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The US embassy in Kabul said some of those released were responsible for the deaths of Afghan civilians, and Afghan and coalition troops.

Kabul, which took over control of Bagram last year, insists there is not enough evidence against the detainees.

President Hamid Karzai has described the jail as a "Taliban-making factory".

'Never considered' The detainees began to emerge from the prison gates in groups of half a dozen or so on Thursday morning, the BBC's David Loyn in Kabul reports.

Some were laughing and smiling as they boarded a bus and taxis to leave the facility, which is now called the Parwan Detention Facility and is about 45km (28 miles) north of Kabul.

Our correspondent spoke to one of the freed men, Nurullah, who US forces accuse of being a Taliban commander responsible for operations that resulted in the death of a US soldier in Logar province.

Sitting in a cafe, eating his first meal in freedom since his capture last March, Nurullah denied the allegation, saying he had been training as a builder.

In a statement, the US embassy said: "The Government of Afghanistan's decision to release 65 detainees from the Parwan Detention Center is deeply regrettable."

It said: "We requested a thorough review of each case. Instead, the evidence against them was never seriously considered."

Washington says one of the men was captured after being wounded during an attack on Afghan forces.

Others were reportedly arrested carrying weapons including shotguns, assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade-launchers and bomb-making equipment.

The embassy said: "The Afghan government bears responsibility for the results of its decision."

The US forces in Afghanistan said that some of the other prisoners released since the Afghans took over control of the prison had "already returned to the fight. Additional released detainees may continue to fill the ranks of the insurgency".

The releases mark a new low in relations between Afghanistan and the US forces in the country, our correspondent says.

He adds that the decision is a political one taken personally by President Karzai.

The facility, which houses mainly Taliban and other insurgents captured by Western military forces, has been at the centre of a number of prisoner abuse allegations.

The BBC's Yalda Hakim was recently allowed unprecedented access.

Jonathan Rosenberg, the former head of product management at Google, will be appointed as the Chief Operating Officer of Motorola Mobility with responsibility for day-to-day management, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Nikesh Arora, Google's Chief Business Officer, will remain Executive Chairman of the Motorola Operating Board, overseeing strategy, the sources said. Dropbox and Google declined to comment.

Lenovo, which bought Motorola Mobility for $2.9 billion in January, said they were aware of Woodside's appointment, which was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal. "We are aware of this change, but we are absolutely committed to this acquisition, and remain completely confident in the Google and Motorola leadership team," a Lenovo spokesman said in an email to Reuters.

The deal is awaiting regulatory approvals, including from the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States to ensure it does not threaten national security.

Dropbox, the 6-year-old Silicon Valley startup many expect to go public sometime this year, is taking advantage of flush investors and skyrocketing valuations for fledgling tech companies. Dropbox secured $250 million from a fund managed by BlackRock Inc BLK.N and other investors last month in a new funding round that valued the company at almost $10 billion.

Donahoe also defended the combination of eBay and PayPal and played down the potential of the company's same-day delivery service, eBay Now, during a talk at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference.

Activist investor Carl Icahn recently bought a stake in eBay and has been pushing Donahoe and the board to spin off the PayPal payments business, arguing it would be worth a lot more as an independent company.

EBay has so far rejected the proposal. When the company initially disclosed Icahn's proposal in January, it announced a new $5 billion share buyback plan. The move was designed to deflect potential criticism that eBay is not using its large cash position effectively enough.

Icahn had been hounding Apple about the same issue but backed off recently after that company bought back $14 billion worth of its stock in a two week period following disappointing results.

On Wednesday, Donahoe was asked why eBay was not being more aggressive with its share repurchase plan.

Donahoe noted that eBay has about $3 billion in U.S. cash, $2 billion less than the size of its recently announced $5 billion buyback plan.

That suggests eBay may have to raise additional capital through borrowing and Donahoe noted that the cost of issuing debt is low at the moment.

"We could take on more debt but we think it's important to maintain an A rating," the CEO said.

When eBay announced its new buyback authorization, Moody's Investors Service, a leading credit rating agency, said eBay's A2 long-term rating was not affected.

"With the sharp increase in its repurchase authorization, the company is likely to use some debt funding," Moody's added.

Debt funding for about half of the new buyback, or $2.5 billion, would leave eBay's adjusted debt-to-EBITDA ratio in the low 1x range, which is consistent with the rating agency's expectation, Moody's said.

