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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, looking to bolster his expertise in foreign policy, will travel to Europe and the Middle East to consult on issues like terrorism and nuclear proliferation, his campaign said on Saturday.

LANDIKOTAL, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces launched an offensive against Taliban fighters near the northwestern city of Peshawar on Saturday, prompting a militant commander to suspend peace talks and threaten retaliation.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali gunmen released two United Nations workers from Sweden and Denmark hours after kidnapping them in the Bakool region of southern Somalia on Saturday, U.N. officials said.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian man was put on trial on Saturday in Tehran on charges of spying for Israel, media reported.

SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Police raiding a suspected al Qaeda hide-out found a secret prison and the bodies of seven Iraqis bearing gunshot wounds and torture marks, Iraqi police said on Saturday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese woman was sentenced to eleven years in jail for operating brothels in Kabul, the China Daily and Chinese language media reported on Saturday.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility on Saturday for a suicide attack in Anbar province earlier this week.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - The Revolutionary Guards said Iran would impose controls on shipping in the vital Gulf oil route if Iran was attacked and warned regional states of reprisals if they took part, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - A bomb killed a man and wounded 27 other people at an apartment block in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli on Saturday, medical and security sources said.

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea did not answer U.S. suspicions of enriching uranium and proliferating technology when it released an inventory of its nuclear plans this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Saturday.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The Singapore government has charged two Indonesians for putting their kidneys up for sale in the city-state, in what local media say is the first prosecution against organ trade in the country.

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (Reuters) - Guatemala's interior minister died when a helicopter crashed on Friday in bad weather north of the Guatemalan capital, officials said.

MANILA (Reuters) - The search for hundreds of bodies feared trapped on a capsized passenger in the central Philippines has been postponed until next week while officials try to remove 10 tonnes of toxic pesticide from the vessel.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is heading for a landslide victory in a one-candidate election boycotted by the opposition and is expected to be sworn in on Sunday, government sources said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain courted Hispanic support on Saturday, and Obama accused his White House rival of backing away from comprehensive U.S. immigration reform under pressure from his party.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed into law a bill that critics say could allow for the teaching of "creationism" alongside evolution in public schools.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As celebrities threw an early 90th birthday party for Nelson Mandela in London's Hyde Park on Friday, U.S. lawmakers erased references to the former South African leader as a terrorist from national databases.

PARIS (Reuters) - A breakaway traditionalist group has told the Vatican it cannot comply with a papal ultimatum on returning to the Roman Catholic Church because it skirts key issues of their dispute, a spokesman said on Friday.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a Palestinian teenager during a raid into the occupied West Bank on Friday, local residents and medical workers said.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadians should wear sealskin to celebrate the country's birthday on July 1, an Inuit leader said on Friday, in defiance of a European movement to ban the import of Canadian seal products.