By Andrius Sytas VILNIUS | Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:41pm EDT VILNIUS (Reuters) - Centre-left parties look set to be propelled to power in Lithuania's election on Sunday by voters angry at years of austerity, but an incoming government may have little choice but to stick to tough budget policies. Economists said the Baltic nation's high borrowing needs ...

By Richard Balmforth KIEV | Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:14pm EDT KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich's pro-business ruling party seems likely to win parliamentary elections on Sunday, but will face a re-energized opposition which has vowed to fight growing authoritarianism and corruption. The former Soviet republic of 46 million is more...

By Fergus Jensen JAKARTA | Sat Oct 27, 2012 5:31pm EDT JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's anti-terrorist squad arrested 11 suspected Islamic militants it said planned to attack the U.S. embassy, a plaza near Australia's embassy and the offices of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, a police spokesman said on Saturday. The Detachment 88 squad seized ...

BRUSSELS | Sat Oct 27, 2012 5:01pm EDT BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Four Belgian tourists were killed when a tourist bus had an accident near the Jordanian city of Aqaba, the Belgian foreign ministry said on Saturday. Of 18 passengers on board with passports from Belgium or Luxembourg, another six were severely injured and the status of eight more was unknown, t...

By Philip Pullella ROME | Sat Oct 27, 2012 4:54pm EDT ROME (Reuters) - Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Saturday his centre-right bloc may withdraw its support from the government of Mario Monti, a move that could throw Italy into political chaos ahead of next April's national elections. "We have to recognize the fact that the init...

By Robert-Jan Bartunek BRUSSELS | Sat Oct 27, 2012 3:29pm EDT BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A European Parliament delegation has called off a trip to Iran after a request to meet two jailed activists was refused. The decision came after Iran's ambassador to the European Union said it was impossible to guarantee that the members of the European Parliament ...

BAGHDAD | Sat Oct 27, 2012 3:26pm EDT BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bombings on Shi'ite neighborhoods in Baghdad and a blast on an Iranian pilgrim bus killed more than 30 people on Saturday, marring Iraqi celebrations of the second day of the Islamic Eid al Adha religious festival. Violence in Iraq has eased sharply, but Sunni Islamist insurgents and al Qaeda's Ir...

By Oliver Holmes BEIRUT | Sat Oct 27, 2012 1:14pm EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad renewed their bombardment of major cities on Saturday and rebels launched several attacks, further undermining a truce meant to mark the Muslim Eid al-Adha religious holiday. The violence, reported by residents, opposition sup...

By Sherilee Lakmidas and Jon Herskovitz JOHANNESBURG | Sat Oct 27, 2012 9:18am EDT JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Workers have reached a deal with Anglo American Platinum to reinstate 12,000 miners sacked for an illegal strike, which could end the last big industrial action rocking South Africa's mining sector. Months of often violent wildcat strikes h...

KHARTOUM | Sat Oct 27, 2012 9:11am EDT KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudanese rebels shelled the main city of the oil-producing South Kordofan state during a visit of Sudan's defense minister, Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein, rebels and residents said. Sudan's army has been fighting rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-North) in South Kordof...

ROME | Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:26am EDT ROME (Reuters) - Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, reacting to a Milan court's conviction for tax fraud, said on Saturday he would stay in politics. Berlusconi told an Italian television interviewer that he felt "obliged to stay in the field" in order to protect other Italians from what he called judicial injusti...

BAGHDAD | Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:11am EDT BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two blasts hit a Baghdad Shi'ite neighborhood and a bus full of Iranian pilgrims on Saturday, killing at least 13 people on the second day of the Islamic Eid al Adha religious festival. Sunni Islamist insurgents and al Qaeda's Iraq wing often target Shi'ites in an attempt to stir up the kind of se...

BEIRUT | Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:08am EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Opposition activists in Syria said forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had renewed their heavy bombardment of major cities on Saturday, further undermining a truce meant to mark the Muslim Eid al-Adha religious holiday. The bombardment came on the second day of the truce called by internationa...

