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THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Charles Taylor's deputy testified in the war crimes trial of the former Liberian president on Wednesday, describing how a Sierra Leonean rebel leader answered to his boss.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday said security guarantees for Iran were not being considered at the moment in nuclear talks.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed 20 people and wounded dozens more when he blew himself up at a funeral west of Baghdad on Wednesday, Iraqi police said.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Wednesday condemned the resumption of judicial executions in the United States and said abolishing capital punishment was fundamental to protecting human dignity and furthering human rights.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has named his team of close advisers, with key posts going mostly to officials who performed similar roles for previous Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Palestinian militant groups will meet in Egypt next week to consider Israel's response to a Hamas ceasefire offer in the Gaza Strip, Egyptian and Palestinian officials said on Wednesday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's government cancelled measures on Wednesday that angered the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement and triggered the worst internal conflict since the country's 1975-90 civil war.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Clashes between security forces and Shi'ite gunmen killed six people and wounded 28 in Baghdad overnight, Iraqi police said on Wednesday.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will return to his country and start a campaign for a run-off presidential vote against President Robert Mugabe on Sunday, the MDC said on Wednesday.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Israel was "dying" and that people in the Middle East would destroy it if given the chance.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - House Democrats are proposing a surtax on high-income earners as a way to fund an expansion of education benefits for veterans, the Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday.

VIENNA (Reuters) - A Viennese man axed to death five family members, including his daughter aged 7, then turned himself in saying he had financial problems, Austrian police said on Wednesday.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan on Wednesday urged the international community to list the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) as a terrorist group, after its lightning weekend assault on the capital.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's capital has recorded its first death from an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease as authorities try to contain the spread of a potent virus just three months before the city hosts the Olympic Games.

GAZA (Reuters) - The Israeli army killed a Hamas militant and a Palestinian civilian on Wednesday in separate incidents in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, medical workers said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Tuesday followed the Senate in rejecting the Bush administration's policy of adding oil to the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve while fuel prices are high.

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Mississippi Democrat Travis Childers won a U.S. House of Representatives seat in a special election on Tuesday that analysts said should serve as a warning to Republicans gearing up for November's congressional elections.

JAIPUR, India (Reuters) - Authorities imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew in parts of India's historic western city of Jaipur on Wednesday, a day after eight bombs ripped through bustling streets, killing 61 people and injuring 216.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has agreed to cooperate fully on verifying its nuclear declaration, a U.S. official said on Tuesday as he displayed some of the 18,822 documents Pyongyang has given Washington about its plutonium program.

MADRID (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded at a police barracks in northern Spain's Basque Country early on Wednesday, killing one person and wounding four, police said.