AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces rained rockets and bombs down on opposition-held neighborhoods of the city of Homs, reducing buildings to rubble and killing more than 80 people, including two Western journalists.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Shortly before the United States ended a two-month pause in missile strikes on militants in Pakistan last month, senior U.S. officials telephoned their Pakistani counterparts and told them Washington would be resuming its covert drone program despite mounting objections in Islamabad.

VIENNA/TEHRAN (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog ended its latest mission to Iran after talks on Tehran's suspected secret atomic weapons research failed, a setback likely to increase the risk of confrontation with the West.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed for calm Wednesday after officials said six people were shot dead and dozens wounded in protests over the burning of copies of the Koran, Islam's holy book, at NATO's main base in the country.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin praised Cold War-era scientists on Thursday for stealing U.S. nuclear secrets so that United States would not be the world's sole atomic power, in comments reflecting his vision of Russia as a counterweight to U.S. power.

FLORENCE, Italy (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors placed four ship's officers and three company executives under investigation Wednesday in connection with the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster as divers found eight more bodies on the wreck including that of a 5-year-old girl.

(Reuters) - U.S. and European officials are downplaying allegations that Iran and al Qaeda have recently stepped up cooperation in preparation for possible attacks on U.S. and other Western targets.

CAIRO (Reuters) - The verdict in the trial of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, charged with ordering the killing of protesters in the uprising that swept him from power, will be delivered on June 2, the judge said on Wednesday.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's imminent departure for more cancer surgery in Cuba has thrown his re-election campaign into uncertainty and once again shaken the socialist leader's passionate supporters.

AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces rained rockets and bombs down on opposition-held neighborhoods of the city of Homs on Wednesday, reducing buildings to rubble and killing more than 80 people, including two Western journalists.

AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) - American correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday when rockets fired by government forces hit the house they were staying in, opposition activists and witnesses said.

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - A packed commuter train plowed into the buffers at a Buenos Aires station during Wednesday's morning rush hour, killing 49 people and injuring more than 600 in Argentina's worst rail accident in more than 30 years, officials said.

PARIS (Reuters)- After months of reassuring secularist critics, Islamist politicians in Tunisia and Egypt have begun to lay down markers about how Muslim their states should be -- and first signs show they want more religion than previously admitted.

BENGHAZI (Reuters) - A Libyan military court ruled on Wednesday that 50 people accused of fighting for Muammar Gaddafi and helping a mass jail break by alleged supporters of the deposed leader should be freed and tried instead in a civilian court.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Ethiopian and Somali troops captured a key Islamist militant stronghold in Somalia on Wednesday, as the rebels left their positions, a regional government official and residents said.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Mohamed Moustafa Morsy had to sneak out of his home to join the protests against Hosni Mubarak last year, afraid his parents would stop him if they knew where he was going.

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen began a new era without Ali Abdullah Saleh on Wednesday after an uncontested election that gave his deputy a mandate to launch reforms in a country facing an economy in meltdown, a tenacious al Qaeda wing and rebellions in the north and south.

ROME (Reuters) - Salvage workers have found four more bodies in the submerged Costa Concordia cruise liner, bringing the confirmed number of dead to 21 on the ship that ran aground and capsized off the Italian coast last month, authorities said on Wednesday.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd resigned on Wednesday, saying he could no longer work with Prime Minister Julia Gillard, igniting a new and bitter leadership crisis for the struggling minority government.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Isolationist North Korea lashed out at its neighbor on Wednesday for hosting an international nuclear security summit in Seoul next month, calling it a "childish farce" and an "intolerable grave provocation."

YANGON (Reuters) - A senior figure in Myanmar's parliament on Wednesday described recent reforms in the country as "sluggish and unsatisfactory" and urged the civilian government to act faster to push through legislation for the benefit of the public.

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - Gunshots and explosions rang out early Wednesday in Nigeria's biggest northern city Kano, local residents said, in a region beset by violence by Islamist sect Boko Haram.

LANGMU, China (Reuters) - Tibetans in northwest China marked a tense traditional new year with prayer, the sounding of a gong and subdued defiance on Wednesday, in the wake of a string of self-immolations and protests against Chinese control.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A political storm that has rocked the candidacy of the frontrunner to become Hong Kong's next leader poses a delicate challenge for Beijing, and in particular for the man expected to take over as China's president in 2013.

DENPASAR, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesian police stormed a prison on the resort island of Bali on Wednesday to regain control after inmates burned offices and seized weapons in a riot during which two prisoners were shot and wounded, officials said.

TOKYO (Reuters) - "What Japan needs most now is a dictator."