By Robert-Jan Bartunek BRUSSELS | Sat Oct 27, 2012 7:00am EDT BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Iran has canceled a European Parliament delegation visit to Tehran after the group asked to meet two Iranian activists awarded a top EU rights prize, a parliament spokeswoman said on Saturday. The decision came after senior officials at the parliament, which on Fri...

PAUKTAW, Myanmar | Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:33am EDT PAUKTAW, Myanmar (Reuters) - Boatloads of Muslims struggled to reach refugee camps and sought safety on islands and in coastal villages on Saturday as Myanmar tried to put out the fires of a week of sectarian unrest that has shaken its fragile democratic transition. Dozens of rickety wooden vessels packed wi...

DUBAI | Sat Oct 27, 2012 4:44am EDT DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has called on Muslims to kidnap Westerners, join Syria's rebellion and to ensure Egypt implements sharia, SITE Monitoring reported on Saturday, citing a two-part film posted on Islamist websites. The Egypt-born cleric, who became al Qaeda leader last year after the dea...

NINGBO, China | Sat Oct 27, 2012 3:47am EDT NINGBO, China (Reuters) - Police dispersed more than a thousand protesters in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo on Saturday who were demonstrating against plans to expand a petrochemical plant. The protests, which had turned violent on Friday, illustrate a major challenge for the leadership as it readies for i...

By Grant McCool NEW YORK | Fri Oct 26, 2012 7:38pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - A radical Islamist cleric facing U.S. terrorism charges will be outfitted with new prosthetics after authorities refused to allow him to wear metal hooks in place of his missing hands when he is outside of his jail cell, his lawyer said on Friday. The Egyptian-born preach...

By Dominic Evans BEIRUT | Fri Oct 26, 2012 1:46pm EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - A powerful car bomb exploded in Damascus on Friday and forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad clashed with rebels across Syria as a truce intended to mark a Muslim religious holiday unraveled and activists reported at least 70 deaths. State television said the "terrorist car bomb" ...

By Sara Rossi MILAN | Fri Oct 26, 2012 1:46pm EDT MILAN (Reuters) - Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced to four years in jail on Friday for tax fraud in connection with the purchase of broadcasting rights by his Mediaset television company. The 76-year-old billionaire media magnate, who was convicted three times during t...

By Ben Blanchard and Sui-Lee Wee BEIJING | Fri Oct 26, 2012 12:59pm EDT BEIJING (Reuters) - China moved quickly on Friday to announce it had formally begun a criminal probe into disgraced former senior politician Bo Xilai, hours after expelling him from the largely rubber stamp parliament and so removing his immunity from prosecution. The announc...

SITTWE, Myanmar | Fri Oct 26, 2012 12:31pm EDT SITTWE, Myanmar (Reuters) - Authorities on Friday revised down to 64 the number of people killed in six days of unrest in western Myanmar, after security forces opened fire to break up violence between Buddhists and Muslims. A spokesman for Rakhine State, where the fighting has taken place, had earlier put t...

LONDON | Fri Oct 26, 2012 12:06pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Friday it was opposed to a military strike on Iran "at this moment" over its disputed nuclear program, arguing sanctions were having an effect and diplomacy should be given time. The comments followed a report by Britain's Guardian newspaper which said Britain had rebuffed U.S. plan...

BEIJING | Fri Oct 26, 2012 12:04pm EDT BEIJING (Reuters) - China reserves the right to take strong countermeasures if Japan "creates incidents" in the waters around a group of disputed uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, a Chinese vice foreign minister said on Friday. "We are watching very closely what action Japan might take regarding the Diaoyu ...

By Gleb Bryanski and Andrei Makhovsky MOSCOW/MINSK | Fri Oct 26, 2012 11:49am EDT MOSCOW/MINSK (Reuters) - A summit of leaders of ex-Soviet states scheduled for the start of November has been postponed, an official said on Friday, amid talk that Russian President Vladimir Putin is suffering from back trouble. The Executive Committee of the Common...

MINSK | Fri Oct 26, 2012 10:33am EDT MINSK (Reuters) - Belarussian opposition leader Andrei Sannikov, released from prison this year and warned by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko not to "blabber" if he wants to remain free, has been granted asylum in Great Britain, his wife said on Friday. Sannikov, 58, ran against Lukashenko in the 2010 pre...

