By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS | Mon Nov 5, 2012 1:19pm EST UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. delegations sharply criticized the United Nations' management on Monday for an almost "total breakdown in communications" with the world body's 193 member states after superstorm Sandy slammed into the U.S. East Coast a week ago. The head of U.N. secu...

By Jonathon Burch ANKARA | Mon Nov 5, 2012 1:08pm EST ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey puts four former Israeli military commanders, including the head of the army, on trial in absentia this week for the 2010 killing of nine Turks on a Gaza-bound aid ship. The trial, which begins in Istanbul on Tuesday, will further test relations between the one-time s...

By Renee Maltezou and Lefteris Papadimas ATHENS | Mon Nov 5, 2012 12:38pm EST ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's government presented a new austerity package to parliament on Monday as a week of strikes and protests kicked off over proposals that lawmakers must approve if the country is to secure more aid and stave off bankruptcy. Parliament is expected...

By Mariam Karouny and Tom Perry BEIRUT | Mon Nov 5, 2012 12:34pm EST BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Islamist suicide car bomber killed at least 50 Syrian security men in Hama province on Monday, an opposition group said, in what would be one of the bloodiest single attacks on President Bashar al-Assad's forces in the 20-month-old uprising. Another day of ...

By Andrew Hammond DUBAI | Mon Nov 5, 2012 12:16pm EST DUBAI (Reuters) - Five bombs exploded in the heart of the Bahraini capital Manama on Monday, killing two Asian street cleaners, officials said, and prompting mutual accusations from activists and a government trying to put down a mostly Shi'ite pro-democracy uprising. The Interior Ministry sai...

RAMALLAH, West Bank | Mon Nov 5, 2012 11:30am EST RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The body of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is set to be exhumed on November 26, eight years after his death, as part of an investigation to see if he was murdered, a diplomat said on Monday. Two senior Swiss forensic experts are already in the West Bank to discus...

By Emma Farge GENEVA | Mon Nov 5, 2012 11:08am EST GENEVA (Reuters) - Switzerland's neutrality is being tested as Brussels and Washington raise pressure over gaps in sanctions against Iran, in particular measures against its oil industry. While Switzerland has replicated the western line on Libyan and Syrian economic sanctions, it has reasserted ...

STOCKHOLM | Mon Nov 5, 2012 10:35am EST STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden has charged a man of Rwandan origin with taking part in the killings of thousands of people during the 1994 genocide in his homeland, the prosecutor's office said on Monday, the first such case in the Nordic country. The man, an ethnic Hutu from Rwanda who is now a Swedish citizen, was ...

ABU DHABI | Mon Nov 5, 2012 10:12am EST ABU DHABI (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday ordered an investigation into the way historic child abuse claims in a Welsh children's home were examined. The move, announced during a trip to Abu Dhabi, comes after a pedophile victim told the BBC that an unidentified Conservative Party figure ...

ROME | Mon Nov 5, 2012 7:40am EST ROME (Reuters) - Financial police in Italy said on Monday they had seized a fishing boat the previous night with 171 illegal immigrants onboard, including 34 children, that had been trying to enter the European Union undetected. Police stopped the 25-metre boat off the coast of Calabria, the toe of the Italian boot, and ...

By Catherine Bremer and Emmanuel Jarry PARIS | Mon Nov 5, 2012 7:25am EST PARIS (Reuters) - French industrialist Louis Gallois called for a patriotic effort to support shock therapy to reverse declining competitiveness on Monday as he handed in a review the Socialist government commissioned but is unlikely to heed. Gallois said his report prescri...

RAMALLAH, West Bank | Mon Nov 5, 2012 7:19am EST RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The Palestinians will press ahead with a bid to upgrade their status at the United Nations, a senior official said on Monday, brushing off a request by Israel to halt the initiative. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has renewed his call for an immediate resumption o...

DUBAI | Mon Nov 5, 2012 7:06am EST DUBAI (Reuters) - Five bombs exploded in the heart of the Bahraini capital Manama on Monday, killing two people, officials said, in rare attacks targeting civilians during the 21-month-old uprising against the kingdom's U.S.-backed rulers. The blasts, one outside a cinema, could be a sign that radical elements of the op...

