| Pope meets Cuba's Fidel Castro, slams U.S. embargo Posted:  HAVANA (Reuters) - Pope Benedict called for an end to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba and met with revolutionary icon Fidel Castro on Wednesday as he ended a trip in which he urged the communist island to change. He also spoke at a public Mass in Havana's sprawling Revolution Square where the Vatican said 300,000 people gathered to hear the 84-year-old pontiff. ...
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| Syrian violence ignores peace diplomacy Posted:  BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces bombarded cities and towns in southern and northern Syria on Wednesday and stormed villages, forcing thousands to flee after President Bashar al-Assad accepted a peace plan calling for the army to withdraw to barracks. Assad's ally Iran backed the peace plan, saying Syria's crisis "should be dealt with patiently", and Russia said it was now up to Syria's opposition groups to also endorse the proposals, which do not require Assad to give up power. But the United States, Germany and the Arab League called for action not words. ...
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| Iran says expects nuclear talks on April 13 Posted:  DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran expects to reopen talks with world powers that could defuse mounting tensions over its disputed nuclear program on April 13, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday. Turkey has offered to host the talks and the location will be decided in the next few days, Salehi said, after greeting Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on his arrival in Tehran. The major nations are keen to get Iran to enter talks on curbing its uranium enrichment program, which the West suspects is aimed at developing a nuclear weapons capability but Tehran says is peaceful. ...
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| Mexico presidential favorite Pena Nieto has clear lead: poll Posted:  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican presidential front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto has a 10-percentage point lead over his closest rival ahead of the election campaign that officially starts on Friday, a public opinion poll showed. Pena Nieto, of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has 36 percent backing, while Josefina Vazquez Mota of President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party (PAN) is second with 26 percent, the survey by newspaper Reforma said on Wednesday. Mexico will elect a new president on July 1. ...
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| France's Sarkozy narrows Hollande's second round poll lead Posted:  PARIS (Reuters) - Two polls on Wednesday showed France's conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of his Socialist challenger in the first round of a presidential election next month and narrowing his strong lead for the decisive run-off in May. A survey by TNS-Sofres/Sopra group found that Sarkozy had pulled ahead in voting intentions for the April 22 first-round vote with 29 percent versus 28 percent for Francois Hollande, vying to become France's first Socialist president since 1995. ...
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| Thousands rally for Mali junta, Toure says free Posted:  BAMAKO (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators chanted pro-junta slogans in Mali's capital on Wednesday, protesting against the threats of foreign powers to use sanctions to force the leaders of last week's military coup to step down. Deposed leader Amadou Toumani Toure, meanwhile, said in his first public comments since he was ousted that he was free and unharmed somewhere inside the West African nation, and called for a swift solution to the crisis. ...
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| Libya militias resume fighting after ceasefire Posted:  TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Rival militias in the Libyan city of Sabha resumed fighting hours after calling a ceasefire on Wednesday, after three days of clashes that killed more than 50 people and highlight the government's failure to restore law and order nationwide. Representatives from the Sabha and Tibu-dominated militias had held a meeting at which they had agreed to end the fighting, said Ahmed Abdelqadir, a local council member in Sabha. But shooting resumed just a few hours later, Sabha fighter Oweidat al-Hifnawi said. ...
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| Body of French gunman may be sent to Algeria for burial Posted:  ALGIERS/PARIS (Reuters) - The father of an al Qaeda-inspired gunman who killed seven people in a shooting rampage in southwest France said on Wednesday he wanted his son buried in Algeria, but the Algerian authorities had yet to agree to receive the body. "I believe the paperwork will take some time before we will be able to transfer the body of my son here, to Algeria," Mohamed Benalel Merah told Reuters by telephone. "The consulate in Toulouse has to send a file to the city hall in (the Algerian city of) Medea, which has to send it back. ...
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| U.S. generals, Pakistan army chief meet on NATO skirmish Posted:  ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The head of U.S. Central Command and the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan met Pakistan's army chief on Wednesday in the first high-level military visit since a cross-border U.S. attack last November killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Their talks, announced by the Pakistani military, took place a day after U.S. President Barack Obama met Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in Seoul. He expressed hope that Pakistan's review of strained ties with Washington would respect U.S. security needs. ...
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| Insight: In secret unit, clues to top Israeli duo's chemistry Posted:  JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Forty years before becoming Israel's top decision-making duo, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak first made news on the blood-stained wing of a hijacked Belgian airliner. Disguised as tousle-haired mechanics, with slim pistols concealed beneath their white overalls, Israel's future prime minister and defense chief had stormed the Sabena jet at Lod airport near Tel Aviv as part of Sayeret Matkal, the secret special forces regiment which Barak, then aged 30, led. Netanyahu, eight years younger, was largely untested in counter-terrorism operations. ...
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| Destruction as Syrian forces take opposition town Posted:  Syrian activists said Wednesday a government offensive in northern Syria during which troops overran a major opposition stronghold has left behind scenes of destruction, with corpses in the streets, homes burned to the ground and shops that have been pillaged and looted.
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| Pope urges greater openings in vast Cuban Mass Posted:  Pope Benedict XVI demanded more freedom for the Catholic Church in communist-run Cuba and preached against "fanaticism" in an unusually political sermon before hundreds of thousands at Revolution Plaza, with President Raul Castro in the front row.
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| Cuban-American in emotional return to family home Posted:  Cecilia Dalmau's mother made only one request before her daughter flew to Cuba for Pope Benedict XVI's visit: "I would love to see pictures from my childhood home."
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| Ex-Brazil leader Silva's tumor is gone Posted:  A Brazilian hospital says former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's cancerous tumor has been successfully treated and has disappeared.
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| Arab summit appears divided over approach to Syria Posted:  Arab leaders gathering here Thursday will call for Syria to implement a cease-fire, but there's little faith that President Bashar Assad will do anything to halt his crackdown on the year-old uprising.
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| Cuban-Americans find hope on return to homeland Posted:  Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Cuba drew nearly 300 Americans to the island they or their parents long ago fled. What they found was a country that was different from the one they had imagined, yet somehow still close to the place they had dreamed of.
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| Prominent Pakistani acid victim commits suicide Posted:  Pakistani acid attack victim Fakhra Younus had endured more than three dozen surgeries over more than a decade to repair her severely damaged face and body when she finally decided life was no longer worth living.
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| Neo-Nazi killing of gay man moves Chile toward law Posted: Prosecutors in Chile asked for murder charges Wednesday in the death of a young gay man whose attackers brutally beat him and carved swastikas into his body. |
| Salvadoran leader: I wasn't involved in gang truce Posted:  The president of El Salvador is denying that his government rewarded street gangs for a truce that appears to have led to a dramatic drop in homicides in one of the world's most violent countries.
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| US diplomat: al-Qaida, Iran exploit Yemen turmoil Posted: A top U.S. diplomat in the Middle East says al-Qaida and Iran have used the turmoil and uncertainty in Yemen to increase their influence. |
| Egypt's Brotherhood to hold talks with government Posted: Egypt's largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, said it would begin talks Sunday with the government to try to end the country's political crisis but made clear it would insist on the immediate ouster of longtime authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak. |
| Police evict indigenous Easter Island protesters Posted: Relatives of activists occupying a posh Easter Island hotel say Chilean police have raided and removed the last of the indigenous protesters. They have been battling for ancestral lands and a share of profits from the thousands of tourists who come to see the Pacific Island's famed statues of giant heads. |
| Cuban opposition leader urges end to hunger strike Posted: A leader of the Ladies in White opposition group says she will urge a colleague to end a 10-day old hunger strike she launched to demand freedom for her jailed husband. |
