World

AMMAN, (Reuters) – Syrians began the Muslim Ramadan  fast in sombre mood today after troops stormed into Hama,  scene of a 1982 massacre, in one of the bloodiest days of a  five-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

KABUL,  (Reuters) – The top U.S. military officer  said on Sunday Afghan militants of the anti-American Haqqani  network were finding it harder to move into Afghanistan but  warned that their safe havens in Pakistan still posed a risk to  the decade-old war effort.

NEW DELHI,  (Reuters) – The chief minister of a  southern Indian state ruled by the country’s main opposition  party resigned yesterday after an  independent probe implicated  the politician and several others in a $3.6 billion illegal iron  ore mining scandal.

AUSTIN, Texas,  (Reuters) – Another front is opening  in the divisive U.S.

LONDON/DAKAR, (Reuters) – Pirate attacks on ships in  the Gulf of Guinea are threatening one of the world’s emerging  trade hubs and are likely to intensify unless the region’s weak  naval and coastguard defences are beefed up soon.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – For Turkey’s political leaders it was business as usual yesterday, denying any crisis, or simply not mentioning the resignation of the country’s four top military commanders.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top Republicans in the US Senate and House of Representatives said  yesterday that after a week of stalemate they are now in serious talks with President Barack Obama to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a looming default.

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba will broaden private retail service beyond beauty parlours and barbers in October to include everything from coffee shops to locksmiths, and may even rent space on busy streets, an official told parliament.

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan rebels say the gunmen who shot dead their military chief were militiamen allied in their struggle to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, raising questions over divisions and lawlessness within rebel ranks.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican police have arrested an alleged leader of the Juarez drug cartel’s armed wing linked to a deadly car bomb last year, local media reported yesterday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Saturday to protest against the high cost of living and demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu undertake swee-ping economic reforms.

EDINBURGH (Reuters) – Queen Elizabeth’s granddaughter Zara Phillips married fellow athlete Mike Tindall yesterday in a private ceremony in the Scottish capital Edinburgh.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers opened the  way yesterday for a last-ditch bid for a possible bipartisan  compromise to avert a crippling national default just four days  before the deadline to raise the country’s debt ceiling.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska,  (Reuters) – A wildfire that  burned over 400 square miles (1 million sq km) of Alaska tundra  in the scorching summer of 2007 poured as much carbon into the  atmosphere as the entire Arctic normally absorbs each year,  according to a new study in the scientific journal Nature.

 ANKARA, (Reuters) –    Turkey’s top military brass  resigned yesterday, in the latest and possibly decisive round of  a long battle between the traditional secularist establishment  embodied by the army and the Islam-rooted government of Tayyip  Erdogan that has dominated Turkey for nearly a decade.

WARSAW, (Reuters) – Polish Defence Minister Bogdan  Klich resigned yesterday after a government report chronicled a  litany of errors and neglect by the crew of the military plane  that crashed in Russia last year killing Poland’s President Lech  Kaczynski and 95 others.

AMSTERDAM/BEIRUT,  (Reuters) – The U.N.-backed  Lebanon tribunal yesterday released the names, photographs and  details of four men wanted for killing statesman Rafik  al-Hariri, saying it had acted in a bid to speed up their  arrest.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Two British newspapers have been  found guilty of contempt of court for publishing potentially  prejudicial coverage of a former suspect in a murder  investigation, the Attorney General’s office said yesterday.

AMMAN,  (Reuters) – Syrian forces shot dead at least  20 civilians in attacks on pro-democracy demonstrations across  the country yesterday, the Syrian human rights organisation  Sawasiah said.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Urgent efforts to avoid an  unprecedented U.S. debt default hit another snag yesterday  when some rebel Republican lawmakers refused to back a budget  deficit plan proposed by their own congressional leaders.