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis AMMAN | Mon Nov 5, 2012 7:04am EST AMMAN (Reuters) - A bomb exploded near army and security compounds in Damascus, Syrian television reported, and fractured opposition groups seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad began unity talks abroad to win international respect and arms supplies. The 50-kilogram (110-pound) bomb,...

By Sui-Lee Wee BEIJING | Mon Nov 5, 2012 6:47am EST BEIJING (Reuters) - Two lawyers for disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai said on Monday they had no idea when his trial might start and that he was stuck in legal limbo despite the opening of a formal criminal investigation into accusations of graft and abuse of power. Bo, once a contender for ...

By Chris Meyers YOKOHAMA, Japan | Mon Nov 5, 2012 6:22am EST YOKOHAMA, Japan (Reuters) - China's leader in-waiting, Xi Jinping, will have no choice but to embark on political reforms to leave a lasting mark the way the current leadership has done with economic reforms, exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said on Monday. Xi, currently v...

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis AMMAN | Sun Nov 4, 2012 4:31pm EST AMMAN (Reuters) - A bomb exploded near army and security compounds in Damascus on Sunday, Syrian television said, and fractured opposition groups seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad began unity talks abroad to win international respect and arms supplies. The 50-kilogram (110-pound)...

JERUSALEM | Sun Nov 4, 2012 4:29pm EST JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel announced plans on Sunday to boost its Iron Dome missile interceptor system, citing successful tests of the largely U.S.-funded system conducted in light of what it called "a variety of unprecedented threats". A Defence Ministry statement said a fifth battery of the rockets used so far t...

By Gabriel Wildau and Kazunori Takada SHANGHAI | Sun Nov 4, 2012 4:20pm EST SHANGHAI (Reuters) - For all the hopes that China's forthcoming leadership change will herald a new wave of market reforms, foreign bankers don't expect to get the level playing field they crave any time soon. Trends are positive, but progress can be frustratingly slow."M...

AMMAN | Sun Nov 4, 2012 4:18pm EST AMMAN (Reuters) - The Syrian army shelled rebel positions inside a Palestinian refugee camp on the edge of Damascus on Sunday killing at least 20 people, opposition campaigners said. The Yarmouk camp, adjacent to the capital's southern entrance, has become the latest battle ground between forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad...

JOHANNESBURG | Sun Nov 4, 2012 4:18pm EST JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African police prevented the country's main opposition leader from using a public road leading to President Jacob Zuma's house in his home village on Sunday, citing safety concerns. South African media have reported the government plans to spend some 250 million rand ($28.61 million...

By Michael Martina TIANJIN, China | Sun Nov 4, 2012 3:56pm EST TIANJIN, China (Reuters) - Dong Zizhou casts his fishing net from the shore and fixes his gaze on a stand of 15 unfinished skyscrapers rising like concrete skeletons beside the Hai River, heralding China's ambition to develop the world's largest financial centre. The towers in Tianjin...

KARACHI, Pakistan | Sun Nov 4, 2012 3:43pm EST KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Gunmen wounded an Egyptian working for the United Nations Children's Fund when they fired on his vehicle in Pakistan's largest city on Sunday, police said. The motive for the attack was not entirely clear, but police said it may have been a robbery gone wrong.The shooting follow...

By Jeffrey Heller JERUSALEM | Sun Nov 4, 2012 3:28pm EST JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced skepticism on Sunday over an apparent concession from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on a major sticking point in any future peace negotiations. Comments by Abbas on Thursday that he had no permanent claim on the to...

By Sylvia Westall and Ahmed Hagagy KUWAIT | Sun Nov 4, 2012 3:23pm EST KUWAIT (Reuters) - Kuwaiti security forces fired tear gas to disperse an unauthorized demonstration on Sunday by thousands of opposition supporters against new voting rules for parliamentary elections on December 1. OPEC member and U.S. ally Kuwait has so far avoided the mass ...

PARIS | Sun Nov 4, 2012 3:07pm EST PARIS (Reuters) - The French government could propose cutting labour charges for selected sectors and companies as part of its plan to kickstart competitiveness, the junior minister for small and medium-sized business said on Sunday. In an interview with TV channel France 5, Fleur Pellerin said small-to-medium enterpris...

