strategy are working well, after a year of record bloodshed, but many of the advances in the nine-year war remain fragile and reversible.

The report, which Obama is set to unveil later Thursday, says that after a relentless US campaign Al-Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan is weaker than at any stage of the war launched after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

An expert commission convened by President Barack Obama advised vigilance and self-regulation as scientists seek ways to create new organisms that could spark useful innovations in clean energy, pollution control and medicine.

Critics, including environmental advocates, accused the panel of not taking their concerns seriously and said that allowing science to police itself was tantamount to offering no oversight at all.

Lochte, 26, was first to get in on the action, claiming his second title here, but more importantly also the first individual world record of 2010.

He sped to victory in the 400m individual medley in 3min 55.50sec, slicing close to two seconds off the previous mark set by Laszlo Cseh of Hungary in December last year.

The complaint was filed by the Justice Department with a federal court in New Orleans, where thousands of individuals and small businesses have already sued the oil giant.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the complaint alleges that “violations of safety and operational regulations” caused the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which sent nearly five million barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf.

Morne Morkel took four wickets and Dale Steyn three as India crashed to 136 for nine after being sent in on a green, damp pitch.

Only Sachin Tendulkar, who made an elegant 36 off 34 balls, looked at ease as Steyn and Morkel confirmed their credentials as the world’s most lethal new ball pair as they scythed through the side ranked number one in Test cricket.

The long-awaited review of President Barack Obama’s escalation strategy said Al-Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan was weaker than at any time since 2001 and judged a “responsible reduction” of US forces could begin next July.

But the study was short on details and supporting evidence, and did not include pointed criticisms of the Pakistani and Afghan governments which have featured US government documents leaked in recent months.

The court awarded 15,000 euros in damages to the complainant, a Lithuanian living in Ireland, saying her rights to privacy and family life had been violated.

But it dismissed the plea of two Irish women who also had to travel to Britain to end their pregnancies because Irish law makes abortion a criminal offence if there is no risk to the life of the mother.

England, who will retain the Ashes with victory in the match, won an important toss and reduced the hosts to 69-5 after sending them in to bat on a greenish pitch, before Australia’s tail wagged to take them to a modestly competitive total of 268.

In reply, England edged safely to 29-0 at stumps, with Alastair Cook on 17 and Andrew Strauss on 12, leaving the tourists well-placed to build a commanding first innings lead on the back of their earlier good bowling and brilliant fielding.

Legal experts have said BP’s $40 billion estimate for the total cost of the oil spill — hitherto largely accepted by financial analysts — could double if the U.S. government managed to convince a court that BP had been grossly negligent.

BP and analysts had dismissed this possibility so far, but the harshly worded lawsuit filed on Wednesday by the Obama Administration spooked investors who in recent months have been betting on a BP recovery and a return to paying dividends.

The lawsuit seeks damages from the well owners BP, Anadarko Petroleum Corp and Mitsui & Co Ltd unit MOEX, and well driller Transocean Ltd and its insurer QBE Underwriting/Lloyd’s Syndicate 1036, part of Lloyds of London, for their roles in the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

“While today’s civil action marks a critical step forward, it is not a final step,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters at a news conference.

A draft proposal to apply position limits across commodity futures and swaps markets ran into objections both from commissioners who want the agency to act quicker to crack down and those who fear moving too fast will damage the market.

The surprise set-back for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s most contentious reform is the latest sign of slowing progress in implementing the sweeping Dodd-Frank bill, the biggest regulatory overhaul since the Great Depression. Republicans have stepped up calls to tap the brakes.

Authorities said another person, a former employee of Dell Inc, had pleaded guilty on December 10 to charges he had provided inside information about the company.

The case is part of a widening insider trading probe that intensified with a string of raids on hedge funds last month and subpoenas for information about their activities.

Obama, under pressure to show results after criticizing his predecessor George W. Bush for neglecting the war, insisted that U.S.-led forces were scoring gains against the Taliban and al Qaeda but warned they were fragile and reversible.

Obama said the United States was on course to meet his pledge to begin withdrawing troops by mid-2011 and transition to full Afghan security control by 2014.

Many Democrats derided as a giveaway to the wealthy the deal to extend across-the-board tax cuts. The $858 billion measure is seen as a likely boost to the economy, but would pile onto a federal debt that some fear is nearing dangerous levels.

Lacking the votes to pass a rule to govern floor debate, necessary before any major legislation can proceed, Democratic leaders abruptly pulled the measure, temporarily stopping debate.