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's Hugo Chavez will undergo another operation in Cuba in the coming days after doctors found a possibly malignant lesion in his pelvis where surgeons removed a large cancerous tumor last year, he said on Tuesday.

MOREH, India (Reuters) - As dusk falls on a lonely police station in the eastern tip of India, a young policeman nervously keeps an eye on the Arakan hills above him, dotted with poppy fields.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Raul Castro's full-court press on corruption has gone the local equivalent of viral, as videos with bribery confessions by foreign and Cuban businessmen make the rounds of the communist-run island's state companies.

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - A devastating prison fire that killed 360 inmates in a Honduran penitentiary was likely caused by a candle or cigarette that set a mattress alight, investigators said on Tuesday.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Support for Greece's two pro-bailout parties has sunk to an all-time low, but pollsters predict the squabbling rivals will still scrape through upcoming elections with enough seats in parliament to push through the reforms demanded by lenders.

SANAA/ADEN (Reuters) - Separatist violence in the south loomed over a presidential election in Yemen that had just a single candidate, but Washington praised the vote ending three decades of rule by its ally Ali Abdullah Saleh.

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - Syrian government forces killed at least 100 people on Tuesday in assaults on villages and an artillery barrage in the restive city of Homs, activists said, and the Red Cross called for daily ceasefires to allow in urgently needed aid.

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - A devastating prison fire that killed 360 inmates in a Honduran penitentiary was likely caused by a candle or cigarette that set a mattress alight, investigators said on Tuesday.

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Election observers from U.S. non-governmental organizations the Carter Center and the National Democratic Institute will for the first time be able to monitor a parliamentary election in Algeria later this year, the interior minister said on Tuesday.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran would take pre-emptive action against its enemies if it felt its national interests were endangered, the deputy head of the Islamic Republic's armed forces was quoted by a semi-official news agency as saying on Tuesday.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has to undergo another operation after doctors in Cuba found a lesion in his pelvis where surgeons removed a large cancerous tumor last year, he said on Tuesday.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Activists from China's Muslim Uighur minority burnt Chinese flags in Ankara on Tuesday where China's leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping was holding talks with Turkish officials on regional issues.

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. helicopters fired flares to disperse hundreds of angry Afghans who massed outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday after hearing staff there had burned copies of the Koran.

SANAA/ADEN (Reuters) - A general took power in Yemen Tuesday as the sole candidate in a presidential election after a year-long uprising that ousted long-serving ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh but left the poor Arab country still teetering on the brink of chaos.

BARNAUL, Russia (Reuters) - Russia's Vladimir Putin sought to bolster his authority ahead of a March presidential election on Tuesday by promising hefty pay rises for police in Moscow where opposition activists are gearing up for more protests demanding political change.

RAMALLAH (Reuters) - A Palestinian held without trial ended a 66-day hunger strike Tuesday after Israeli authorities promised to release him in April in a deal that avoided judicial review of its detention policy.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Myanmar will "seriously consider" allowing Southeast Asian observers to attend April parliamentary by-elections, President Thein Sein said, the latest sign of openness by a civilian government keen to end decades of isolation.

LONDON (Reuters) - When tanker master Miro Alibasic takes one of his company's vast ships across the Indian Ocean, he likes to have all the firepower he can get on board.

KABUL (Reuters) - From a simple mud-walled house above a steep Kabul hillside buried deep in snow, the Taliban's former guardian of virtue and once-feared scourge of vice sees a revolution under way.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe turned 88 on Tuesday, vowing to stay in power despite grumbling inside his party that he should hand over to a younger leader, and international condemnation of his economic and human rights record.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - The Guardian Council, which vets election candidates in Iran, has approved 3,444 individuals out of more than 5,000 who applied to run in the March 2 parliamentary polls, ISNA news agency said on Tuesday.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is close to agreement with Washington on the size of cuts refiners must make in imports of Iranian crude oil to win waivers from U.S. sanctions, two ministers said Tuesday after a media report the two sides would settle on an 11 percent cut.

OFUNATO, Japan (Reuters) - In a large, bright room not far from the ocean that raged through this coastal Japanese city nearly a year ago, a handful of people with magnifying glasses pore over boxes of photographs of friends or loved ones.

CAIRO (Reuters) - A lawyer acting for the families of those killed in Egypt's uprising against Hosni Mubarak Monday told the court trying him that there had been a "conspiracy of silence" by those seeking to shield the former president.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Support for the two parties backing Greece's technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos fell to an all-time low, a poll showed on Monday, a sign of rising popular frustration at austerity measures imposed to stave off a chaotic default.

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Members of the Zetas drug cartel plotted with prison guards to orchestrate an elaborate escape and kill 44 of their rivals in one of the worst episodes of prison violence in Mexico, the local state governor said on Monday.

