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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The outcome of negotiations on a Gaza ceasefire between Hamas Islamists and Israel will be known "in the near term", an Israeli official involved in the talks said on Saturday.

KURIHARA, Japan (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake rocked rural northern Japan on Saturday, killing at least five people, injuring more than 200 and sparking landslides that sliced mountains, destroyed roads and left residents cut off.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan told China on Saturday it remained concerned about its ballooning defense expenditure, an official said, as the two countries sought to build military and other ties following a historic visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao last month.

HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe vowed on Saturday that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would never rule Zimbabwe and that he was prepared to fight to keep them from taking power.

PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush said on Saturday he expected to reach a long-term security pact with Iraq despite Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki saying talks were deadlocked because of sovereignty concerns.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police said on Saturday they had charged 20 people with exchanging child pornography online and arrested 14 others in a nationwide operation.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congolese police killed prisoners and looted homes in an excessively violent crackdown on a shadowy separatist sect this year in which at least 100 people died, U.N. investigators said in a report.

ZARAGOZA, Spain (Reuters) - Expo 2008, themed on the world's dwindling water resources, opened in the Spanish city of Zaragoza on Saturday, days after the riverside site narrowly escaped flooding.

PARIS (Reuters) - President George W. Bush heads for Britain on Sunday on the final stop of a European farewell tour, having won support on the continent for a ratcheting up of pressure on Iran over its nuclear program.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's earthquake-hit Sichuan province will reopen some tourist services to the public from June 15, in a bid to revive its tourism industry, official media said on Saturday.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Twenty-seven miners were killed and another seven remained trapped after an explosion in a Chinese coal mine, state media said on Saturday.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran again ruled out suspending sensitive nuclear work on Saturday, despite an offer by six world powers of trade and other benefits to try to coax it into stopping activities the West fears are aimed at making bombs.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration's top trade negotiator hosted her South Korean counterpart on Friday in a meeting that aimed to ease the uproar in South Korea over a recent deal to resume American beef shipments.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif stepped up his attack on President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday, suggesting he could be hanged while addressing thousands of protesters outside the presidency.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A Colombian FARC rebel has offered to release French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt and other guerrilla captives in exchange for protection from extradition, President Alvaro Uribe said on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House and congressional negotiators have reached a tentative agreement on an anti-terror spy bill that would permit court dismissal of potentially billions of dollars in lawsuits against phone companies, sources familiar with the talks said on Friday.

PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will showcase their countries' reconciliation on Saturday as they move past tension over the Iraq war towards diplomatic cooperation on issues such as Iran.

PEMBERTON, New Jersey (Reuters) - John McCain on Friday lambasted the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to grant greater rights to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, aligning himself with George W. Bush at a time when the unpopular president is seen as a political liability to his would-be Republican successor.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A Colombian FARC rebel has offered to release French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt and other guerrilla captives in exchange for protection from extradition, President Alvaro Uribe said on Friday.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union states support upgrading relations with Israel but some want the move to be linked to progress on Middle East peace, EU diplomats said before talks with Israel on Monday.