"However, Moody's views the increased levels of share buybacks as marking a potential shift in eBay's traditionally conservative financial policies," the agency added.

Across the country, nearly 1.2 million people enrolled in health plans last month through the new insurance exchanges — more than federal officials had envisioned when they compiled monthly targets late last summer, weeks before the sign-ups began.

The figure is part of a detailed report issued Wednesday by the Obama administration, providing the latest look at how the effort to extend health insurance to more Americans is faring.

The report suggests that January was the first month in which enrollment was not dampened by serious computer defects, which initially stymied people trying to use the federal online marketplace, HealthCare.gov, and some of the 14 similar marketplaces run by states.

Still, the lingering imprint of those early problems remains visible in the new report. Overall, the 3.3 million people who have signed up for coverage are about 1 million fewer than federal officials had anticipated by the end of January. That difference dovetails with a revised prediction last week by congressional budget analysts — that 6 million Americans, instead of 7 million, are likely to get insurance through the marketplaces by the time this year’s sign-up period ends March 31.

Winnowing the ranks of the uninsured is a central goal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which created the online marketplaces. In issuing the latest report, the government’s top health official and several aides said they did not yet have data to answer two critical questions: Of the people who have signed up, how many have paid their first premium so that they actually have coverage? And how many of them previously lacked insurance, as opposed to having simply switched insurance plans?

Nonetheless, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called the numbers “very, very encouraging news,” and she said, “We are seeing a healthy growth in enrollment.”

Sebelius and the report focused attention on a slight increase in the proportion of young adults signing up for coverage — a part of the population whose participation is widely considered essential to keeping the marketplaces working well, because they tend to be healthy and, thus, inexpensive to insure.

Britain is Google's biggest overseas market and the only one for which it breaks out separate sales figures and in recent years the discrepancy between the company's high UK revenues and low tax bill have prompted criticism from politicians.

Google declined immediate comment on the UK sales figures.

Figures in Google's 10-K annual report filed on Wednesday showed UK sales growth slowing from 20 percent in 2012 and 22 percent in 2011.

Google's growth in U.S. sales also slowed in 2013, rising just 14 percent, compared to 34 percent in 2012.

The Mountain View, California-based company reported forecast-beating fourth quarter global revenue last month, despite a decline in prices for its online ads.

Google publishes its British tax bill in a separate UK filing later in the year. In 2012, the company had a tax bill of 35 million pounds ($55 million), including a 24 million charge in relation to previous years, on sales of $4.9 billion to British customers.

Highway officials in Maryland and Virginia asked drivers to stay off the roads if possible on Thursday, saying their trucks were steadily plowing and putting down salt and brine but were having a tough time keeping up.

“As soon as we go through and do a route, it’s covered up again,” said Charlie Gischlar, a spokesman with the Maryland Department of Transportation. Flakes fell thick and fast in the early morning hours, but changed to sleet and freezing rain in some areas as the skies lightened and the temperatures rose above freezing.

Metro’s rail system was operating on a normal schedule, with trains every six to 12 minutes keeping snow from accumulating on above-ground tracks. But the agency suspended all bus service and warned that snow depths of 8 inches or more on the tracks could halt above-ground service.

Police officials said there were no reports of major accidents, but they had responded to a number of incidents where cars slid off the road or become stuck. Northbound lanes of the George Washington Memorial Parkway were closed from the Key Bridge to Interstate 495, U.S. Park Police said, and Rock Creek Parkway was closed between Ohio and Beach drives.

All runways were closed at Ronald Reagan National Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport. More than 300 flights were canceled at Reagan, along with 123 at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, according to FlightAware. At Dulles, 201 flights were canceled.VRE shut down. Amtrak was running reduced service in the Northeast.

The best advice, many police and highway officials warned: Stay home if you can. And if you must go out, allow extra time - and extra space between vehicles.

“You have to drive waaayyyy below the speed limit,” said Sgt. Mark Cummings of the Maryland State Police.

The National Weather Service reported 11 inches of snow in Rockville and 12 in Kensington as of 6 a.m. There were six inches of snow at National airport, eight inches in Arlington and a foot or more in Herndon, Oakton and other parts of Fairfax County.

But even though new pricing structures from Republic Wireless, Aio, Ting, T-Mobile and Virgin Mobile challenge the traditional payment model, two-thirds of smartphone owners still sign contracts that often include subsidized phones, and the choices available to American phone subscribers remain limited.

