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GHAZNI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The Taliban in Afghanistan are getting weaker, the U.S. ambassador tells local councilors in the eastern city of Ghazni, but he is met by a wall of shaking heads and tutting noises; 'no, no', some reply.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday vowed to aid small farmers by targeting agricultural tariffs and subsidies doled out to agribusiness.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A wave of xenophobic attacks spread through South African townships on Monday and mobs beat foreigners and set some ablaze in scenes reminiscent of apartheid era violence.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi rejected calls to step down after his predecessor quit Malaysia's main ruling party on Monday, a move that could undermine its hold on power.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a key Democrat critic of President George Bush's war policy in Iraq, landed in Baghdad on Saturday for talks with U.S. and Iraqi officials, the U.S. embassy said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new book on the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon accuses then-White House counsel John Dean of ordering the infamous Watergate break-in in 1972, a charge Dean strongly rejected.

YANGON (Reuters) - Southeast Asian nations will take the lead in an international aid effort for cyclone-hit Myanmar, but the military junta will not give Western relief workers unfettered access to disaster areas, Singapore said on Monday.

PENDLETON, Oregon (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama said on Sunday he would pursue a vigorous antitrust policy if he becomes U.S. president and singled out the media industry as one area where government regulators would need to be watchful as consolidation increases.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush has signed into law a stopgap measure keeping Agriculture Department programs running for a week, the White House said on Sunday, allowing lawmakers time to sort out a $289 billion farm bill.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian authorities on Sunday rejected charges from Venezuela that their troops had crossed the frontier in the latest incident to test fraying relations between the Andean neighbors.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top adviser overseeing finances for Republican Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign has quit over his ties with lobbying, a McCain campaign official confirmed on Sunday.

MANILA (Reuters) - Several Philippine men sprayed houses in a farming village outside Manila with bursts of automatic weapon fire, killing nine people, most of them sleeping children, police said on Monday.

CHENGDU, China (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of panicked residents rushed into the streets of Chengdu in southwest China early on Tuesday, alarmed by a television report that predicted another powerful earthquake would hit the region.

DOHA (Reuters) - Qatari-led Arab mediators stepped up efforts to salvage talks aimed at ending Lebanon's crisis on Monday after negotiations between the U.S.-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition suffered a setback.

BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy remained in hospital in Boston on Sunday as doctors tried to determine what caused the patriarch of America's most prominent political dynasty to suffer a seizure on Saturday.

MAYSVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton had a warning on Monday for rival Barack Obama, who is on the verge of claiming the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination: Not so fast.

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) - When 19-year-old Fatima returned to her home in northern Afghanistan after years as a refugee in Iran, she struggled desperately to earn a living.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has urged Muslims to break the Israeli-led blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and fight Arab governments that deal with the Jewish state, according to an audio recording.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - The new head of the African Union said on Sunday he was optimistic tensions between Chad and Sudan would ease, after holding talks in both countries.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a key Democrat critic of President George Bush's war policy in Iraq, landed in Baghdad on Saturday for talks with U.S. and Iraqi officials, the U.S. embassy said.