By Renee Maltezou ATHENS | Thu Nov 1, 2012 9:20am EDT ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek lawyers launched their defense of a prominent journalist on Thursday charged with breaking private data rules after he published the names of more than 2,000 wealthy Greeks believed to be holding Swiss bank accounts. The printing of the "Lagarde List" by magazine edito...

By Angus McDowall RIYADH | Thu Nov 1, 2012 8:42am EDT RIYADH (Reuters) - At least 22 people were killed when a fuel truck crashed into a flyover in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Thursday, triggering an explosion that brought down an industrial building and torched nearby vehicles, officials and state media said. Health ministry spokesman Saad al-Qa...

BEIJING | Thu Nov 1, 2012 8:40am EDT BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Thursday it had proposed new initiatives to head off an escalation of violence in Syria, including a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the establishment of a transitional governing body. China has been strongly criticized by some in the Arab world for failing to take a stronger s...

By Aung Hla Tun YANGON | Thu Nov 1, 2012 8:05am EDT YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's parliament approved a foreign investment bill on Thursday and lawmakers expect it to be signed into law quickly by the president since his office had come up with wording that helped end a dispute over certain clauses. The bill had passed back and forth between the l...

By Peter Griffiths and Maria Golovnina LONDON | Thu Nov 1, 2012 7:48am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Britain faces a crisis that could end with the world's sixth largest economy leaving the European Union, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg warned ahead of a showdown over budget spending with other states in the 27-member bloc. A day after Prime Minister ...

By Sara Webb and Thomas Escritt AMSTERDAM | Thu Nov 1, 2012 7:43am EDT AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Jeroen Dijsselbloem looked set to become the next Dutch finance minister after Prime Minister Mark Rutte summoned the Labor MP, who is expected to back austerity at home and a tough line on euro zone deficit sinners, to a meeting on Thursday. Dijsselbloem...

By Mariam Karouny BEIRUT | Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:50pm EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels said on Wednesday they had begun arming sympathetic Palestinians to fight a pro-Assad faction in a Palestinian enclave in Damascus - a move which could fuel spiraling intra-Palestinian violence. Two rebel commanders told Reuters they expected their Palestinian...

By Peter Griffiths LONDON | Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:36pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron suffered a humiliating defeat in parliament on Wednesday after Conservatives rebelled over Europe, an issue that has divided his party for decades and helped bring down previous leaders. Although the result carried no legal weight, the ...

By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY | Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:52pm EDT VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes turned 500 on Wednesday with the Vatican warning it may eventually limit visitors to protect one of the wonders of Western civilization. On October 31, 1512, only 20 years after the discovery of America, Pope Juliu...

ZAGREB | Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:49pm EDT ZAGREB (Reuters) - The United States called on Wednesday for a major overhaul of Syria's beleaguered opposition, saying it was time to move beyond the Syrian National Council (SNC) and bring in those who are "in the frontlines fighting and dying today". Speaking on a visit ...

PARIS | Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:45pm EDT PARIS (Reuters) - The finance committee of France's Senate upper house rejected the law setting out government plans to hit a budget break-even by 2017 on Wednesday as its Communist members voted against it in protest at fiscal rigor across Europe. Even if the law is rejecte...

TRIPOLI | Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:30pm EDT TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya's General National Congress approved new Prime Minister Ali Zeidan's proposed government line-up on Wednesday but cut its session short as security forces fended off protesters outside. Zeidan presented a coalition cabinet on Tuesday, drawn from liberal and Islamist parties, to the national ...

By Sherilee Lakmidas JOHANNESBURG | Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:13pm EDT JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Lonmin management and workers appeared on Wednesday to be shaping up for a new battle after the strike-hit mining company said jobs would be cut. The world's third largest platinum producer, Lonmin is scrambling to get back on its feet after a violent six-wee...