In most European and Asian countries, the mobile market is different, with a host of midrange, affordable phones available to buy outright. So why are Americans still so limited in their phone choices?

It's largely an issue of transparency. In the U.S., traditional plans offer a tempting, subsidized upfront prices on must-have phones like the iPhone 5s and Samsung Galaxy S4 by getting you to sign a two-year contract in exchange for a big discount on the phone. Customers then pay off the rest of the phones cost each month of their contract.

However, even when your contract is up, your bill doesn't go down — even though the phone is more than paid off by then. Consumers are expected to rinse and repeat, paying an upgrade fee for a new phone and locking themselves in for another two years. By contrast, carriers in Europe and Asia frequently offer plans that only charge for a handset until it's paid off.

Subsidized or not, U.S. consumers still have fewer smartphones to choose from compared with their European and Asian counterparts.

That's largely due to stunted competition: When providers hide the upfront cost of phones, there's less competition to put out quality devices that you can afford to simply buy outright.

Such smartphones exist elsewhere. For example, at last month's International CES in Las Vegas, we saw Meizu's gorgeous MX3. It is slim, fast and performs on par with the $699 Samsung Galaxy S4, but costs only around $410 overseas. Lenovo's Vibe X smartphone costs around $415 out of pocket overseas and features a slim profile and HD screen. But neither the Vibe X nor MX3 is currently sold by U.S. providers, and the providers are largely to blame.

The friendly takeover comes as a surprise after months of public pursuit of Time Warner Cable by smaller rival Charter Communications Inc, and immediately raised questions as to whether it would pass the scrutiny of anti-trust regulators.

Comcast will pay $158.82 per share, which is roughly what Time Warner Cable demanded from Charter.

The combined company would divest 3 million subscribers, about a quarter of Time Warner's 12 million customers. Together with Comcast's 22 million video subscribers, the roughly 30 million total would represent just under 30 percent of the U.S. pay television video market.

The new cable giant would tower over its closest video competitor, DirecTV, which has about 20 million video customers.

If successful, the deal will be the second time in little more than a year that Comcast has helped reshape the U.S. media landscape after its $17 billion acquisition of NBC Universal was completed in 2013.

The proposed combination, which would give roughly 23 percent of the merged company to Time Warner Cable shareholders, is subject to approval from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. The two companies expect to close the deal, which has no break-up fee, by the end of the year.

The new partners are concentrated in different cities. Comcast would fill in its New Jersey and Connecticut portfolio with Time Warner Cable's New York City customers, for instance, and add major markets such as Los Angeles and Dallas.

"Comcast and Time Warner Cable don't compete and Comcast can easily divest a few million subscribers," said BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield.

While the attempt to merge the two largest U.S. cable operators would face close scrutiny, a divestiture of subscribers should help its case with regulators, he added.

It was not yet clear which markets Comcast would sell.

The companies expect to create $1.5 billion in operating savings, with 50 percent of those savings expected in the first year.

Representatives for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice could not be reached for comment.

The proposed deal will be accretive to Comcast, which plans to expand its stock buyback program to $10 billion at the close of the transaction.

UN vehicles towed trailers of food into the city, and aid agencies prepared buses to transport fleeing civilians.

The current ceasefire deal is due to end late on Wednesday, but the regime has said it will allow an extension.

Hundreds were evacuated from the Old City after a truce was agreed last Friday, but more than 1,000 remain.

The BBC's Lyse Doucet, in Homs, says every precaution is being taken with the latest food delivery.

An abandoned ballroom on the edge of Homs is being used to care for evacuees, Lyse Doucet says Red Crescent vehicles were attacked on their way to the Old City at the weekend, and their workers were briefly trapped.

In other developments:

Russia has again rejected the idea of a UN Security Council resolution that would call on all sides to allow aid workers access across Syria Syrian government and opposition delegations arrive for a third day of talks in Geneva, after the UN's declared the talks "laborious" on Tuesday Syrian government forces have stepped up an assault on the opposition-held town of Yabroud, near the Lebanese border, with 10 air strikes reported. Lebanese officials told the BBC dozens of families are streaming over the border in anticipation of a major assault

'Weeding out terrorists'

Government troops have besieged Homs for 18 months.

Evacuations over the weekend were facilitated by a three-day truce, which was then extended until Wednesday.

