By Marc Frank HAVANA | Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:21pm EDT HAVANA (Reuters) - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro is alive and well, according to Elias Jaua, a former Venezuelan vice president who says he met with Castro over the weekend. Squelching rumors that Castro was at death's door, Jaua, a key aide to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, on Sunday showe...

By Noah Browning RAMALLAH, West Bank | Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:16pm EDT RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Gains by splittists and a low turnout have dealt a blow to Fatah, the dominant party in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which had hoped to paper over internal squabbles and a lack of cash with a strong election showing. The long-delayed elections fo...

SANAA | Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:02pm EDT SANAA (Reuters) - Three men thought to be al Qaeda militants were killed in an apparent U.S. drone attack on a car in Yemen on Sunday, tribal sources and local officials said. The men's car was driving through the south-eastern province of Maareb, a mostly desert region where militants have taken refuge after being dri...

By Mariam Karouny and Angus MacSwan BEIRUT | Sun Oct 21, 2012 1:51pm EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - The state funeral in Beirut of an assassinated Lebanese intelligence chief ended in violence on Sunday as angry mourners broke away and tried to storm the offices of Prime Minister Najib Mikati, prompting security forces to shoot in the air and fire tear g...

By Mariam Karouny and Angus MacSwan BEIRUT | Sun Oct 21, 2012 11:00am EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Violence erupted in downtown Beirut on Sunday as protesters tried to storm the offices of Prime Minister Najib Mikati after the funeral of an assassinated intelligence chief whose death they blame on Syria. Security forces shot into the air and police fir...

By Angus MacSwan BEIRUT | Sun Oct 21, 2012 9:30am EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Thousands of people mourned an assassinated senior intelligence officer at his funeral on Sunday, accusing Syria of involvement in the killing and calling for Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati to quit. Heavily armed troops and police stood guard as people flocked to Marty...

By Yeganeh Torbati DUBAI | Sun Oct 21, 2012 9:32am EDT DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran followed the United States on Sunday in denying that the two countries had scheduled direct bilateral negotiations on Iran's controversial nuclear program. The New York Times, quoting unnamed U.S. administration officials, had said on Saturday that secret exchanges betw...

BISSAU | Sun Oct 21, 2012 9:29am EDT BISSAU (Reuters) - Six people were killed in a gun battle at an airforce base near Guinea-Bissau's capital early on Sunday in what diplomatic sources described as an apparent failed counter-coup attempt. The tiny former Portuguese colony on Africa's west coast is in the mid...

By Marwan Makdesi DAMASCUS | Sun Oct 21, 2012 9:25am EDT DAMASCUS (Reuters) - A car bomb killed 13 people in central Damascus on Sunday as President Bashar al-Assad told an international mediator seeking a truce in Syria's civil war that the key to any political solution was to stop arming rebels. The bomb exploded outside a police station in the...

By Naomi O'Leary VATICAN CITY | Sun Oct 21, 2012 9:04am EDT VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict created seven new saints on Sunday including the first Native American to be canonized, as the Roman Catholic Church reaches out to its global flock to rebuff encroaching secularism. The celebration of figures who had suffered to promote the faith c...

By Joe Brock ABUJA | Sun Oct 21, 2012 8:57am EDT ABUJA (Reuters) - For decades Nigeria has failed to fix chronic electricity shortages that stifle growth and help keep millions in poverty. That is about change, the government says, when most of the power sector is privatized by the end of the year. Its target is to increase electricity output ten...

By Ali Shuaib TRIPOLI | Sun Oct 21, 2012 8:47am EDT TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan militiamen aligned to the Defence Ministry shelled the former Gaddafi stronghold of Bani Walid on Sunday, extending a feud between two towns that demonstrates the country's deep divisions a year after the veteran leader was killed. Militias, many of whom are from Misra...

