We walk from the train station toward a Guatemalan restaurant where we decide to have breakfast. It’s 11 a.m. on a summer day in August, a little late to be eating the first meal of the day, but Sandra, Miguel and Robert requested the day off of work to be with us, and they decided that before opening the doors to their private life, we should get to know each other briefly. The restaurant is c...

By Adrian Krajewski and Christian Lowe WARSAW | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:56am EST WARSAW (Reuters) - The European Commission is investigating why Poland's government is refusing to pay dozens of foreign contractors for work carried out under a road-building program worth billions of euros and backed by ...

By Jibran Ahmad PESHAWAR, Pakistan | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:56am EST PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Three workers in a polio eradication campaign were shot in Pakistan on Wednesday, and two of them were killed, the latest in an unprecedented string of attacks over the past three days that has partially halted the U.N.-backed campaign. The United Nati...

By Jane Chung and Jack Kim SEOUL | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:52am EST SEOUL (Reuters) - The daughter of a former military ruler took a commanding lead in South Korea's presidential election on Wednesday, putting her on track to become the country's first woman head of state. A win for 60-year old conservative Park Geun-hye would see her return to the pr...

PARIS | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:44am EST PARIS (Reuters) - More journalists were killed doing their job in 2012 than in any year since monitoring started 17 years ago, with Syria and Somalia seeing a particularly heavy toll, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Wednesday. Eighty-eight journalists were killed, a ...

GENEVA | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:38am EST GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations appealed on Wednesday for $1.5 billion to provide life-saving aid to Syrians suffering from a "dramatically deteriorating" humanitarian situation. The twin appeals, $519.6 million for aid within Syria and $1 billion to meet the needs of up to 1 million Syrian refugees in five coun...

By Patrick Markey BAGHDAD | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:34am EST BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was responding to treatment on Wednesday after suffering a stroke that raised fears of a messy succession battle to replace the Kurd leader who has mediated among Iraq's competing factions. "He is showing clear signs of improvement," Najmald...

By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:17am EST VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations nuclear watchdog and Iran may have made headway in talks on Tehran's disputed atomic activities but important points remain to be settled before a deal can be clinched, diplomats said on Wednesday. Both the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran said p...

By Oliver Holmes BEIRUT | Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:32am EST BEIRUT (Reuters) - The amber light of the street lamp illuminates the boy, wrapped in a thin blanket, his legs exposed to the December cold as he sleeps by a kerbside in a wealthy district of Damascus. The child - barely in his teens, if that - was said by the opposition activist who posted hi...

LONDON | Wed Dec 19, 2012 7:38am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will withdraw nearly half of its 9,000 soldiers from Afghanistan by the end of next year as Afghan national forces take on a bigger role, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday. Nearly all of Britain's soldiers are due to pull out by the end of 2014, drawing to an end a long, costly ...

By Giles Elgood CAIRO | Wed Dec 19, 2012 6:52am EST CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian Islamist groups are planning a mass protest in Alexandria on Friday, a move that will raise tensions a day before the final stage of a referendum on a new constitution that has split the nation. The rally announced by the Muslim Brotherhood responds to a violent confro...

By Yasmine Saleh and Shaimaa Fayed CAIRO | Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:12pm EST CAIRO (Reuters) - Opponents of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi staged protests in Cairo on Tuesday against an Islamist-backed draft constitution that has divided Egypt but looks set to be approved in the second half of a referendum this weekend. Several hundred protesters out...

By Doug Palmer WASHINGTON | Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:02pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday pressed forward with plans to slap steep punitive duties on wind turbine towers imported from China at prices deemed unfairly low, even as officials welcomed a high-level Chinese delegation for trade and economic talks. The U.S. Commerce De...

By Paul-Marin Ngoupana and Madjiasra Naka Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:50pm EST BANGUI/N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Chad sent troops into neighboring Central African Republic on Tuesday to help the government there stop a rapid advance by rebels that risks sparking a new spiral of violence in the mineral-rich nation. The rebels killed 15 government soldiers during the cap...