But the operation was suspended on Tuesday because of what UN and Syrian officials said were logistical reasons.

Homs governor Talal Barazi said the temporary truce could be extended further if necessary.

The UN's local aid chief Yacoub El Hillo, who is overseeing the operation, told the BBC it was "crucial" that the evacuations continued.

Convoys came under fire at the weekend, and Mr Hillo described his visit to Homs as like a "day in hell".

UN agencies have also expressed concern over the fate of dozens of men who were taken in by Syrian security personnel after they fled Homs.

UN rights spokesman Rupert Colville said it was "essential that they do not come to any harm".

First, he wants to thank them. And second, he wants to tell them that he took it down for their own good.

GreatFire.org, a China-based freedom of speech advocacy group, said in a statement on Tuesday that Bing was filtering out both English and Chinese language search results for terms such as "Dalai Lama", the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader whom Beijing brands as a violence-seeking separatist, charges he denies.

Microsoft, responding to the rights group's allegations, said a system fault had removed some search results for users outside China. The company has in the past come under fire for censoring the Chinese version of internet phone and messaging software Skype.

"Due to an error in our system, we triggered an incorrect results removal notification for some searches noted in the report but the results themselves are and were unaltered outside of China," Stefan Weitz, senior director for Bing, said in a statement emailed to Reuters on Wednesday.

Weitz did not say if the error had been fixed and Microsoft officials in Beijing declined to elaborate.

Microsoft sent a shortened version of the statement to China-based media organizations which omitted all reference to GreatFire.org and did not address the allegations.

"There were too many points in the original statement," a China-based Microsoft spokeswoman told Reuters.

Reuters reporters found that Bing omitted several websites that showed up on the search engine of rival Google Inc when they searched for "Dalai Lama" in Chinese from Singapore. The English-language search results on both engines were similar.

China's ruling Communist Party sees censorship as key to maintaining its grip on power, recognizing that social media offers a platform for citizens to air grievances and criticism of the government, a potential trigger for social unrest.

This censorship often means foreign Internet companies must tread a careful path in China to exploit business opportunities without compromising a carefully nurtured image as champions of open societies and free speech.

All internet firms operating in China comply with the government's web censorship requirements.

Microsoft has made no secret of its aim to build a bigger presence in China, a market where its software is widely used but rarely paid for.

Microsoft was criticized for censoring the Chinese version of Skype, which it ran jointly with Hong Kong-based TOM Group. In November, Microsoft said it had formed a new joint venture with Guangming Founder, and advocacy group GreatFire.org said Skype in China was no longer being censored.

It also announced an update to its "forward guidance" policy laying out the likely path for rate changes, saying it will focus on a range of measures of the spare capacity, or slack, in Britain's economy.

The BoE said interest rate increases in line with current market expectations seemed consistent with keeping inflation close to its 2 percent target. It added that markets priced in a first rate rise in the second quarter of 2015.

It stressed that any interest rate rises would be gradual, and that the ultimate level of British interest rates was likely to end up well below the 5 percent average before the financial crisis.

The Bank's governor, Mark Carney, defended the BoE's decision to adopt a forward guidance plan last year, even though the first version was quickly overtaken by a fast fall in the unemployment rate to which the pledge of low rates was linked.

"Forward guidance is working," Carney told a news conference. "Expected interest rates have remained low even as the economy has recovered strongly, uncertainty about interest rates has fallen, and most importantly, UK businesses have understood the message."

Sterling hit a two-week high against the dollar and British government bond prices fell after the Bank's announcement.

The BoE was forced into making a new statement on when and how it intends to raise interest rates by the unexpectedly sharp fall in unemployment since Carney made his first stab at forward guidance in August.

Shortly after arriving from his native Canada, Carney persuaded the other eight BoE policymakers to make an unprecedented pledge to keep rates on hold until unemployment fell to 7 percent. The Bank said that would take three years.

Barely six months later, unemployment stands at 7.1 percent, and the BoE forecasts it hit 7 percent in the three months to January and will sink further to 6.5 percent by early next year.

Carney said the BoE would now monitor a broad range of indicators including unemployment, business surveys and the number of hours worked as it weighs up the need for an increase in interest rates.

Britain's economy has grown at an annualized rate of 3 percent since August. But output is still 2 percent below its 2008 peak, unlike many other advanced economies, which have more than made up the damage caused by the financial crisis.