Bobby Farrell, singer and dancer with 1970's disco group Boney M, died early Thursday in a hotel room in Saint Petersburg, where he had been performing, city officials said. He was 61.

The Saint Petersburg investigative committee of prosecutors said the Aruba-born Dutch singer was found dead in his bed by a staffer at the city's Ambassador hotel.

Republican Florida lawmaker Ileana Ros-Lehtinen criticized U.S. President Barack Obama's move to appoint an ambassador to Damascus, accusing him of offering concessions to a country that is "destabilizing" Lebanon.

"During the past two years, Syria has continued to sponsor violent extremism and pursue dangerous weapons programs, and has also supplied long-range missiles to Hizbullah and reasserted its destabilizing influence in Lebanon at the expense of that nation's sovereignty," Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement after Obama bypassed Congress to name Robert Ford as ambassador.

Two U.S. companies this year broke new ground by winning regulatory approval to start the first experiments using embryonic stem cells on humans suffering from spinal cord injury and blindness.

The potent but hotly debated cells can transform into nearly any cell in the human body, opening a path toward eliminating such ills as Parkinson's disease, paralysis, diabetes, heart disease, and maybe even the ravages of aging.

Pope Benedict XVI is set to publish a decree on Thursday to fight money-laundering in the Vatican, three months after an investigation was launched into two senior figures at the Vatican bank.

Benedict's 'Moto Proprio' document, which will be published at noon (1100 GMT), concerns "the prevention and opposition to illegal financial activity," according to a Holy See press release.

With its religious retreats for meditation and yoga, India has long been sought out by Western visitors eager to escape the rat race and return home better prepared to face life's challenges.

Big cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, however, are becoming anything but havens of spiritual calm and inner peace for ordinary Indians, as the country's economy grows and more people leave the rural heartlands in search of prosperity.

The Swiss franc strengthened on Thursday to new highs against the U.S. dollar, Euro and the British Pound, as investors turned to the refuge currency amid weakness in other industrialized economies.

The euro slumped below the barrier of 1.24 francs in early morning trade, trading at just 1.2396 francs.

Defending champions Egypt are teetering on the brink of elimination from the African Nations Cup going into the new year while Botswana are just one win away from a fairytale first appearance.

The struggle for 14 places at the premier national-team football competition on the continent will dominate 2011 with four rounds of qualifiers starting in March and ending seven months later.

Clearer of mind and fitter of body than for some time, Serbian glamor girl Ana Ivanovic is confident she can climb back into the top 10 in 2011.

Ranked no.1 in the world in 2008, when she won her only Grand Slam singles title at the French Open,

Japan's Nintendo has issued a health warning over the 3D function on its upcoming gaming console, recommending children aged six and under do not play with it to prevent damage to their eyes.

At a promotional event near Tokyo in January, "we will offer 2Ds alone to children aged six and younger as continuing to watch 3D images for a long time could negatively affect the development of their eyes," Nintendo said.

As Lebanon braces for the international tribunal to issue indictments in the Rafik Hariri murder, the parents of the policeman believed to have cracked the case are hoping it will also shed light on who killed their son.

Major Wissam Eid, a top communications analyst with the police intelligence bureau, was assassinated in a January 25, 2008 car bombing outside Beirut.