By Shurna Robbins GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands | Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:44pm EST GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (Reuters) - Lawmakers in the Cayman Islands passed a vote of no confidence on Tuesday ousting embattled Premier McKeeva Bush from office one week after he was arrested on suspicion of corruption. Members of parliament voted 11 to 3 with one abs...

By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS | Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:18pm EST UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo found that 126 rapes were committed in an eastern town after Congolese troops fled there last month as rebels advanced on the provincial capital of Goma, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Congolese tro...

By John Irish and Louis Charbonneau PARIS/UNITED NATIONS | Tue Dec 18, 2012 4:55pm EST PARIS/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - France said on Tuesday it would address U.S. concerns about a military mission to retake northern Mali from Islamist rebels and hoped for a Security Council vote this week, but U.N. envoys said a French-U.S. agreement on the iss...

DUBAI | Tue Dec 18, 2012 4:46pm EST DUBAI (Reuters) - A former Iranian diplomat arrested in London for trying to export night-vision weapons' sights to Iran arrived back in Tehran on Tuesday after winning a six-year legal battle in Britain. A British court last month blocked the extradition of Nosratollah Tajik, wanted by the United States after agents f...

BAGHDAD | Tue Dec 18, 2012 4:13pm EST BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Troops from Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan opened fire on an Iraqi army helicopter on Tuesday, underscoring tensions between Baghdad's Arab-led central government and the Kurdish region, officials said. Iraq's government and self-ruled Kurdistan last month both sent troops from their respective armie...

ROME | Tue Dec 18, 2012 3:37pm EST ROME (Reuters) - Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Tuesday Italy would be forced to leave the euro zone unless the European Central Bank gets more powers to ensure lower borrowing costs. Berlusconi, who announced this month he will again lead his People of Freedom party (PDL) in a national election expecte...

By Dan Williams JERUSALEM | Tue Dec 18, 2012 2:59pm EST JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli officials said they would press on with plans this week to build 6,000 homes for settlers on land claimed by Palestinians, defying criticism from Western powers who fear the move will damage already faint hopes for a peace accord. Stung by de facto recognition o...

By Daniel Wallis CARACAS | Tue Dec 18, 2012 2:53pm EST CARACAS (Reuters) - Gathered in the yard of a small home in the Venezuelan countryside, a young man with dreadlocks asks a bearded musician clutching a guitar: "Who can Chavez rely on?" "All of us! Let me tell you who we are," the older man replies, breaking into song over gritty images of wo...

Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:58pm EST (Reuters) - Apple Inc sold more than 2 million iPhone 5s in China in just three days after its launch there on Friday, its best ever smartphone launch in the country, but Apple shares fell on Monday after Citi downgraded the stock. The highly anticipated release in China, Apple's second-biggest market, has not eased worries about stiff...

By Nicholas Vinocur PARIS | Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:53pm EST PARIS (Reuters) - French conservatives, whose party has been locked in an acrimonious leadership struggle for months after losing national elections to the Socialists, agreed on Monday to hold a new vote before October. The deal raised the prospect of a return to business as usual for the UM...

CAIRO | Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:51pm EST CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's new public prosecutor, appointed by President Mohamed Mursi last month, resigned on Monday in a move welcomed by Mursi's opponents as a victory for the independence of the judiciary. Public Prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim stepped down after a furor among judges who said Mursi's decision in November ...

By Mike Collett SAO PAULO | Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:48pm EST SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil has problems like most countries but one that appears to be rapidly disappearing is the notion that it will not be ready to host the World Cup in just over 18 months' time. While anxieties remain about the Amazoni...