DUBAI | Sun Nov 4, 2012 8:07am EST DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has built an advanced drone that can take off vertically and without a runway, Iranian media reported. Iran's military regularly announces defense and engineering developments, though some analysts are skeptical of the reliability of such reports.Abbas Jam, researcher on a project for a vertical t...

By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY | Sun Nov 4, 2012 7:44am EST VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A Vatican computer expert goes before a court on Monday in a trial that could shed light on whether Pope Benedict's former butler acted alone in leaking sensitive documents or was a pawn in a bigger power struggle. Claudio Sciarpelletti is accused of aiding and ...

By Dan Williams JERUSALEM | Sun Nov 4, 2012 7:39am EST JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has stopped the unapproved influx of African migrants across its once porous border with Egypt after months of intensive counter-measures, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. More than 60,000 Africans, most of them men, have walked into the Jewish st...

LONDON | Sun Nov 4, 2012 6:58am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Text messages sent by the former head of Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers to Prime Minister David Cameron, published on Sunday, have further revealed their close personal relationship. Rebekah Brooks, who is awaiting trial on charges related to a phone-hacking scandal that prompted a public inquir...

By Ghaith Shennib TRIPOLI | Sun Nov 4, 2012 6:24am EST TRIPOLI (Reuters) - A gunbattle between two Libyan rival militias raged around a Tripoli security headquarters building on Sunday, highlighting the precariousness of peace in the capital more than a year after a popular armed revolt ousted Muammar Gaddafi. At least five people were wounded in...

By Sui-Lee Wee BEIJING | Sun Nov 4, 2012 6:23am EST BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese leaders ended a key closed-door conclave on Sunday with a decision to formally expel disgraced politician Bo Xilai from the Communist Party, in a meeting which also promoted two senior military men and approved the party constitution's amendment. The secretive four-da...

By Yeganeh Torbati DUBAI | Sun Nov 4, 2012 5:41am EST DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's parliament on Sunday told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad he must appear before the assembly within a month to explain his economic policies at a time of crisis, his second such summons in less than a year. Ahmadinejad's conservative rivals in the 290-seat assembly have ...

By Mariam Karouny BEIRUT | Sat Nov 3, 2012 5:11pm EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels attacked a military airport in the country's north on Saturday in a push to cut off Syria's biggest city Aleppo from the capital Damascus, and secure a strategic north-south corridor. President Bashar al-Assad's forces appear over-stretched with fewer fighters ...

KUWAIT | Sat Nov 3, 2012 4:43pm EDT KUWAIT (Reuters) - Kuwait said on Saturday it had not issued a permit to allow a planned protest against new voting rules and the prime minister warned police would use force if the nation was under threat. Kuwait outlawed unauthorized gatherings of more than 20 people last month after an opposition-led demonstration b...

JERUSALEM | Sat Nov 3, 2012 4:40pm EDT JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Three Syrian tanks entered the demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria on Saturday, an Israeli military spokeswoman said. "The Israeli Defense Forces have filed a complaint with the U.N. (peacekeeping) force in the area," the spokeswoman said. She had no further informa...

By Shaimaa Fayed CAIRO | Sat Nov 3, 2012 3:39pm EDT CAIRO (Reuters) - About 1,000 activists rallied in Cairo on Saturday demanding an end to brutality in Egyptian prisons and calling for a ban on torture in the new constitution. Islamist president Mohamed Mursi was elected in June following 16 months of rule by the army council that took over aft...

JERUSALEM | Sat Nov 3, 2012 3:26pm EDT JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli President Shimon Peres hailed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a courageous partner for peace on Saturday after the Palestinian leader made clear his support for a two-state solution to the decades old conflict with Israel. In an interview with Israeli television broadcast this we...

By Yara Bayoumy and Elias Biryabarema KAMPALA/MOGADISHU | Sat Nov 3, 2012 2:40pm EDT KAMPALA/MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's prime minister said on Saturday that it could be a challenge for his country if Uganda followed through on a threat to withdraw troops fighting Islamist rebels in southern Somalia. Uganda's foreign affairs ministry said ear...

BRUSSELS | Sat Nov 3, 2012 1:06pm EDT BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called on Saturday for an end to sectarian killings in Myanmar, following talks with the president of the nation which is emerging from decades of brutal military rule. In western Myanmar, 89 people have been killed in clashes between Buddhist Rak...