CAIRO | Wed Oct 31, 2012 12:47pm EDT CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt has detained 12 Islamist militants including a Tunisian and a Libyan suspected of having links to al Qaeda and planning attacks inside the country and abroad, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday. Egypt, now run by an elected, moderate Islamist president, has been battling to quell Muslim mi...

By Orhan Coskun and Alexandra Hudson BERLIN | Wed Oct 31, 2012 12:44pm EDT BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday the European Union (EU) would pursue accession talks with his country in good faith, despite some persistent disagreements. Erdogan said on Tuesday the EU would lose ...

GENEVA | Wed Oct 31, 2012 12:00pm EDT GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators called on Myanmar on Wednesday to halt deadly sectarian violence and warned it not to use the conflict as a pretext to remove Rohingya minority Muslims. Some 89 people have been killed in clashes between Buddhist Rakhines and Muslim Rohingyas in western Myanmar in th...

By Stephen Eisenhammer LONDON | Wed Oct 31, 2012 11:08am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Fresh allegations emerged on Wednesday of sexual misconduct by late BBC presenter Jimmy Savile, further damaging the corporation's reputation and increasing pressure on its management. Facing questions on how suspicions about Savile were handled are BBC head George En...

PORT SUDAN | Wed Oct 31, 2012 11:03am EDT PORT SUDAN (Reuters) - Two Iranian warships left Sudan on Wednesday after a visit that drew attention to the countries' military ties less than a week after Khartoum accused Israel of bombing a Sudanese arms factory. Israel accuses the Muslim East African country of channeling weapons to the Gaza Strip, controlle...

By Lidia Kelly MOSCOW | Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:50pm EDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - Relatives of Josef Stalin's victims commemorated the Soviet dictator's repression on Tuesday and many condemned Russia's leaders for not taking part. Millions of people were executed or sent to prison camps under Stalin's rule ...

By Rod Nickel Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:41pm EDT (Reuters) - More than 100,000 Canadians were still without power on Tuesday after the huge storm Sandy toppled trees and power lines in Canada's most populous provinces, killed one person, and halted units at an Ontario refinery. But Canada was far from the center of the storm and the impact was tiny compared to t...

By Robert Evans GENEVA | Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:12pm EDT GENEVA (Reuters) - Pakistan, plagued by Islamists militancy, sectarian violence and frequent disasters that push its people deeper into poverty, told the United Nations on Tuesday it is a democratic and progressive state working to protect human rights. But Western countries and the normally an...

By Ghaith Shennib and Marie-Louise Gumuchian TRIPOLI | Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:04pm EDT TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Protesters stormed Libya's national assembly on Tuesday, forcing the cancellation of a vote on a proposed coalition government named by the country's new prime minister just hours earlier. Fewer than 100 people, made up of civilians and former r...

By Renee Maltezou ATHENS | Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:03pm EDT ATHENS (Reuters) - The Greek prime minister's appeal for a united front to push through more austerity fell on deaf ears on Tuesday, with one ally promising to vote against reforms and another scolding him for prematurely saying talks had ended. A flurry of contradictory statements from the t...

By Andrew Quinn SARAJEVO | Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:01pm EDT SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Europe and the United States teamed up on Tuesday to press Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo to overcome the legacy of Yugoslavia's bloody collapse as a condition of closer integration with the West. "If you do not make progress you will be left behind," U.S. Secretary of State H...

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis AMMAN | Tue Oct 30, 2012 2:51pm EDT AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian warplanes bombed rebel targets with renewed intensity on Tuesday after the end of a widely ignored four-day truce between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and insurgents. State television said "terrorists" had assassinated an air force general, Abdullah Mahmoud ...

LONDON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 2:42pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Iran has drawn back from its ambitions to build a nuclear weapon, Israel's defense minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday, while warning that his country may still have to decide next year whether to launch a military strike against it. Tehran denies its nuclear work has any military dimensions bu...

MOSCOW | Tue Oct 30, 2012 1:46pm EDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's most prominent opposition activist, Alexei Navalny, was fined $1,000 by a Moscow court on Tuesday for his role in a weekend protest under a new law that President Vladimir Putin's opponents say is aimed at smothering dissent. The anti-graft blogger was among three of Putin's foes briefly de...