With noon fast approaching on a recent day, however, only a handful of customers sat in one of the restaurant’s two sections and the other was closed.

Asked how the decline in the U.S. auto industry has affected the local economy, Tammy Maynard, a waitress here since 1988, waved a hand around at the empty tables and said: “You’re looking at it, sugar.”

A weary-looking Assange spoke to a crowd of journalists and supporters waiting in the snow outside Britain’s High Court five hours after a judge said he could be released on 200,000 pounds ($312,000) bail under stringent conditions.

“It’s great to smell fresh air of London again,” Assange, illuminated by a blizzard of photographers’ flashes, said.

The ECB, in charge of monetary policy in the 16-nation euro area, said it would almost double its capital to 10.76 billion euros to cope with bigger credit risk and market volatility. Euro zone members will provide the increase.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who has been critical of EU leaders’ disjointed response to the rolling crisis, said he was worried about slow growth and the threat of contagion in Europe.

ECB sources told Reuters this week the bank was considering a capital hike to cover the risk of losses on government debt of peripheral countries it has bought to support the 16-nation single currency area.

Yields on peripheral sovereign debt fell slightly after the ECB’s announcement. But analysts said the decision should be seen as a defensive measure and there was no reason to believe the bank was planning to step up its purchases.

After months of battling to put out fires, including a 110 billion euro bailout for Athens and an 85 billion euro aid package for Dublin, EU leaders will discuss changing the EU’s treaty to create a permanent crisis-resolution mechanism from 2013, and may look at enlarging their existing crisis fund.

The two-day summit comes as market pressure on the sovereign debt of peripheral euro zone states has fallen marginally before year-end, but EU officials are conscious that any failure to take decisive action could be interpreted as weakness, with the threat of further bond market fallout early next year.

Car builders led by Toyota, and gadget makers such as Sony or Panasonic became global brands. Left behind in Japan were thousands of firms, big and small, that for the most part were content to vie for their share of a big home market.

The emergence of aggressive Korean and Chinese rivals has dimmed the global manufacturing stars of Japan Inc. For the rest who plumped for a domestic existence, the pickings have become slimmer after years of recession and consumption-sapping deflation.

Previously, Bank of America had said it would not be shy about fighting investors.

Bank of America on Wednesday said the investors have agreed to continue negotiating instead of putting it into technical default over $16.5 billion of bonds.

The agency took heed of fierce objections raised by Wall Street since it first put forward a plan to cap the influx of investor capital that some blamed for driving oil and grain prices to record highs in 2008.

But the core principle remained unchanged: restricting the number of swaps and futures contracts that speculators can hold in energy, metals and agricultural derivative markets, a rule it estimated could affect nearly 80 agricultural traders and dozens of metals and energy players.

It was the eighth meeting the CFTC has held as part of a broader push by the agency to implement rules to overhaul the $600 trillion over-the-counter swaps market under the Dodd-Frank financial law enacted in July.

Speakers at the hearing include Chairman Gary Gensler and commissioners Michael Dunn, Jill Sommers, Bart Chilton and Scott O’Malia.

Dozens of firms, such as IntercontinentalExchange Inc, hope to qualify as swap trading venues as the opaque swaps market is forced onto the public stage as part of the Wall Street financial overhaul mandated by the U.S. Congress.

How market regulators define these Swap Execution Facilities, or SEFs, will determine who will be in the business of trading and brokering the swap contracts.

Relations between the world’s two fastest growing major economies are tense, despite the booming trade relationship between them. Nearly 40 years after they fought a war there are still rifts over disputed borders, and suspicion in New Delhi over China’s regional ambitions and its close ties with arch-rival, Pakistan.

But both Wen and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh exchanged vows of amity and goodwill, appearing to brush under the carpet a series of differences that have dogged relations for decades.

World leaders agreed in Seoul last month that the Basel III bank capital and liquidity rules would be phased in between 2013 and 2018. They replace Basel II which failed to ensure banks had enough capital to withstand the credit crunch, leaving taxpayers to inject trillions of dollars to shore up the financial system.

The rules were authorized by the global Basel Committee on Banking Supervision which published its final text on Thursday.

“The understandings that we reached today will help to protect American jobs and bolster America’s competitiveness and help to grow our economy,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said at the conclusion of two days of talks.

Beef exporters hailed Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan’s statement that China, in accordance with scientific principles and quarantine standards, would “resume the imports of American beef, both deboned and bone-in, under the age of 30 months.”

The funding, from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and existing Twitter investors, underscores the high hopes that investors have for Internet social networking companies.

