Reuters World News Highlights

PARIS – Proposals to double the size of the IMF as part of a  broader international response to Europe’s debt crisis  immediately ran into resistance from the United States and  others, burying the idea for now and firmly putting the onus  back on Europe.
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TRIPOLI – Gunfights broke out in the Libyan capital Tripoli  yesterday between dozens of supporters of deposed leader Muammar  Gaddafi and forces of the new government.
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ROME – Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi won a vote  of confidence yesterday, giving his struggling centre-right  government a new, but probably short, lease of life.
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LONDON – British Defence Secretary Liam Fox resigned yesterday over his friendship with a businessman who posed as his  adviser, jolting Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition  government and potentially slowing down efforts to reform the  military.
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AMMAN – Syrian forces shot dead at least six people  protesting against President Bashar al-Assad yesterday,  activists said, and the United Nations called for international  protection for civilians from a crackdown it said could lead to  civil war.
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NARYAN MAR, Russia – Dmitry Medvedev was met with whoops of  excitement from a small crowd when he arrived to inspect a  run-down apartment block in this depressed town in Russia’s  Arctic north.
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ATHENS – Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos pledged yesterday to pass sweeping austerity measures in parliament next  week, declaring that Greece was in a “fight for our existence”  and defying union opposition and rebels in the ruling Socialist  party’s own ranks.