Reuters World News Highlights

KIDAL, Mali – French and Malian troops are fighting Islamist rebels in the Sahara outside northern Mali’s biggest town, France’s defence minister said yesterday, describing the desert campaign against al Qaeda as a “real war” that was far from won.
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AMMAN – Syrian rebels battled President Bashar al-Assad’s forces on the edge of central Damascus yesterday, opposition activists said, seeking to break his grip over districts leading to the heart of the capital.
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WASHINGTON – Sally Jewell, a retail executive and outdoor enthusiast, is President Barack Obama’s pick to oversee the national parks and vast energy reserves on public lands as U.S. interior secretary.
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Mark Hosenball – President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, is expected to face tough questioning about U.S. spy activities from waterboarding to the use of drones when he appears at a Senate confirmation hearing today.
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WASHINGTON – U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, already deeply immersed in high-profile domestic policy, is finding that his clout extends to foreign affairs as well, as he plays a top surrogate role for President Barack Obama in the early days of their second term.
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IRVING, Texas – The Boy Scouts of America yesterday delayed until May a vote on whether to end a controversial ban on gay members, drawing praise and rebukes from the two sides of a heated debate that has drawn in politicians as well as parents.
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WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES – The medical marijuana shop next to a tattoo parlor on a busy street in Los Angeles looks much like hundreds of other pot dispensaries that dot the city.
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LONDON – Argentina stepped up its row with Britain over the Falklands yesterday with its foreign minister thanking God for the decline of the British Empire and vowing to prosecute oil firms exploring off the remote South Atlantic islands.