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - People from Libya's battle-scarred city of Misrata queued up to vote in their first free election Monday, hoping to set a standard for the rest of the country as it prepares for national polls in June after the war that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi.

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan soccer fans of all ages came out to cheer the first international matches played in the North African country since the conflict that ousted Muammar Gaddafi amid hope Monday's games would be the start of many more to come.

TABDA, Somalia (Reuters) - On the outskirts of Tabda, Kenyan gunners hunkered down in trenches, scanning the distant scrub where Islamist militants still roam more than four months after losing control of the town in southern Somalia.

AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia, China and Iran showed support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday, days before an international meeting likely to pile more pressure on him to step down in the face of an increasingly bloody uprising.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Rebels in Sudan's Darfur region said they released 49 international peacekeepers on Monday, hours after detaining them, but kept hold of three civilian staff they accused of working for the country's security service.

ADEN/SANAA (Reuters) - An explosion tore through a polling station and gunfire nearby killed a soldier in Yemen on Monday, the eve of a presidential vote to replace Ali Abdullah Saleh after a year of mass protests and spreading anarchy.

CAIRO (Reuters) - A lawyer acting for the families of those killed in Egypt's uprising against Hosni Mubarak Monday told the court trying him that there had been a "conspiracy of silence" by those seeking to shield the former president.

MANAMA (Reuters) - Bahraini police used water cannon and tear gas to break up a march chanting anti-government slogans after a funeral Monday, while protesters were arrested for approaching a roundabout at the center of an uprising last year.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Senior U.N. inspectors arrived in Iran on Monday to push for transparency about its disputed nuclear program and several European states halted purchases of Iranian oil as part of Western moves to pile pressure on a defiant Tehran.

KOMSOMOLSK-ON-AMUR, Russia (Reuters) - A senior Russian official suggested Monday an atomic-powered submarine could have been carrying nuclear weapons when it was engulfed by fire during repairs at a dockyard in December.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Angela Merkel's center-right coalition seemed dangerously close to rupture when her Free Democrat (FDP) partners defied the chancellor and backed an opposition candidate for the German presidency, coalition sources said Monday.

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's election authorities Monday said a ministerial order restricting some campaign rallies had been lifted, just hours after Aung San Suu Kyi's party complained its campaigning for upcoming parliamentary by-elections was being stifled.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A major rebel group in Sudan's Darfur region said it was holding 52 international UNAMID peacekeepers mainly from Senegal, a rebel spokesman said Monday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin will be elected president in the first round of March's election with more than half the vote, avoiding a runoff that would dent his authority on the eve of his planned return to the Kremlin's top job, a state pollster predicted Monday.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Tycoon Henry Tang threw his hat into the ring to become Hong Kong's next leader on Monday, defying growing calls to quit amid a scandal over an illegally built luxury den under a swimming pool.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Euro zone finance ministers are expected to approve a second bailout for Greece on Monday to try to draw a line under months of uncertainty that has shaken the currency bloc, although work remains to be done to make the numbers add up.

YANGON (Reuters) - The party of Myanmar Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi complained on Monday about attempts to stifle its campaign for April parliamentary by-elections.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday Russia needed a stronger military to protect it from foreign attempts to stoke conflicts around its borders.

MOGADISHU/NAIROBI (Reuters) - Life got easier for trader Siad Hussein when Somali Islamist militants pulled out the capital. He no longer pays a Jihad tax nor does he have to watch mortars kill his customers.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Secretive North Korea raised its military alert ahead of a live-fire artillery drill by rival South Korea Monday amid heightened tension on the peninsula during a delicate transition of power in the impoverished North.

ADEN (Reuters) - An explosion tore through a polling station in the southern Yemeni city of Aden on Monday, followed by gunfire that killed one soldier, a day before a presidential vote to replace Ali Abudllah Saleh.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Ground staff at Frankfurt airport have plans to extend their strike, with labor union GdF saying it is now calling on them to halt work for an additional 24 hours from 0400 GMT on Tuesday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A teenage Tibetan Buddhist monk has set himself on fire and died in southwestern China, a rights group said, in the latest reported self-immolation by a monk denouncing Chinese policies in Tibet and demanding the return of the Dalai Lama.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Western countries are stirring up a civil war in Syria with their wholehearted support for the opposition, a top Chinese newspaper said Monday, slamming calls for the country's leader to hand over power as an incitement to further violence.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - At least 44 people died in a fight between rival gangs at an overcrowded prison in northern Mexico in a violent outbreak that authorities said could have been a distraction that allowed some inmates to escape.

TAR PU VILLAGE, Shan State, Myanmar (Reuters) - In Myanmar's new war on drugs, meet the weapon of mass destruction: the weed-whacker.