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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran tested more missiles in the Gulf on Thursday, state media said, and the United States reminded Tehran that it was ready to defend its allies.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has foiled plans by five "terrorism" groups to target the Beijing Olympics, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday, citing a public security official.

ABUJA (Reuters) - The main militant group in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta said on Thursday it was abandoning a ceasefire, in protest at a British offer to help tackle lawlessness in the region.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan pledged on Thursday to boost ties with Iraq and urged the region to do more to help the Baghdad government rebuild after years of war.

TASHKENT (Reuters) - A series of explosions at a Soviet-era arms depot in southern Uzbekistan killed at least three people and smashed windows in buildings several miles away, official media and witnesses said on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday the United Nations war crimes tribunal in the Hague was biased and its activities should be phased out as soon as possible.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Nuclear negotiators began hammering out procedures to check North Korea's account of its nuclear programs on Thursday, with envoys describing the talks as helpful but far from conclusive.

TBILISI (Reuters) - Russia should help resolve tension over Georgia's rebel regions instead of contributing to it, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday, and she urged an end to violence there.

TBILISI (Reuters) - Russia should help resolve tension over Georgia's rebel regions instead of contributing to it, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday, and she urged an end to violence there.

TBILISI (Reuters) - The United States will defend its allies against Iranian aggression, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday, a day after Iran test fired nine missiles it said could hit Israeli and U.S. bases.

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas arrested seven Palestinians who fired rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday, a militant faction said, in the first such detentions since the Islamist group and Israel agreed a truce last month.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's new parliament convened on Thursday after a six-week delay, with an embattled president hoping to push through his pro-business reforms and an emboldened opposition planning a fight over a key U.S. beef deal.

William Kemble-Diaz is a senior real estate correspondent and editor of www.reutersrealestate.com, who has worked for Reuters as a financial journalist since 2001. His mother emigrated to London in 1961 to work, like other Spanish migrants at the time, in Britain's hotel trade, where she met his father. She now lives in Valencia. In the following story, William tells how his father's remains in a Spanish cemetery were removed without the family's knowledge.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Wednesday Iran's missile tests proved a need for direct U.S. talks with Tehran while Republican John McCain emphasized sanctions and an anti-missile shield.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict arrives in Sydney on Sunday as the headline "rock star" act in the Catholic Church's World Youth Day -- its version of Woodstock, five days of peace, love and Christianity.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson complained on Tuesday that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama can seem to be "talking down to black people" at times and should broaden his message.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush won final congressional approval on Wednesday of a bill granting liability protection to telecommunication companies that took part in the warrantless domestic spying program he began after the September 11 attacks.

TUZLA, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkey is jockeying to be Europe's biggest shipbuilder, but a spate of deaths shows the need for sector reform and the cost of spectacular growth on the fringe of the European Union.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A small, influential Islamist party in Indonesia is alarming moderates who fear this secular but predominantly Muslim country may head for wider use of sharia law and become less tolerant of other religions and cultures.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - The only man convicted in connection with the 1985 Air India bombings was granted bail on Wednesday as he awaits trial for allegedly lying to a Canadian court that he knew nothing about the plot.