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LONDON (Reuters) - A British woman who called herself the "lyrical terrorist" and wrote a poem about beheading a hostage, won an appeal against a criminal conviction in London on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill will visit Japan and China this week for talks with officials from their governments and South Korea on curtailing North Korea's nuclear weapons plans, the State Department said on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate was expected to vote as soon as Tuesday on a housing market rescue bill to refinance distressed mortgages and create a new regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, sources close to Senate talks said.

KIEV (Reuters) - NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Tuesday he would try to persuade all NATO members to back the idea of extending to Ukraine a Membership Action Plan (MAP), a step to joining the military alliance.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Egyptian-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will begin on Thursday, a Palestinian official said, after Israeli air strikes killed six militants in the Gaza Strip.

MALABO (Reuters) - Equatorial Guinea's state prosecutor asked a court on Tuesday to sentence British mercenary Simon Mann to nearly 32 years in prison for his role in a failed 2004 coup.

MILAN (Reuters) - Lawyers for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi sought on Tuesday the removal of a judge trying him and British lawyer David Mills for graft, after Berlusconi accused the court of political bias.

GAZA (Reuters) - Envoys from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction visited the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to brief members there on his bid for reconciliation with the territory's Islamist Hamas rulers, officials said.

HARARE (Reuters) - A United Nations envoy met Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday to discuss the political crisis and the violence marring campaigning for this month's presidential election run-off.

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed on Tuesday to create a smaller, more mobile and better equipped army able to respond to modern day threats ranging from terrorism to computer attacks.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain called on Tuesday for energy conservation and an end to a ban on U.S. oil and natural gas exploration to help curb the nation's "dangerous" dependence on foreign oil.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Hundreds of families fled their homes in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday as foreign and Afghan forces prepare to drive out Taliban insurgents who have overrun several villages, officials and witnesses said.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Tuesday uranium enrichment was its "red line" and would continue, despite an enhanced offer of incentives from big powers to stop activity the West fears could yield nuclear bombs.

KASHGAR, China (Reuters) - China locked down the far-western former Silk Road city of Kashgar on Tuesday in preparation for the passage of the Olympic torch relay through the sensitive region populated by ethnic-minority Muslim Uighurs.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - After the king, it is now the turn of his cows to face removal from Nepal's royal palace, two days after it was turned into a museum, a government official said on Tuesday.

ANKARA (Reuters) - The Turkish military said on Tuesday it had opened fire on 21 Kurdish PKK fighters trying to enter Turkey from northern Iraq.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican candidate John McCain would pursue a strong U.S. dollar policy as president and would be prepared to consider the "strong medicine" of intervention if circumstances demanded, his top economic adviser Carly Fiorina told Reuters on Monday.

DETROIT (Reuters) - Former Vice President Al Gore pledged on Monday to do all he could to help Barack Obama win the White House, saying it was crucial the United States has not only a new leader but a new vision for its future.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama said he would consider trimming corporate tax rates as part of a simplification of the tax code if he is elected to the White House, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

KOHAT, Pakistan (Reuters) - Suspected pro-Taliban militants shot and killed four Shi'ite Muslims in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday in what appeared to be the second deadly sectarian attack in two days.