U.S. drops China’s Taobao website from “notorious” list

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday dropped a website owned by China‘s largest e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, from its annual list of the world’s most “notorious markets” for sales of pirated and counterfeit goods.Taobao Marketplace, an online shopping site similar to eBay and Amazon that brings together buyers and sellers, “has been removed from the 2012 List because it has undertaken...

Read More..

Sitar maker: Ravi Shankar’s legacy inspires others

NEW DELHI (AP) — The walls of Sanjay Sharma‘s music shop are lined with gleaming string instruments and old photographs of legendary musicians.Beatles George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Indian classicial musicians Zakir Hussain, Shiv Kumar Sharma and Vishwamohan Bhatt. And the man who brought these two very different musical worlds together: Ravi Shankar.Like his grandfather and father...

Read More..

Actelion says FDA accepts lung drug for review

ZURICH (Reuters) – Biotechnology company Actelion said on Friday the U.S. health regulator accepted a submission on the company’s macitentan drug, meant to treat patients with a potentially life-threatening lung condition.Actelion submitted the application for its drug for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, a condition characterized by abnormally high blood pressure in the arteries...

Read More..

HMRC warns 300,000 late filers

13 December 2012 Last updated at 19:06 ETAbout 300,000 people who have failed to send in their tax returns for 2010-11 could soon see their goods seized.The taxman is sending warning letters to those who have now run up late-filing penalties of £1,300 for that year, under self-assessment.They can still pay, or ask for the penalty to be taken off their income in 2013-14 if they are in the PAYE system.The...

Read More..

The Hobbit: Richard Armitage Talks Preparations For Playing Thorin Oakenshield

British actor Richard Armitage admitted it wasn’t a walk in the park to play a J.R.R. Tolkien character in Peter Jackson’s reimagining of “The Hobbit,” the first installment of which is on its way into theaters.Upon touching down in New Zealand, where the trilogy was shot, the cast had a lot of character preparation to do.PLAY IT NOW: Martin Freeman Discusses The Hobbit’s ‘Good Chemistry’ & Playing...

Read More..

U.S. federal agency to test RIM’s BlackBerry 10

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion said a U.S. federal agency, which recently outlined plans to move away from BlackBerry in favor of Apple Inc’s iPhone, is now set to begin testing RIM‘s new BlackBerry 10 platform and devices.The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), will early next year begin a pilot program on RIM’s new line of BlackBerry 10 smartphones and BlackBerry Enterprise...

Read More..

McAfee arrives in U.S. from Guatemala

MIAMI (Reuters) – Computer software pioneer John McAfee, who is wanted for questioning in Belize over the murder of a fellow American, arrived in Miami on Wednesday evening after he was deported by Guatemala, according to fellow passengers on an American Airlines flight.After landing, McAfee, 67, was escorted from the plane by airport security officers, passengers said. Shortly afterward, he tweeted,...

Read More..

Obama backers turn from re-election to “fiscal cliff” fight

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After a year of knocking on doors and working the phones to get President Barack Obama re-elected, Meechie Biggers had gotten over her fear of talking politics with strangers.So when she came to Washington last week, the small-town real estate agent and a few like-minded Tennesseeans paid a visit to one of their Republican senators, Bob Corker, to try to persuade him to back...

Read More..

Asian shares rise, yen slips after Fed’s stimulus steps

TOKYO (Reuters) – Asian shares extended gains for a seventh day on Thursday, after the U.S. Federal Reserve took new stimulus steps to bolster the economy, pressuring the yen with expectations the Japanese central bank will follow suit with more easing next week.While stocks gained, oil and gold fell from post-Fed rallies, as investors took profits ahead of the year-end, and concerns over the U.S....

Read More..

U.N.’s Ban launches bid to stamp out cholera in Haiti

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a $ 2.2 billion initiative on Tuesday to stamp out cholera over the next decade in impoverished Haiti, where an epidemic has killed thousands of people and been blamed on U.N. peacekeepers.Cholera – an infection causing severe diarrhea that can lead to dehydration and death – has killed some 7,750 Haitians and sickened almost 620,000...

Read More..