By Sebastian Moffett BRUSSELS | Tue Oct 30, 2012 1:43pm EDT BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is considering sending about 200 troops to train Mali's army to retake the Islamist-held north, but is not willing to deploy them in battle, EU officials said on Tuesday. Fears are growing in Europe that the African country could turn into a platfo...

By Sherilee Lakmidas RUSTENBURG, South Africa | Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:09am EDT RUSTENBURG, South Africa (Reuters) - South African police fired rubber bullets and teargas on Tuesday at striking Amplats miners who were protesting against a union-brokered deal to end a six-week wildcat walkout at the top platinum producer. As they moved into a shanty t...

ATHENS | Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:04am EDT ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras appealed to his coalition partners on Tuesday to approve in parliament a new wave of austerity measures demanded by international lenders. The government had completed negotiations on the 2013 budget and the austerity ...

By Ghaith Shennib and Marie-Louise Gumuchian TRIPOLI | Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:05am EDT TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya's new prime minister on Tuesday presented a coalition cabinet drawn from liberal and Islamist parties to the national congress, which had rejected his predecessor's line-up. Ali Zeidan has said his transitional government, if approved by c...

By Robert Muller PRAGUE | Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:02am EDT PRAGUE (Reuters) - The ruling Czech Civic Democrats will try to delay a confidence vote tied to an unpopular law to raise taxes, after failing on Tuesday to quell a rebellion by six of its lawmakers that threatens to bring down the cabinet. The government has insisted it use tax hikes and spen...

By Renee Maltezou ATHENS | Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:56am EDT ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek state television journalists accused the government of censorship and began a series of work stoppages on Tuesday after two well-known presenters were suspended for criticizing a government minister. Their removal came on the same day an editor went on trial for print...

TOKYO | Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:30am EDT TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan and the United States will hold a biennial joint military exercise in Japan in November in a move likely to further anger China amid heightened tensions between the two Asian giants over disputed islets in the East China Sea. About 37,400 military personnel from Japan will join some 10,000 U.S. ...

By Jon Herskovitz JOHANNESBURG | Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:30am EDT JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A storm of violent wildcat strikes in South Africa's mines has eased, leaving President Jacob Zuma battered but defiant, and buoying his chances of heading off rivals to win a party leadership election in December. With most strikers in gold and platinum mines r...

AMMAN | Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:40am EDT AMMAN (Reuters) - A Syrian airforce raid on a rebel-held town, strategically situated on the Damascus-Aleppo highway, killed at least six civilians on Tuesday, including children, opposition campaigners in the area said. Video footage showed men pulling out the body of a toddler from a flattened building in a northern ...

By Terhi Kinnunen HELSINKI | Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:02am EDT HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland and Sweden plan to join some NATO air surveillance operations over Iceland, their prime ministers said on Tuesday, in a sign the neutral Nordic states are ready for more cooperation with the Western alliance. Iceland, a NATO member without its own air force, had...

By Martin Petty SITTWE, Myanmar | Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:50am EDT SITTWE, Myanmar (Reuters) - As security forces police the edgy aftermath of sectarian bloodshed in western Myanmar, fearful Buddhists and Muslims are arming themselves with homemade weapons, testing the government's resolve to prevent a new wave of violence. Despite government claims t...

By Richard Balmforth KIEV | Mon Oct 29, 2012 1:21pm EDT KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich's party was on course on Monday to secure a new parliamentary majority, but international monitors condemned the election as flawed and said the country had taken a step back under his leadership. Exit polls and partial results from Sund...

By Michael Stott MOSCOW | Mon Oct 29, 2012 3:40pm EDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - Two women from punk band Pussy Riot sentenced to jail for an anti-Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral face harsh, Soviet-style prison camps where their lives may be in danger due to a lack of medicine and no hot water amid sub-zero winter temperatures, according to a recentl...