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QUOTE OF THE DAY “We need to remember the simple fact that

there is only one victim in this case.That victim is Devyani Khobragade - a serving Indian diplomat on mission in the United States.” Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid, who demanded that the U.S. drop a case against a diplomat who was arrested and strip-searched in New York City Article, 7AUkraine leader rips West for meddling

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine’s president slammed the West on Thursday for supporting the street protests calling for his ouster and announced plans to partially join a Moscow-led economic union - a move likely to deepen Ukraine’s political crisis.

Speaking in a televised interview with some handpicked journalists, President Viktor Yanukovych criticized foreign nations for meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs.

Senior Western diplomats have in recent weeks attended and expressed support for the sprawling demonstrations on Kiev’s Independence Square, known as the Maidan.

“It is very important. This is our internal matter,” Yanukovych said. “Some countries should not meddle in our internal affairs and should not believe that they can be the bosses here.”

Yanukovych has faced nearly a month of angry protests since his abrupt decision to shelve a political and trade agreement with the 28-nation European Union and turn toward Russia instead.

Rebels kidnapping Syrians, U.N. says

UNITED NATIONS - Some Islamist rebel groups in Syria began abducting civilians this year to spread terror, a tactic employed by President Bashar Assad since civil war broke out in 2011, United Nations human-rights investigators said.

Armed opposition forces in northern Syria, including the al-Qaida affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, started seizing civilians for supporting Assad or rejecting their interpretation of Islam, the U.N.’s independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria said Thursday in its latest report.

The panel’s findings echo growing concern voiced by U.S. officials over the rise of militant Islamist rebel groups in northern Syria, which are achieving more success on the ground than groups backed by the West as moderates.

The bulk of the evidence in the report still points to “widespread, systematic” use of “enforced disappearances” by the Assad regime.

Mayor among 4 slain at Manila airport

MANILA, Philippines - A mayor from the southern Philippines, his wife and two others have been fatally shot in a daring attack at a Manila airport terminal that also wounded four other people.

Manila airport General Manager Jose Angel Honrado says men on a motorcycle fired at Labangan Mayor Ukol Talumpa and his wife as they stepped out of Terminal 3 today.

He says they were declared dead on arrival at a nearby air base hospital along with two others, including a 1 ½-year-old boy. It was not immediately clear if they were related to the mayor. The gunmen escaped.

Philippine airports are usually packed with passengers and well-wishers during the Christmas season.

Royal calls hacked, U.K. court told

LONDON - A court trying former British newspaper editors over purported phone-hacking on Thursday heard that one newspaper had hacked into the phone of Kate Middleton, Prince William’s then girlfriend and now his wife.

In one voice message William, who was then training at the Sandhurst military academy, called her “babykins,” while in another he revealed that he had almost been shot with blanks while on an army exercise.

Prince Harry’s phone was also hacked, the court heard.

Prosecutor Andrew Edis read out a message to William’s brother from an “unknown male” in which the caller put on a high-pitched voice and pretended to be Harry’s then girlfriend Chelsy Davy.

“Hi, it’s Chelsy here,” said the man, whom media reported was William playing a joke on his brother. “I just want to say I miss you so much and I think you are the best-looking ginger I have ever seen.”

Andy Coulson, Prime Minister David Cameron’s ex-press secretary, and Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, are among the eight defendants facing a range of charges related to the scandal over phone-hacking.