Reuters: Top News

• Obama on track to name Clinton as top diplomat

  CHICAGO (Reuters) - Retired Marine Gen. James Jones emerged as a leading contender for White House national security adviser as President-elect Barack Obama worked on Thursday to assemble his foreign policy team.
  



• Central bankers wary of deflation

  LONDON (Reuters) - Euro zone demand is plunging and price pressures vanishing, business surveys showed on Friday, while central bankers weighed the bleak prospect of deflation.
  



• Attorney General Mukasey sounds well: White House

  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush spoke with U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Friday and the top U.S. law enforcement official sounded well after collapsing during a speech, the White House said.
  



• Bush signs law extending unemployment insurance

  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Friday signed into law an extension of unemployment benefits, the White House said.
  



• Thousands protest in Iraq against U.S. troops pact

  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr marched on Friday against a pact letting U.S. forces stay in Iraq until 2011, toppling an effigy of President George W. Bush where U.S. troops once tore down a statue of Saddam Hussein.
  



• Citigroup eyes options, including merger

  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc lost more than one-quarter of its market value on growing worries over whether it has enough capital to withstand billions of dollars of potential losses and despite new support from its largest individual investor.
  



• Verizon staff had unauthorized access to Obama's cell

  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless said on Thursday that some employees had gained unauthorized access and viewed a personal cell phone account held by President-elect Barack Obama that is now inactive.
  



• Islamists on trail of Somali pirates

  MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Dozens of Somali Islamist insurgents stormed a port on Friday hunting the pirates behind the seizure of a Saudi supertanker that was the world's biggest hijack, a local elder said.
  



• IAEA hardens fear of covert Syria atom site: U.S.

  VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday the first independent monitoring report on an alleged Syrian nuclear site had hardened suspicions that Syria was building a covert reactor and would raise pressure on it to come clean.
  



• Bush takes financial reform agenda to APEC forum

  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George W. Bush makes his last scheduled trip abroad as U.S. president on Friday, heading to an Asia-Pacific summit where he will seek support for global financial reform and hold talks on ending North Korea's nuclear program.