Retailers launch online bargains

24 December 2012 Last updated at 12:20 ETThe battle for the consumer has moved online with retailers bringing forward the start of sales after reports of lacklustre spending on the High Street.Marks & Spencer and John Lewis are among major names to start discounting online in the hope that shoppers will be browsing sites over Christmas.Sales online have traditionally begun on Christmas Day or...

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Syria jets kill tens as international envoy visits

BEIRUT (AP) — A government airstrike on a bakery in a rebel-held town in central Syria killed more than 60 people on Sunday, activists said, casting a pall over a visit by the international envoy charged with negotiating an end to the country’s civil war.The strike on the town of Halfaya left scattered bodies and debris up and down a street, and more than a dozen dead and wounded were trapped in tangled...

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Sri Lanka arrests 100 Chinese for cyber fraud, police say

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka on Saturday arrested at least 100 Chinese nationals accused of an internet fraud scheme targeting people in their home country, a police spokesman said.The accused, all in Sri Lanka on tourist visas, are suspected of hacking into computers in China and then demanding their owners transfer them money, police spokesman Prishantha Jayakodi told Reuters.Chinese police requested...

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CBS’ ”The Job” Gets Premiere Date

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Survivor” maestro Mark Burnett‘s latest reality TV venture, “The Job,” will premiere February 8 at 8 p.m. on CBS, the network said Thursday.The series, executive produced by Burnett and Michael Davies (of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” renown) and Jay Bienstock, will give contestants the chance to score jobs at prestigious American companies through several rounds of...

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Fear, finger-pointing mount over U.S. fiscal cliff

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top U.S. lawmakers voiced rising fear on Sunday that the country would go over “the fiscal cliff” in nine days, triggering harsh spending cuts and tax hikes, and some Republicans charged that was President Barack Obama‘s goal.“It’s the first time that I feel it’s more likely that we will go over the cliff than not,” Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said...

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Italy’s Monti opens door to seeking new term

ROME (Reuters) – Two days after stepping down, Mario Monti announced on Sunday he would consider seeking a second term as Italian prime minister if approached by allies committed to backing his austere brand of reforms.The former European commissioner, appointed to lead an unelected government of experts to save Italy from financial crisis a year ago, resigned on Friday but has faced growing calls...

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Canada spending growth sluggish in November, Mastercard says

(Reuters) – Canada‘s holiday shopping season got off to a slow start in November with retail sales rising only 1.3 percent from the previous year, compared with 4.2 percent growth a year earlier, according to data released by MasterCard on Thursday.Still, the shopping season was still young in November. MasterCard Advisors, the payment company’s research and consulting division, found that in recent...

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Slave-Revenge Film ‘Django Unchained’ Tracking Strongly With African-Americans

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Django Unchained” – about a bounty hunter who partners with a freed slave to take down a plantation owner – is tracking extremely well with African Americans, the Weinstein Company said Thursday.Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed the violent Western, which stars Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio, respectively. Opening on Christmas Day, it’s a front-runner...

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Hepatitis C tests continue after NH tech’s arrest

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Hospitals across the country recommended hepatitis C testing for about 7,900 patients last summer after a traveling medical worker was accused of stealing drugs and infecting patients with tainted syringes in New Hampshire. But five months later, nearly half of those who were possibly exposed to the liver-destroying disease in other states have yet to be tested.Described by prosecutors...

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News Corp publishing loses $2.1bn

21 December 2012 Last updated at 13:22 ETNews Corporation says its publishing wing incurred a $ 2.1bn (£1.3bn) loss in the last financial year.Revenues fell 5%, partly as a result of the closure of the News of the World, which it stopped publishing after the phone-hacking scandal broke in the UK.The company detailed the losses as it formally applied to US regulators the Securities and Exchange Commission...

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