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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama sees an overhaul of Wall Street regulations as crucial to restoring trust in U.S. markets and could move early on it if he wins the White House, according to a senior adviser.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union foreign ministers agreed in principle on Wednesday to send monitors to supervise a French-brokered ceasefire between Russia and Georgia in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinians gave their national poet Mahmoud Darwish what amounted to a state funeral in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday, mourning a man who articulated their sense of loss, exile and defiance.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish basketball player Jose Calderon rejected international media accusations on Wednesday that slit-eyed gestures by his team at the Beijing Olympics were racist and said he had great respect for Asian people.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro turned 82 on Wednesday, still a world and national figure even though he has not been seen in public since falling ill two years ago.

PARIS (Reuters) - French parliamentarians who met the Dalai Lama on Wednesday quoted him as saying there was a risk China would accelerate the settlement of one million Han Chinese in Tibet immediately after the Olympic Games.

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan authorities have launched a mass circumcision drive with the hope it will reduce HIV/AIDS rates in the east African country.

KABUL (Reuters) - Suspected Taliban insurgents killed three female aid workers and their Afghan driver in an ambush on Wednesday, officials said, the bloodiest single attack on foreign humanitarian workers in Afghanistan in recent years.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's army has begun a massive operation to wipe out rebel bases in Darfur's far north, two Darfur rebel factions said on Wednesday.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand has begun the lengthy process of trying to extradite former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who skipped bail this week and went into exile in London, a state prosecutor said on Wednesday.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Angry Muslims mourning at least 20 protesters killed by police torched security bunkers and rioted in Indian Kashmir's main city on Wednesday as a land row with Hindus revived calls for independence.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - At least 15 people including nine soldiers were killed in Lebanon on Wednesday, according to security sources, in the deadliest attack on the army since a battle with al Qaeda-inspired militants last year.

HANOI (Reuters) - Fresh floods triggered by rains swept away a teenager in northern Vietnam and several boats were destroyed, the government said on Wednesday, as it struggled to deliver aid to thousands of people hit by the worst floods in four decades.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least nine militants were killed in a missile strike on their training camp in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, near the Afghan border, security officials and residents said on Wednesday.

MANILA (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Wednesday it was concerned about a humanitarian crisis in the southern Philippines where a ferocious battle between government forces and Muslim rebels has displaced about 160,000 people.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Religious authorities in Nepal have begun the search for a girl who could be as young as three or four to serve as the new Kumari, or the virgin "living goddess", in a centuries-old tradition.

TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea and Japan have agreed terms for a new investigation into Pyongyang's abduction of Japanese people in the 1970s and 1980s, officials said, opening the way for Tokyo to lift some travel sanctions.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A white powder was found in a parliament building housing the offices of New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark on Wednesday, prompting a partial evacuation.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Wednesday he was still committed to power-sharing negotiations after three days of talks with President Robert Mugabe broke off without a deal.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected an Israeli peace proposal because it does not provide for a contiguous Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, Abbas's office said on Tuesday.