“It’s a huge multiple. But the idea is that (Twitter’s) scale can be monetized,” said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis, who estimated that Twitter’s annual revenue was currently under $100 million.

On a largely party-line vote of 250-175, the House sent the legislation supported by President Barack Obama to the Senate, where the prospects for approval are uncertain.

The House vote came just a week after Senate Republicans blocked a similar measure to end the policy — known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — as part of an annual defense bill.

Hedge fund Paulson & Co, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) and other bondholders that filed the plan on Wednesday said the reorganization proposal offered by Lehman in March favored large banks over other creditors.

The bondholder plan, filed with a U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan, would combine the claims and assets of Lehman’s various units and pay creditors from a single pool. Lehman’s plan would treat each entity separately, allotting payouts to creditors from the entity that owed them money.

“This bill is largely a mishmash of rejected Republican ideas that cost too much to accomplish too little,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas. “The Republicans will rule the House for the next two years; let’s not give them an early start today.”

Doggett made his comments as the House began debate, but the speechmaking was interrupted after an hour so leaders could reassess the legislation’s prospects.

The internal review of President Barack Obama’s year-old war strategy unveiled Thursday says that Taliban momentum has been halted in many parts of Afghanistan and that al-Qaida leaders who are thought to be plotting further terrorist attacks on the U.S. from Pakistan sanctuaries have suffered grievous losses.

But the review makes clear that further progress won’t come easily. And it indicates that ultimate success depends heavily on factors beyond Obama’s control, such as Pakistan’s effectiveness in eliminating al-Qaida and Taliban havens on its side of the border.

The silver-haired Australian, who surrendered to British police Dec. 7, will have to observe a curfew, wear an electronic tag and report to police in person every day.

But there are no restrictions on his Internet use, even as U.S. authorities consider charges related to thousands of leaked diplomatic cables and other secret documents WikiLeaks has released. The site has released just 1,621 of the more than 250,000 State Department documents it claims to possess, many of them containing critical or embarrassing U.S. assessments of foreign nations and their leaders.

“The act would leave more constitutional damage in its wake than any other statute in our history,” David Rivkin, an attorney for the states, told Vinson.

President Barack Obama’s administration counters that Americans should not be allowed to opt out of the overhaul because everyone requires medical care. Government attorneys say the states do not have standing to challenge the law and want the case dismissed.

President Barack Obama has pushed for approval of the treaty in Congress’ lame-duck session, a chance for a foreign policy victory to cap a politically difficult year. Conservative Republicans stand in the way, asserting that the United States made too many concessions in negotiations with Russia and the treaty would limit U.S. defense options.

“They get everything out of it,” insisted Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. “I don’t know what we get out of it except for the president to say he made another arms control deal with Russia.”

Explosions and gunfire were heard throughout Abidjan – once known as the “Paris of Africa” for its cosmopolitan nightlife and chic boutiques.

An errant rocket-propelled grenade struck an outer perimeter wall of the U.S. Embassy, but no injuries were reported and the damage was minor, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington.

She’s not afraid to handle snakes. She’s not afraid of the “The Blair Witch Project,” “The Shining,” or “Arachnophobia.” When she visited a haunted house, it was a monster who was afraid of her.

SM isn’t some cold-blooded psychopath or a hero with a tight rein on her emotions. She’s an ordinary mother of three with a specific psychological impairment, the result of a very rare genetic disease that damaged a brain structure called the amygdala (uh-MIG’-duh-luh).

Republicans are calling the 1,924-page bill a pork-filled mess and accusing Democrats of trying to jam it through Congress with minimal debate and little if any opportunity to make changes. Some GOP senators voiced outrage but made no effort to dump their own earmarks from the legislation, which has been in the works for months.

The earmark-free approach promised by 39 Republicans and Democrats was adopted well after work got under way on the bill that’s coming to the Senate floor Thursday and has been endorsed by President Barack Obama. But with just a few exceptions, senators have not paired their opposition with requests to strip their earmarks from the bill.

The military jury spent nearly five hours deliberating punishment for Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin on Thursday after three days of court martial proceedings at Fort Meade, outside Baltimore.

Lakin was convicted of disobeying orders – he had pleaded guilty to that count – and missing a flight that would have gotten him to his eventual deployment. An Army commander, Maj. Gen. Karl Horst, still has to approve the sentence returned by the jury. Upon approval of the sentence, Lakin is granted an automatic appeal that would be considered by the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. He was to begin serving his sentence immediately.

Precious little oil ever washed up on the berms, according to the commission – a finding corroborated by a log of oil sightings and other government documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request.

Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered the berms built over the objections of scientists and federal agencies – and secured money from BP to do it – out of frustration over what he saw as inaction by the Obama administration. During the crisis, Jindal boasted that the sand walls were stopping oil from coming ashore, and the idea proved popular in Louisiana.

Explosions and gunfire were heard throughout Abidjan – once known as the “Paris of Africa” for its cosmopolitan nightlife and chic boutiques.

An errant rocket-propelled grenade struck an outer perimeter wall of the U.S. Embassy, but no injuries were reported and the damage was minor, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington.

The convicted dogfighting ring operator told the news site TheGrio.com that he genuinely cares about animals and would like to have one for a pet again.

“I think it would be a big step for me in the rehabilitation process,” he said.

The proposal, outlined in a report Thursday, is intended to address growing unease about the vast amounts of personal information that companies are scooping up on the Internet – from Web browsing habits to smart phone locations to Facebook preferences. That data is often mined to target advertising.

The new report is intended to guide lawmakers, industry and a White House group looking at the issues surrounding Internet privacy.

The Strasbourg, France-based court ruled that a pregnant woman fighting cancer should have been allowed to get an abortion in Ireland in 2005 rather than being forced to go to England for the procedure.

The judgment put Ireland under pressure to draft a law extending abortion rights to women whose pregnancies represent a potentially fatal threat to their own health. But Catholic leaders and anti-abortion activists insisted that Ireland had no legal obligation to do anything despite the court ruling.

Home repossessions dropped 28 percent from October and 12 percent from November last year, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

The 67,428 homes lenders took back last month were the fewest since May 2009. But even with the decline, it was enough to push the total number of repossessions so far this year to more than 980,000 – the highest annual tally of properties lost to foreclosure on RealtyTrac’s records dating back to 2005.

It was hyped to the hilt and suitably eventful, even as King and Lady Gaga regarded each other with the bemusement of a human encountering an alien life form.

Then, at the end of June, King suddenly announced he was retiring from his show – a weeknight fixture at 9 p.m. Eastern since June 1, 1985. He told viewers, “It’s time to hang up my nightly suspenders.”

The House on Wednesday sent senators legislation that would end the 1993 law that forbids recruiters from asking about sexual orientation and troops from acknowledging that they are gay.

But supporters in the Senate say there might not be enough time left on the legislative calendar to get the bill through before the end of the session. And failure could mean a lengthy delay for efforts to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy requiring thousands of uniformed gays to hide their sexual identity.

The government, in an opening salvo in its effort to get billions of dollars for untold economic and environmental damage, accuses the companies of disregarding federal safety regulations in drilling the well that blew out April 20 and triggered a deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig. Wednesday’s lawsuit is separate from a Justice Department criminal probe that has not resulted in any charges.

“The department’s focus on investigating this disaster and preventing future (spills) is not over,” Attorney General Eric Holder said during a news conference in Washington. “Both our civil and criminal investigations are ongoing.”

Ratings agencies revealed new worries about Greece, where protests against debt-driven austerity measures turned violent Thursday. The far-larger Spanish economy is also facing worryingly higher borrowing costs.

The EU set up a temporary bailout fund this year but investors have been demanding stronger assurances that the bloc’s divided leaders will protect their shared currency.

The free-speech case involves Easton Area Middle School, whose principals struggled on the witness stand Thursday when asked if T-shirts with the words “breast cancer” should be permitted on the school’s Breast Cancer Awareness Day.

The middle school, a 90-minute drive north of Philadelphia, suspended two girls in October for refusing to remove the colorful rubber bracelets, which have become wildly popular among teens across the country.

A $47 million battle plan for 2011 calls for refining technologies that detect the presence of Asian carp by identifying their DNA in water samples, and for developing better means of trapping, netting or starving carp already in waterways that lead to the lakes. It also pledges to continue initiatives begun this year, such as researching ways to prevent the unwanted fish from breeding.

“The Obama administration has taken an aggressive, unprecedented approach to protect our Great Lakes and the communities and economies that depend on them from the threat of Asian carp,” said John Goss, the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s carp program director.

Even if the Supreme Court ultimately agrees that government cannot require individuals to carry health coverage, the Obama administration could borrow a strategy that Medicare has used for decades to compel consumers to join new insurance groups.

Medicare’s coverage for doctor visits is voluntary and carries a separate premium, yet more than nine in 10 older people sign up. The reason is simple: Those who opt out when they first become eligible face a lifelong penalty that escalates the longer they wait.