KIEV | Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:17am EDT KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's SBU state security service said on Friday it was looking into claims that a Russian opposition activist was abducted in Kiev a week ago before being taken to a Moscow detention center. Activist Leonid Razvozzhayev disappeared last Friday after consu...

ABUJA | Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:04am EDT ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan sought to allay fears on Friday that the nation's worst floods in at least five decades would trigger a food crisis because of damage to crops. Jonathan, who this month toured some parts of Africa's most populous nation that have been submerged by floods he has des...

By Joe Bavier ABIDJAN | Fri Oct 26, 2012 8:49am EDT ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Police and soldiers in Ivory Coast have illegally detained and tortured more than 200 people including supporters of former President Laurent Gbagbo, following a series of armed attacks that began in August, Amnesty International said on Friday. U.N. investigators said earlie...

By Stephen Eisenhammer BIRMINGHAM, England | Fri Oct 26, 2012 8:39am EDT BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) - The father of a Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating girls' education said on Friday she would "rise again" to pursue her dreams after hospital treatment. Malala Yousufzai, 15, was flown from Pakistan to Britain for sp...

By Dominic Evans BEIRUT | Fri Oct 26, 2012 8:38am EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Fighting in Syria killed several people on Friday as a ceasefire brokered by international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to mark a holy Muslim day frayed almost before it had begun. The Syrian military had said it would hold fire for four days following Brahimi's ceasefire app...

By Robert-Jan Bartunek BRUSSELS | Fri Oct 26, 2012 8:36am EDT BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian prosecutors are investigating the murder of a British oil executive who was shot and killed in unexplained circumstances in front of his wife as they walked to their car after dinner at an Italian restaurant in Brussels. Nicholas Mockford, who worked for U....

By Dan Williams JERUSALEM | Fri Oct 26, 2012 7:33am EDT JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's tie-up with far-right coalition partner Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman could backfire by eroding their lead ahead of Israel's January 22 ballot, a poll said on Friday. The findings flew in the face of Netanyahu's prediction that, ...

By Marie-Louise Gumuchian and Hadeel Al Shalchi TRIPOLI | Fri Oct 26, 2012 7:21am EDT TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Hours after taking control of Bani Walid, a former stronghold of Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan militias from the rival city of Misrata fired ferociously at its empty public buildings. Fighters yelling "Allahu akbar (God is greatest) and "Today Bani...

KYAUKTAW, Myanmar | Fri Oct 26, 2012 6:24am EDT KYAUKTAW, Myanmar (Reuters) - The number of people killed in six days of unrest in western Myanmar reached at least 112 on Friday as security forces used deadly force to break up the worst sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims in years. The United Nations warned that Myanmar's fledgling democracy...

By Bashir Ansari MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan | Fri Oct 26, 2012 5:58am EDT MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed at least 40 people in a mosque in Afghanistan's relatively peaceful north on Friday as worshippers gathered for prayers marking the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, police officials said. The attack in Maimana, cap...

By Mariam Karouny and Stephanie Nebehay BEIRUT/GENEVA | Thu Oct 25, 2012 6:46pm EDT BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - Damascus residents reported artillery barrages by Syrian troops hours before Friday's scheduled start of a ceasefire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. They said that on Thursday night troops stationed on a mountain overlooking th...

By John Irish and Lamine Chikhi PARIS/ALGIERS | Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:42pm EDT PARIS/ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria has given its tacit approval for an Africa-led military intervention in northern Mali to rout Islamist militants despite reservations the operation could spill over into its territory and ...

By Phil Stewart and Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON | Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:45pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon defended its decision not to deploy forces to Benghazi, Libya, as soon as the U.S. mission came under attack on September 11th, saying it would have been irresponsible to put forces in harm's way without better information. President Ba...

By Mariam Karouny and Stephanie Nebehay BEIRUT/GENEVA | Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:31pm EDT BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - Damascus residents reported artillery barrages by Syrian troops on Thursday hours before the scheduled start of a ceasefire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. They said the shelling by troops stationed on a mountain overlooking th...