True democracy is not created overnight. Society must be ready for democratic mechanisms. The majority of the population must feel they are citizens and be ready to devote attention, time and effort to participating in the process of government. Read full article > >

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My vision for a better Russia

Facebook will begin the process of becoming a publicly-listed company this week, valuing the social networking site at between $75bn and $100bn, reports suggest.

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Facebook ‘prepares to go public’

A British woman tells how she escaped the Costa Concordia cruise ship after it ran aground and lost her husband’s ashes in the process.

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Widow lost ashes in ship ‘chaos’

The man suspected of slashing young women’s buttocks as they shopped at Fairfax County shopping malls last year has been arrested in Peru, police said Saturday. Authorities said they did not have any details of the arrest but confirmed that Johnny D. Guillen Pimentel, 40, was in custody in Peru and that police were “just starting the process of working with federal and international authorities to return him back to Fairfax County,” said Officer Shelley Broderick, a Fairfax County police spokeswoman, in a statement. Read full article > >

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Suspected mall slasher arrested in Peru

For some intrigue at the start of this new year, take a look at the secret diplomacy under way between the United States and the Taliban . Most observers are skeptical the process will produce any breakthroughs, but it’s interesting that the talks are taking place at all. Read full article > >

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The challenge of getting the Taliban to the table

Just part of the process, he says.

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Newt’s Digs Don’t Faze Romney

The government is to overhaul the way people in England are checked to see if they are suitable to adopt children, as part of plans to speed up the process.

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New overhaul of adoption checks

Your neighborhood post office slated for closure might be saved — at least for now. The U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday it will delay the closure or consolidation of thousands of post offices across the country in response to requests from lawmakers who said the process should be stopped while Congress debates legislation to overhaul the cash-strapped mail agency. Read full article > >

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Postal Service delays closing post offices

Under pressure from nations vulnerable to climate change and their European allies, delegates to U.N. talks in Durban, South Africa, debated Friday whether to launch a process that could forge a new global warming pact by 2015. Talks were extended into Saturday as negotiators haggled over the language that would govern the process. Read full article > >

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Delegates debate how to craft new climate pact by 2015

KABUL — The Afghan government will convene more than 2,000 Afghans from across the country this week to debate the country’s future relationship with the United States , a gathering that has drawn criticism from a skeptical political opposition that describes the process as antiquated and illegitimate. Read full article > >

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Karzai to convene loya jirga, a meeting of Afghans, on U.S. relationship

The best college coaches are real teachers. The trick is to get rid of the clowns who think they’re paid seven figures to watch film and run slush funds. If an NCAA Division I coach isn’t capable of teaching a class to the general student body, they shouldn’t be employed. Coaches are at once overpaid yet underappreciated as instructors. We should ask more of them — and in the process, make it harder for college presidents to rationalize hiring frauds. Read full article > >

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The best NCAA coaches are teachers, so why shouldn’t they all have to try?

Melissa McCarthy seemingly can do no wrong this year. She caught the attention of American moviegoers in “ Bridesmaids ” and has capitalized on that by getting cast in several upcoming projects, including Judd Apatow’s “ Knocked Up ” follow-up, “This Is Forty,” and a comedy with Jason Bateman. She scored an Emmy Award two weeks ago for her performance on CBS’s “Mike & Molly” and got her own beauty pageant-winning moment on live television in the process. Read full article > >

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Melissa McCarthy: The next great ‘Saturday Night Live’ host?

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is poised to take action on safety standards for table saws, eight years after concerns about injuries were brought to its attention. Lengthy study of the issue, bureaucratic hurdles and a crush of other regulatory work prolonged the process, commissioners and consumer advocates said. In the meantime, table saws used by hobbyists, shop class students and other consumers caused an estimated 10 amputations on average a day, according to government statistics. Read full article > >

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Consumer Product Safety Commission to discuss stricter regulations for table saws

BERLIN –World markets plunged Thursday after the Federal Reserve took a dramatic step to help revive the U.S. economy — and in the process sent a message that America’s financial malaise seems unlikely to dissipate any time soon. Key European and Asian indexes were down more than 4 percent. Investors took the Fed’s surprise action to purchase longer-term bonds–an effort to push down long-term interest rates even further–as a sign that it felt the U.S. downturn could last for a long time. That pessimism added to a growing sense that the international economy is approaching a precipice. Read full article > >

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World markets fall sharply after Fed action on bonds

The State Department will remove a major roadblock to construction of a massive oil pipeline stretching from Canada to Texas when it releases its final environmental assessment of the project as soon as Friday, according to sources briefed on the process. The move is critical because it will affirm the agency’s earlier finding that the project will have “limited adverse environmental impacts” during construction and operation, according to sources familiar with the assessment who asked not to be identified because the decision has not been made public. Read full article > >

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State Department review to find pipeline impact ‘limited,’ sources say