YENAGOA, Nigeria | Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:41pm EST YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Gunmen kidnapped four foreigners and two Nigerians working for South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries in southerly oil-producing Bayelsa state on Monday, the police said. Kidnapping is rife in Africa's top oil producer, making millions of dollars a year for criminal gangs. It is ...

ROME | Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:37pm EST ROME (Reuters) - Whichever party wins Italy's next election must make wide-ranging reforms after opportunities were wasted during the turbulent legislative period now drawing to an end, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said on Monday. "Five years is enough time for the next government" to undertake a series of neede...

BUDAPEST | Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:31pm EST BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Thousands of Hungarian students rallied on Monday, piling pressure on the government to give up plans for cuts in state financing to higher education. The protesters marched through central Budapest to the public radio station which broadcast a summary of demands from the students who sang the n...

By Ju-min Park SEOUL | Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:25pm EST SEOUL (Reuters) - Living on $2 bowls of rice in rows of tiny rooms, thousands of young South Koreans are voting early ahead of Wednesday's presidential election as they cram for exams that they hope will lead to a government job for life. There are 30,000 residents of a drab neighbourhood of the ...

By Fatos Bytyci PRISTINA | Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:50pm EST PRISTINA (Reuters) - A court in Kosovo jailed five men on Monday for a total of 54 years for murder and attempted murder in a case stemming from a period of deadly political score-settling after the country's 1998-99 war. The men were described in witness testimony as members of a shadowy int...

By Yeganeh Torbati DUBAI | Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:31pm EST DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's foreign minister said on Monday a way must be found to end the deadlock with major powers over the country's nuclear programme, an Iranian news agency reported, but he offered no new initiative on how to achieve this. Ali Akbar Salehi's comments came ahead of an expec...

By Andrew Quinn WASHINGTON | Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:17pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday received an official review of the September attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, setting the stage for testimony on an incident that prompted a political furor and sharp questions about security at U.S. ...

By Mariam Karouny and Dominic Evans BEIRUT | Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:47pm EST BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa said that neither the forces of President Bashar al-Assad nor rebels seeking to overthrow him can win the war which is now being fought on the outskirts of Assad's powerbase in Damascus. Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim in a po...

By Deisy Buitrago CARACAS | Sat Dec 15, 2012 7:53pm EST CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has recovered "full intellectual capacity" after a six-hour cancer operation in Cuba this week, an official said on Saturday, but offered few details on the socialist firebrand's physical condition. Chavez's health weakened sharply after h...

By Owolabi Tife YENAGOA, Nigeria | Sat Dec 15, 2012 7:49pm EST YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - The governor of Nigeria's volatile Kaduna state and a former national security adviser were among six killed when a helicopter crashed in the southerly oil-producing Bayelsa state on Saturday, officials said. The helicopter wobbled in the sky before nose-d...

By Linda Sieg TOKYO | Sat Dec 15, 2012 9:34pm EST TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan voted on Sunday in an election expected to return the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to power after a three-year hiatus, giving ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a chance to push his hawkish security agenda and radical economic recipe. Polls opened at 0700 a.m. (220...

By Tamim Elyan and Yasmine Saleh CAIRO | Sat Dec 15, 2012 5:19pm EST CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamists attacked the offices of an Egyptian opposition party newspaper on Saturday, security sources said, as people voted on a new constitution intended to pull the country out of a growing political crisis. The newspaper of the Wafd party in Cairo was targe...

By Dominic Evans BEIRUT | Sat Dec 15, 2012 4:31pm EST BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran's army chief of staff warned NATO on Saturday that stationing Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkey's border with Syria was setting the stage for world war. General Hassan Firouzabadi, whose country has been a staunch supporter of President Bashar al-Assad throughout...

By Jibran Ahmad PESHAWAR, Pakistan | Sat Dec 15, 2012 3:28pm EST PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Taliban suicide squad staged an audacious car bomb, rocket and gun attack on the airport in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Saturday and Pakistani security officials said at least nine people, including five attackers, were killed. The night rai...