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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress approved a massive housing market rescue bill on Saturday, offering emergency financing to mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and setting up a $300-billion fund to help hundreds of thousands of troubled homeowners.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia announced plans on Sunday to revive its once-mighty navy by building several aircraft carriers and upgrading its fleet of nuclear submarines in the coming years.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The Constitutional Court begins deliberating on Monday on whether the ruling AK Party has engaged in Islamist activities and should be closed, a case that has plunged Turkey into political and economic uncertainty.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A typhoon in the Pacific Ocean with wind gusts of 173 kph was on course to hit Taiwan late on Sunday, prompting local governments, including Taipei, to cancel work and classes on Monday and close markets.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Hamas and Fatah carried out tit-for-tat arrests on Sunday after deadly Gaza bomb attacks fuelled tension between the Palestinian factions.

NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) - India's major cities were put on high alert on Sunday, with fears of more attacks after at least 40 people were killed in two days of bombings that hit a communally-sensitive western city and a southern IT hub

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Qantas was ordered on Sunday to check all oxygen bottles on its fleet of Boeing 747s after investigators said an exploding oxygen bottle might have ripped a hole in a Qantas 747, forcing it to make an emergency landing at Manila.

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - NATO killed dozens of Taliban insurgents in an air strike on Sunday in Afghanistan's southeastern province of Khost, the provincial governor said.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran executed 29 convicted drug smugglers and other criminals in Tehran's Evin prison at dawn on Sunday, state media reported, following an expanded crackdown on crime in the Islamic Republic.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a vote of confidence to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, saying he had made some good decisions in difficult circumstances.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Liu Yang is among tens of thousands of migrant workers who scour Beijing bins for sellable scraps. But he won't be recycling any trash in August as Beijing's garbage pickers are being pushed out of town.

Wafa Amr, a Jordanian, has been working for Reuters in Jerusalem since 1994 with a focus on the Palestinian Territories. She lived in Gaza intermittently between 1994 and 2000 and the last time she was there was in mid-2005. The following story recounts her first visit since before Hamas took over the enclave.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said in an interview published on Saturday the size of a residual U.S. force left in Iraq after the withdrawal of combat troops would be "entirely conditions-based."

LONDON (Reuters) - Bosnia is closer to breaking up than at any time since its 1992-95 war and the European Union must do more to prevent its division, former international peace overseer Paddy Ashdown said.

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama, wrapping up an overseas tour where he got a rock star reception, defended his decision to take the trip despite mixed signals about its impact on his popularity at home.

APIA, Samoa (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Fiji in a meeting of Pacific foreign ministers in Samoa on Saturday to ensure the country's military rulers held elections as promised in March 2009.

LAGOS (Reuters) - Gunmen in Nigeria released eight foreign oil workers seized from a vessel off the Niger Delta on Saturday but eight other people abducted in separate incidents were still being held, security officials said.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) claimed an expected victory in Sunday's general election, giving another five years in power to ex-Khmer Rouge guerrilla Hun Sen, prime minister for the last 23 years.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An al Qaeda-linked group has claimed responsibility for an attack on a police station that killed two people and injured 18 others in Yemen's Hadramout province.

LAGOS (Reuters) - Gunmen in Nigeria released eight foreign oil workers seized from a vessel off the Niger Delta on Saturday but eight other people abducted in separate incidents were still being held, security officials said.