Reuters World News Highlights

BANGKOK – Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva held talks  with protest leaders yesterday in an effort to defuse growing  tension and avert possible confrontation after protesters  intensified their drive to topple the government.

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FALLUJA, Iraq – A series of explosions in western Iraq  killed six people yesterday, including an official of a  political faction in former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s  electoral coalition, police said.

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JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected yesterday a description of President Barack Obama as Israel’s  “greatest disaster”, a phrase a best-selling newspaper  attributed to an anonymous confidant of the premier.

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OTTAWA – Canada will press the Group of Eight leading  industrialized nations to tighten United Nations sanctions on  Iran when it hosts a meeting of foreign ministers from the  grouping today and tomorrow.

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ROME – Graft scandals and bureaucratic bungling by Prime  Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s party appeared to put a damper on  turnout, which could favour the opposition, as Italians voted yesterday in regional elections.

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WASHINGTON – Powerful groups in the United States appear to  be blocking efforts to stem the flow of assault weapons fueling  Mexico’s drug war, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in an  interview broadcast yesterday.

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ISLAMABAD – Buoyant U.S.-Pakistani relations are being  underpinned by converging interests over Afghanistan but strains  could emerge if Pakistan’s expectations for U.S. help are not  met and it feels it is being used.