DealBook: HSBC Sells Stake in Chinese Insurer for $9.4 Billion

HONG KONG — HSBC Holdings, one of Europe’s biggest banks, said Wednesday it would sell its entire stake in a leading Chinese insurer to a Thai conglomerate for 72.7 billion Hong Kong dollars ($9.4 billion.)HSBC said it would sell its 15.6 percent stake in Ping An Insurance, based in Shenzhen, to the Charoen Pokphand Group, controlled by the Thai billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont, in a deal to be financed...

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Fatal incident reflects new boldness among offshore smugglers

The small Coast Guard inflatable vessel was 20 yards from the panga, an open fishing boat that law enforcement officers say...

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LeBron James wins Sports Illustrated annual award

(Reuters) – LeBron James of the Miami Heat was named as Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year for 2012, the U.S. magazine announced on Monday.In an outstanding year, the 27-year-old James won his first NBA championship, his third league Most Valuable Player (MVP) award, was named MVP of the NBA finals and a won gold medal with the United States at the London Olympics.He became just the sixth...

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Global Update: GlaxoSmithKline Tops Access to Medicines Index

Sang Tan/Associated PressGlaxoSmithKline hung on to its perennial top spot in the new Access to Medicines Index released last week, but its competitors are closing in. Every two years, the index ranks the world’s top 20 pharmaceutical companies based on how readily they get medicines they hold patents on to the world’s poor, how much research they do on tropical diseases, how ethically...

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Deficit Talks Stumble Over Down Payment

Alex Wong/Getty ImagesSenator Kent Conrad in Washington last month. He sees “confusion between the initial down payment and the framework.” WASHINGTON — For all the growing angst over the state of negotiations to head off a fiscal crisis in January, the parties are farthest apart on a relatively small part of the overall deficit reduction program — the down payment. President Obama and the...

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Coast Guard officer is killed after suspected smugglers ram his boat

A veteran U.S. Coast Guard officer was killed Sunday after suspected smugglers rammed his vessel near Santa Cruz Island, casting...

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Senators urge Obama to release more water into Mississippi River

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sixteen U.S. senators have appealed to President Barack Obama to divert more water to the Mississippi River to prevent barge traffic from shutting down due to low water on the country’s inland waterway, a crucial route for goods bound for export.Low water is a looming disaster, said the senators in a letter to Obama that was released on Friday.The senators, from states along...

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Call That Kept Nursing Home Patients in Sandy’s Path

Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesWorkers were shocked that nursing and adult homes in areas like Rockaway Park, Queens, weren’t evacuated. Hurricane Sandy was swirling northward, four days before landfall, and at the Sea Crest Health Care Center, a nursing home overlooking the Coney Island Boardwalk in Brooklyn, workers were gathering medicines and other supplies as they prepared to evacuate. ...

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Disruptions: Silencing the Voices of Militants on Twitter

Twitter, perhaps more than any other social media outlet, has become one of the most powerful tools to promote democracy in the Middle East.The service, which helped Arab Spring protesters in their drive for a new order in the region, is now under attack over aiding and abetting terrorist organizations.Along with six other Republican lawmakers, Representative Ted Poe, a judge turned Texas Congressman,...

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After a billion, what next for Facebook?

MENLO PARK — In just eight years, Facebook signed up more than half the world's Internet population.Now it's going after the...

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