By Peter Griffiths LONDON | Sun Oct 21, 2012 7:54am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron is under pressure to reassert his authority over a Conservative Party reeling after a week which saw the resignation of a senior minister and claims of incompetence and elitism at the heart of his government. After one of the most bruis...

MOSCOW | Sun Oct 21, 2012 7:34am EDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian security forces have killed 49 militants in an operation across the North Caucasus region, where rebels are fighting to carve out an Islamic state, Russia's top anti-terrorism body said on Sunday. The agency, which serves as a mouthpiece for law enforcement agencies operating in the region, ...

By Dan Williams JERUSALEM | Sun Oct 21, 2012 6:19am EDT JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel held its first major earthquake drill on Sunday, stepping away from simulated Iranian missile salvoes though officials insisted the country remained ready for any war with its arch-foe. Schoolchildren, civil servants and others participating in the annual "Turnin...

By Andrew Quinn WASHINGTON | Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:17pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Saturday denied a New York Times report that said the United States and Iran had agreed for the first time to one-on-one negotiations on Iran's nuclear program, saying it remained committed to working with major powers to resolve the standoff. The T...

BERLIN | Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:05pm EDT BERLIN (Reuters) - European Central Bank policymaker Klaas Knot has thrown his support behind German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble's call for a euro zone commissioner with power over European Union nations' budgets. The EU needs not only stricter budget discipline but also stronger debt controls, Knot, who heads...

LIMA | Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:51pm EDT LIMA (Reuters) - Argentina's president on Saturday ordered 326 sailors to evacuate a Navy frigate that was seized in Ghana to help bondholders try to recoup debts from the South American country's 2002 default. The Libertad, a training frigate, was detained in the Ghanaian port of Tema on October 2 under a court order o...

By Ali Shuaib TRIPOLI | Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:41pm EDT TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan militias captured Muammar Gaddafi's chief spokesman on Saturday, the government said, but an audio clip posted on Facebook purporting to be the voice of Moussa Ibrahim denied his capture. There was no independent verification of the authenticity or timing of the Facebo...

By Dominic Evans BEIRUT | Sat Oct 20, 2012 6:45pm EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's political opposition has called for a mass turnout at Sunday's funeral for slain intelligence officer Wissam al-Hassan, turning the ceremony into a political rally against Syrian authorities and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati. Hassan, who uncovered an alleged...

By Laila Bassam and Angus MacSwan BEIRUT | Sat Oct 20, 2012 10:54am EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Saturday he suspected the assassination of a senior Lebanese intelligence chief was linked to his role in uncovering Syrian involvement in an earlier bomb plot. As fear and anger gripped Lebanon over Friday's car bomb att...

By Noah Browning RAMALLAH, West Bank | Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:17am EDT RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinians voted in local elections in the Israel-occupied West Bank on Saturday, their first vote for six years and one with little choice, out of step with democratic revolutions elsewhere in the...

DUBAI | Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:16am EDT DUBAI (Reuters) - Bahrain's interior minister said on Saturday that the country had identified several suspects in a bomb attack on Thursday that killed one policeman and injured another following clashes between protesters and the security services in the U.S. ally. The tin...

By Oliver Holmes BEIRUT | Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:47am EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Protesters and gunmen blocked roads with burning tires in Beirut and other cities on Saturday as grief and anger over the assassination of a senior intelligence official opposed to the Syrian leadership kept Lebanon on edge. Lebanese soldiers opened fire on a group who took ...

By Marwan Makdesi DAMASCUS | Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:33am EDT DAMASCUS (Reuters) - International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi met Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem in Damascus on Saturday, pressing for a brief ceasefire between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels seeking his overthrow. Brahimi has called for a ceasefire during next week'...

By Peter Griffiths LONDON | Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:15am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of anti-austerity protesters will march in London on Saturday to protest against public spending cuts enacted by a government fighting off accusations that it is run by an upper-class elite that ignores the plight of recession-hit voters. The march comes at a tim...

