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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a vote of confidence to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, saying he had made some good decisions in difficult circumstances.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Liu Yang is among tens of thousands of migrant workers who scour Beijing bins for sellable scraps. But he won't be recycling any trash in August as Beijing's garbage pickers are being pushed out of town.

Wafa Amr, a Jordanian, has been working for Reuters in Jerusalem since 1994 with a focus on the Palestinian Territories. She lived in Gaza intermittently between 1994 and 2000 and the last time she was there was in mid-2005. The following story recounts her first visit since before Hamas took over the enclave.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said in an interview published on Saturday the size of a residual U.S. force left in Iraq after the withdrawal of combat troops would be "entirely conditions-based."

LONDON (Reuters) - Bosnia is closer to breaking up than at any time since its 1992-95 war and the European Union must do more to prevent its division, former international peace overseer Paddy Ashdown said.

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama, wrapping up an overseas tour where he got a rock star reception, defended his decision to take the trip despite mixed signals about its impact on his popularity at home.

APIA, Samoa (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Fiji in a meeting of Pacific foreign ministers in Samoa on Saturday to ensure the country's military rulers held elections as promised in March 2009.

LAGOS (Reuters) - Gunmen in Nigeria released eight foreign oil workers seized from a vessel off the Niger Delta on Saturday but eight other people abducted in separate incidents were still being held, security officials said.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) claimed an expected victory in Sunday's general election, giving another five years in power to ex-Khmer Rouge guerrilla Hun Sen, prime minister for the last 23 years.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An al Qaeda-linked group has claimed responsibility for an attack on a police station that killed two people and injured 18 others in Yemen's Hadramout province.

LAGOS (Reuters) - Gunmen in Nigeria released eight foreign oil workers seized from a vessel off the Niger Delta on Saturday but eight other people abducted in separate incidents were still being held, security officials said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a rare Saturday session, the U.S. Senate voted against moving forward with legislation that would boost funding for a federal program that helps low- income families pay their cooling and heating bills.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani put the military's main spy agency under the control of the Interior Ministry on Saturday, a move seen as asserting civilian authority over the intelligence network.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's right-wing government on Saturday defended its decision to declare a nationwide state of emergency to deal with an influx of illegal immigrants after sharp criticism of the move.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan troops continued their offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels in two days of fighting in the north that killed 66 Tigers and eight soldiers, the military said on Saturday.

TBILISI (Reuters) - The United States wants Georgia and officials from its breakaway region Abkhazia to sit down for face to face talks without preconditions to try to resolve tensions in the Black Sea region, a U.S. envoy said on Saturday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Barack Obama on Saturday defended his decision to cancel a visit with U.S. troops at a military hospital in Germany because of concerns it would be viewed as a political event.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Saturday that U.S. President George W. Bush had insulted veterans of World War Two by equating the evils of Soviet communism with Nazi fascism.

LAGOS (Reuters) - Gunmen kidnapped eight foreign oil workers from a vessel off Nigeria's Niger Delta early on Saturday, bringing to 16 the number of industry workers seized in the past 48 hours, security sources said.

HAVANA (Reuters) - President Raul Castro will mark the 55th anniversary of the start of the Cuban revolution on Saturday with a speech to a nation waiting to hear how far and how fast he plans to go in reforming the island's struggling state-run economy.