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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council plans to push hard for lasting peace in Sudan and Somalia during a 10-day trip to five African countries starting next week, diplomats said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's foreign minister deepened the uncertainty over Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's ability to survive a corruption scandal by saying on Thursday their party had to prepare for a possible early election.

SELFOSS, Iceland (Reuters) - A strong earthquake rocked Iceland on Thursday, damaging roads and buildings in one town and sending frightened residents running into the streets.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO's commander in Afghanistan urged the government on Thursday to step up its fight against the opium trade, which is increasingly fuelling the insurgency.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Iran said on Thursday it was keen to play a major role in the reconstruction of Iraq, and lambasted the United States and its allies for "mistaken policies" in its neighbor.

LONDON (Reuters) - An agreement banning cluster bombs has cheered human rights campaigners, but powerful military states are refusing to join it and experts say the treaty is riddled with holes that make it unworkable.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Fifteen years after police took away her husband, Zeinab Ahmed says she has lost hope he will return to help raise their daughter, born while he was in jail.

SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonians vote on Sunday in a parliamentary election marred by campaign violence and held against a backdrop of uncertainty over progress towards European Union and NATO membership.

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss voters will decide on Sunday whether to back a controversial proposal that would give individual communities the authority to award Swiss passports.

TRSTJE, Bosnia (Reuters) - A Bosnian Croat man shot and killed six of his relatives in a village near the northern Bosnian town of Tuzla on Thursday, gunning down three in their homes and three aboard a bus, police said.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepali authorities raised the national flag at the palace of dethroned King Gyanendra on Thursday, hours after stone-throwing demonstrators clashed with police and tried to storm inside.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Iraq pressed its creditors to cancel about $60 billion in debts at an international conference on Thursday, but two of its biggest creditors, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, sent only junior representatives to hear the call.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Eamonn Murphy hopes his prayers will help secure a "No" vote when predominantly Catholic Ireland votes on the European Union's reform treaty next month.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters from an ethnic Indian group burned tires and blocked roads leading to New Delhi on Thursday, bringing a battle for college and government job quotas in which dozens have died closer to the capital.

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's junta lashed out at offers of foreign aid on Thursday, criticizing donors' demands for access to the Irrawaddy delta and saying Cyclone Nargis' 2.4 million victims could "stand by themselves".

MANILA (Reuters) - A bomb believed to have been set off by a mobile phone exploded outside an air base in the troubled southern Philippines on Thursday, killing two people and wounding 18 others, police and the military said.

PORONG, Indonesia (Reuters) - Two years after a mud volcano started erupting on Indonesia's Java island, thousands of people who lost their homes are still living in squalid makeshift shelters with no signs the flow of sludge is about to stop soon.

DUJIANGYAN, China (Reuters) - A local official in Sichuan province withdrew from the prestigious Olympics torch relay as "atonement" for construction problems at collapsed schools, even as rescuers battled rain, lakes and chemicals in the aftermath of the devastating May 12 earthquake.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Rumors are a way of life when it comes to North Korea, one of the world's most secretive states, but a rare one on Thursday about the assassination of its leader led to market jitters in Japan.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's main Sunni Arab political bloc said on Wednesday it had suspended talks to rejoin the Shi'ite-led government after a disagreement with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki over a cabinet post.