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan | Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:12am EDT LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Six Afghan policemen were killed in Helmand province in a so-called "insider" attack involving a rogue Afghan policeman and a chef, local officials said on Saturday. The Taliban took responsibility for the attack, saying they had despatched a "mujahid who had infi...

JERUSALEM | Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:11am EDT JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli navy seized an international pro-Palestinian activist ship in the Mediterranean sea on Saturday to prevent it breaching its blockade of the Gaza Strip, a military spokeswoman said. She said no one was hurt when marines boarded the SV Estelle, a three-mast schooner, and that it was ...

DUBAI | Sat Oct 20, 2012 5:51am EDT DUBAI (Reuters) - A passenger bus in southwestern Iran overturned on Friday evening, killing 26 female high school students on board, Iranian media reported on Saturday. Eighteen others were injured when the bus, carrying students from the town of Borujen, flipped on the Izeh-Lordegan road, about 700 km (435 miles) sou...

KHARTOUM | Sat Oct 20, 2012 5:27am EDT KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Rebels in Sudan's western Darfur region have launched an attack on government forces, killing several people, state news agency SUNA said. Darfur has been plagued by violence since mainly non-Arab tribes took up arms in 2003, complaining the central government in Khartoum had neglected the remot...

By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS | Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:34am EDT UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The push by the Palestinians for upgraded status at the United Nations is likely to succeed, the president of the U.N. General Assembly said on Friday, while warning the United States against cutting U.N. funding over the issue. In his first major intervi...

PHOENIX | Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:21pm EDT PHOENIX (Reuters) - A federal judge barred Arizona on Friday from applying a new law that bars Planned Parenthood's health clinics from receiving money through the state because the organization also performs abortions. District Court Neil Wake granted a temporary injunction to Planned Parenthood, which had sued Ariz...

By Jonathan Allen NEW YORK | Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:03pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dozens of screening officers and supervisors at Newark Liberty International Airport, one of three main airports serving New York City, face dismissal or suspension for failing to search baggage properly, the Transportation Security Administration said on Friday. The TS...

By Tim McLaughlin and Bill Berkrot BOSTON/NEW YORK | Fri Oct 19, 2012 7:32pm EDT BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Executives at the Boston-area pharmacy whose steroid shots have been linked to a deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak have been sued in a bid to freeze their personal assets, while the death toll in the scandal rose to 21, with 268 cases of inf...

By Tabassum Zakaria WASHINGTON | Fri Oct 19, 2012 7:23pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican senator on Friday accused the head of the Secret Service of making potentially misleading statements to Congress about a prostitution scandal involving agency employees before a presidential trip to Colombia in April. Senator Ron Johnson, the senior R...

By Mary Slosson Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:57pm EDT (Reuters) - Rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit on Friday against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, accusing it of unlawfully detaining immigrants at the behest of the federal government for days beyond when they should have been released. The suit highlights the detention of a British filmmake...

By Mary Wisniewski CHICAGO | Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:56pm EDT CHICAGO (Reuters) - A Republican congressman from Illinois waded into controversy with a suggestion that abortion is never necessary to save the life of a mother, two months after a colleague drew fire for saying women were unlikely to become pregnant from "legitimate rape." Representative ...

By Jane Sutton GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba | Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:45pm EDT GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The death penalty trial of five Guantanamo prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks is so important that it should be televised to the public, defense lawyers argued on Friday. The issue was discussed on...

By Jim Forsyth Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:16pm EDT (Reuters) - The campus of Texas A&M University, one of the biggest in the United States, was evacuated for several hours on Friday after school officials received a bomb threat, the latest such incident at a U.S. university in recent weeks. The threat came in an anonymous email delivered shortly before noon, ...

By Oliver Holmes and Mariam Karouny BEIRUT | Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:38pm EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Senior Lebanese intelligence official Wissam al-Hassan, who led the investigation that implicated Syria and Hezbollah in the assassination of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, was killed by a huge car bomb in Beirut on Friday. Hassan was also the brai...